Writing Abstracts

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Writing Abstracts

• The Brief Story
• A/Prof Jim Watters Faculty of Education
  j.watters_at_qut.edu.au
• A/Prof Terry Walsh Faculty of Science
  t.walsh_at_qut.edu.au

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Focus of Workshop

• This workshop is intended for anyone who is
• Planning to submit a paper to a conference,
• Submit a paper to a journal,
• Intending to write the introduction to their
  research proposal.

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Program

• 1.30pm 1.40pm Welcome Overview
• 1.40pm 2.10pm Quality abstracts
• 2.10pm 2.45pm Judging quality abstracts
• 2.45pm 3.00pm Afternoon tea break
• 3.00pm 4.00pm Group work Abstract writing
• 4.00pm 4.30pm Feedback and conclusion

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Outcomes for the day

• Understanding what an abstract is
• Awareness of different types of abstracts
• How to construct a quality abstract and title
• An opportunity to get help on improving your own
  abstract

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Types of Abstracts

• Submission or proposal for conference
• Tantalising prophetic 500-1000 words
• Summary of a paper
• Crisp clinical formal 200 words
• Summary of a proposal
• Stage 2, Confirmation, Research grant 200-300
• Thesis abstract
• Variable discipline specific 1000 words

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Types of Abstracts (2)

• Descriptive
• Shorter brief description of work
• No data
• Often characterise reviews of a body of work
• Informative
• Often longer
• Summarises key results
• Lists conclusions and impact

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Abstracts are important because

• Most conferences ask for abstracts first
• Oral presentations can be selected from them
• Workshops / symposia often ask for abstracts
• They are often all that is published from
  conferences, workshops and symposia
• They are the first thing people read in a paper
• They are used in collections of papers
• They are used in searchable databases

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All abstracts include

• The most important information
• Key words and phrases
• Used in abstracting services so people can find
  you
• Clear, concise, powerful language
• Simple logic that leads the reader
• A hook that catches the reader

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Conferences Call for papers

• Participants are invited to submit papers
  relating to innovative research. Papers, posters,
  panels and symposia are welcome. Paper
  presentations will be allocated 40 minutes,
  including question time (20 minutes presentation
  and 20 minutes discussion). Please distribute
  copies of your paper during your session. Plan to
  have at least 20 copies available.
• A copy of the abstract, single spaced and no
  longer than 150 words must be received by the
  Conference Committee by 30 June.
• The theme of the conference is Moving the field
  forward.

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Call for papers - online

• The abstract title will be automatically
  formatted as bold uppercase text for consistency.
  Please do not attempt to revise the title to
  lowercase or to italicise words in the title.
• Your abstract text must be less than 150 words
  long (including title and authors) and must be
  formatted as a single paragraph.
• If you type your abstract using a word processor
  and would like to "cut and paste", use only plain
  text (letters, numerals and spaces). Note that
  many word processors also use special characters
  for apostrophes and quotation marks ("smart
  quotes"). It is recommended to enter such
  characters directly in the abstract text box.
• Type your abstract text as a single paragraph.
  Dont include lists.
• http//www.asbmb.org.au/combio2006/abstracts.html

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Journal Article Abstracts

• Restrictions
• Length, formatting, sections, references
• Audience
• General, specialist, generalised specialist
• Can you explain in less than 20-30 words each
• The topic? (What title?)
• Point of the work (Why read it?)
• Result (Whats new here?) (Maybe three of these)
• The implications

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Journal Abstract/Summary

• Journal of Biological Chemistry
• should succinctly and clearly describe the major
  findings reported in the manuscript
• must not exceed 250 words nor contain
  abbreviations or specialised terms
• should be understandable in itself, since it is
  frequently used as an abstract
• American Psychological Association (APA)
• A good abstract is accurate, self-contained,
  non-evaluative, coherent, and readable.
• the author must summarise an entire document in a
  maximum of 120 words
• usually the last section written
• it may be the only part of the study actually
  read by many researchers

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Title

• Relevant titles provide insight into your subject
  and capture the attention of your ideal readers.
• A title is a lure. Its the bait of any article
• The title should be clever and effective but also
  creates a positive impression and stimulates
  reader interest
• The subtitle is the hook and line that will draw
  the reader into your document
• Dramatic Descriptive Emotion Intellect
• Is limited to 15 to 20 substantive words
• Does not need words like A study of

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Compare -

• Measuring instructional congruence in elementary
  science classrooms Pedagogical and
  methodological components of a theoretical
  framework.
• Tertiary education in the naughties The student
  perspective

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Task 1

• Prepare in about 15 minutes a titled draft
  abstract to meet the call for papers or your own
  goal.
• After completing the abstract check the word
  count and share with a neighbour.
• Each person should provide feedback
• Is it clear
• Is it compelling
• Would I attend this session or read this paper

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Approaches to a Quality Abstract

• What was the problem (see also Title)?
• What is the necessary background?
• What was done?
• What was learned?
• What is the impact?
• What is the next step?

