An effective abstract comprises one or two paragraphs (or another length specified in the journal’s
Instructions for Contributors) from which the reader can learn the fundamental points of the paper without
needing to refer to any additional links or text. A good abstract will contain many if not all of the keywords
associated with the paper, and aim to communicate your research in more readily accessible language. For
this reason, ideally, you should write your abstract so that it is comprehensible to as wide an audience as
possible. You can do this by limiting the amount of technical language that you use and explaining any such
language that you do employ. Do not hide the most exciting elements of your paper, get right to them.
It is important to note that though abstracts developed as a summarization tool, they now play a vital role in
the effective cataloguing of research in many online databases, such as Google, PubMed, Academic Search
Premier, Thomson Reuters Web of Science, EBSCO Host, and countless others. These databases, accessible
to scholars all over the world who may not have access to the journal your paper is published in, allow your
work to be more easily discovered, read, used and cited by scholars who might not otherwise come into
contact with your work.
Individual journals may offer specific guidance on writing abstracts and is worth consulting the journal’s
Instructions for Contributors.