Last updated: feb 08, 2016 views: 15705 some writing assignment instructions may indicate that an abstract is required, although a majority of writing assignments do not require one. The purpose of an abstract is to provide a reader with a short summary of a your written work or research paper. A well written abstract should be: an abstract begins on its own page and is placed immediately after the cover page and before the text of the paper. For more information about abstracts, consult the abstracts and appendices page of the apa guide. Describing the abstract as a summary is accurate, but is also an understatement. Generally, an abstract contains the thesis of research conducted, the methods through which the thesis was tested, the findings of the research, and any final thoughts. An abstract should be as succinct as possible, and readers should not have difficulty comprehending the purpose of the research.

Abstracts longer than 120 words may be truncated when included in databases, limiting searchability. A report of an empirical study should contain a statement of the problem, subjects, method, findings and conclusion. Reviews and theoretical articles require the topic, purpose, sources and conclusions. Methodological paper abstracts describe the method, features of the method, range of application of the method and behavior of the method.

Case study abstracts contain the subject of the case study and characteristics of the individual or organization presented, explanation of the problem exposed by the case study and its solution, if applicable, and questions raised for additional research. The word abstract is centered on the first line with no quotation marks or additional formatting, and the abstract follows on the next line. The abstract is formatted as a single block of plain text, double spaced and without indents.

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The abstract should not contain any information that is not written in the paper and should not be a critique or evaluation of the research, findings or methods. Every word counts in an abstract all numbers should be written as digits, unless they begin sentences. Abbreviations should be used whenever possible but should be defined on their first use. Past tense should be used to describe tests and variables present tense should be used to describe findings, conclusions and current applications. Without an abstract, researchers would need to parse entire documents to determine the contents. An effective abstract names authors, contains the definitions of any unique terms, as well as abbreviations that are not units of measurement, dates of publication in citations, and the definitions of any acronyms.

An abstract should be considered self sufficient outside the context of the paper. In text citations should include authors' names and year of publication and should be fully cited on the references list. The rules governing the apa style change regularly it is important to consult the latest edition of the apa style guide prior to writing a paper for publication or academic purposes. The following is a humble contribution to the literature on apa style abstracts that discusses a particular type: the structured abstract.

The structured abstract is a way of writing and formatting abstracts that is very, well, structured. Those detailing experiments , structured abstracts include headings that run into the text and identify the different elements of the article that are described in the abstract. According to the national library of medicine of the national institutes of health , these formats were developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s to assist health professionals in selecting clinically relevant and methodologically valid journal articles. They also guide authors in summarizing the content of their manuscripts precisely, facilitate the peer review process for manuscripts submitted for publication, and enhance computerized literature searching. 1 the headings do count toward your word limit, which is typically somewhere in the range of 150 to 250 words for apa journals other publications, databases, or projects may have different limits.

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However, headings add around four to six words to the total, depending on which headings you use, so the strain should not be great. Set in bold and italic type, each heading is followed by a colon and the first sentence of that subsection. The headings and their subsequent text immediately follow each other that is, your abstract is going to be a single paragraph, so please do not hit enter after each heading’s text. The usual headings for apa journals requiring them with some variations see the instructions to authors for each journal are objective, method, results, and conclusion s. The psychiatric rehabilitation journal author instructions provide an excellent example of abstract instructions with heading options to better fit different types of articles. When should you use structured abstracts? when someone asks you to or if the headings help you write your abstract. You can always remove the headings on request and still be left with a strong, comprehensive abstract.

objective: in this study, we investigated the psychological effects of radical gamma radiation caused mutation and transformation to determine whether the transformation affects personality and mood as well as physicality. method: the single participant filled out the minnesota multiphasic personality inventory 2 and other self report measures assessing his state of mind, stress acute stress disorder scale , and depression beck depression inventory. The participant was then asked to mediate an argument between 2 confederates, who had been told to not yield on any point of their entirely unreasonable positions. Once the participant had experienced a massive cellular shift triggered by adrenalin hulked out , he eventually filled out the various self report measures again. results: the participant’s results showed significant differences in both personality and mood. Among other results, the participant maxed out his pretransformation hypochondriasis scale score, whereas the score bottomed out posttransformation. Scores pre and posttransformation were similar on the paranoia scale, whereas hypomania and schizophrenia scale scores were low pretransformation and high posttransformation.