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General Structure

• Introduce topic and hypothesis/assertions
• Establish significance
• Relate the approach to the study
• List the main outcomes
• Draw a conclusion
• Outline implications for the field

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Good Abstract/Bad Abstract

• Vague
• This article describes how to write an abstract.
  It relies on established rules of good
  composition. It also provides a number of helpful
  hints about writing abstracts. The article
  includes examples of both bad and good abstracts.
  
• Useful
• A useful abstract is a well constructed
  paragraph with an informative topic sentence
  followed by two or three supporting sentences.
  The supporting sentences contain specific
  information about the topic. The sentences are
  arranged in a logical order and the ideas are
  connected with good transition. Inspiration for
  the topic sentence should come from the
  recommendations, results, conclusions, tutorial,
  and summary sections of the document, rather than
  from the title or introduction.

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Review abstracts task

• You are presented with a selection abstracts.
• Spend about 2 minutes on each abstract and rate
  the abstract against the previous criteria.
• Problem
• Background
• What was done
• Findings
• Implications

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An Arts-y Abstract

• This dissertation examines the impacts of social
  movements through a multi-layered study of the
  Mississippi Civil Rights Movement from its peak
  in the early 1960s through the early 1980s. By
  examining this historically important case, I
  clarify the process by which movements transform
  social structures and the constraints' movements
  face when they try to do so. The time period
  studied in this dissertation includes the
  expansion of voting rights and gains in black
  political power, the desegregation of public
  schools and the emergence of white-flight
  academies, and the rise and fall of federal
  anti-poverty programs. I use two major research
  strategies (1) a quantitative analysis of
  county-level data and (2) three case studies.
  Data have been collected from archives,
  interviews, newspapers and published reports.
  This dissertation challenges the argument that
  movements are inconsequential. Indeed, some view
  federal agencies, courts, political parties, or
  economic elites as the agents driving
  institutional change. Typically these groups
  acted in response to movement demands and the
  leverage brought to bear by the civil rights
  movement. The Mississippi movement attempted to
  forge independent structures for sustaining
  challenges to local inequities and injustices. By
  propelling change in an array of local
  institutions, movement infrastructures had an
  enduring legacy in Mississippi.
• Kenneth Tait Andrews, "'Freedom is a constant
  struggle' The dynamics and consequences of the
  Mississippi Civil Rights Movement, 1960-1984"
  Ph.D. State Univ of New York at Stony Brook, 1997
  DAI-A 59/02, p. 620, Aug 1998

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A Science-y Abstract

• The problem of detecting gravitational radiation
  is receiving considerable attention with the
  construction of new detectors in the United
  States, Europe and Japan. The theoretical
  modelling of the wave forms that would be
  produced in particular systems will expedite the
  search and analysis of the detected signals. The
  characteristic formulation of GR is implemented
  to obtain an algorithm capable of evolving black
  holes in 3D asymptotically flat spacetimes. Using
  compactification techniques, future null infinity
  is included in the evolved region, which enables
  the unambiguous calculation of the radiation
  produced by some compact source. A module to
  calculate the waveforms is constructed and
  included in the evolution algorithm. This code is
  shown to be second-order convergent and to handle
  highly non-linear spacetimes. In particular, we
  have shown that the code can handle spacetimes
  whose radiation is equivalent to a galaxy
  converting its whole mass into gravitational
  radiation in one second. We further use the
  characteristic formulation to treat the region
  close to the singularity in black hole
  spacetimes. The code carefully excises a region
  surrounding the singularity and accurately
  evolves generic black hole spacetimes with
  apparently unlimited stability.
• Luis Lehner, "Gravitational radiation from black
  hole spacetimes" Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh,
  1998 DAI-B 59/06, p. 2797, Dec 1998

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Prepare an abstract

• You have 15 minutes approx to re-craft your
  abstract
• Share abstract with colleague and discuss any
  issues that are unclear
• You have 2 minutes to present the abstract and
  receive feedback.

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Checklist

• MotivationWhy do we care about the problem and
  the results?
• Problem statementWhat problem are you trying to
  solve?
• ApproachHow did you go about solving or making
  progress on the problem?
• ResultsWhat's the answer?
• .
• ConclusionsWhat are the implications of your
  answer?

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References

• The Writing Centre, University of North Carolina
  at Chapel Hill
• http//www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/abstracts
  .html
• ACP Online Writing a Research Abstract
• http//www.acponline.org/srf/abstracts/res_abs.ht
  m
• How to write abstracts http//www.ece.cmu.edu/koo
  pman/essays/abstract.html