Composing an Abstract

What Is an Abstract?

Image from UMass Amherst Library siteAn abstract is a short statement about your paper or presentation designed to give the reader a complete, yet concise, understanding of your research, including your purpose, method or approach, and findings.

How Does the Abstract Differ from an Annotated Bibliography or Literature Review?

An abstract summarizes one individual article, book, or other source, whereas both the literature review and annotated bibliography comprise numerous sources. An abstract generally appears before the main text, giving readers a chance to assess quickly its relevance. However, the abstract only informs readers of what they can expect to find in the full text; unlike most literature reviews and annotated bibliographies, it offers no evaluation.

Key Words

An important aspect of any abstract is the inclusion of "key words" or important terms that appear frequently in the full text. Key words help readers using library and other online search engines locate both the full text and its abstract.

More on Composing an Abstract

University of North Carolina Writing Center — A helpful website explaining abstracts, annotated bibliographies, and much more.

Commonwealth College Guidelines for Abstract Writing — UMass Amherst honors college's guidelines contain sample abstracts as well as instructions.

"The School in School Violence: Definitions and Facts" — This sample abstract is from a social science journal, the Journal of Emotional & Behavioral Disorders. Other models can easily be found by searching online library databases.

"The Discover of the Iceman" — Sara Tufts' literature review contains a sample student abstract.