authors: mary higgins, maeve eogan, keelin o rsquo donoghue, noirin russell publication date: 16 май 2013 researchers do not always appreciate the importance of producing a good abstract or understand the best way of writing one. mary higgins and colleagues share some of the lessons they have learnt as both researchers and reviewers of abstracts effective abstracts reflect the time, work, and importance of the scientific research performed in the course of a study. A last minute approach and poor writing may not reflect the good quality of a study. Between the four of us we have written over 150 published papers, as well as having reviewed numerous abstracts for national and international meetings. Nevertheless, we have all had abstracts rejected, and this experience has emphasised a number of teaching points that could help maximise the impact of abstracts and success on the world, or other, stage. An abstract is the first glimpse an audience has of a study, and it is the ticket to having research accepted for presentation to a wider audience. For a study to receive the respect it deserves, the abstract should be as well written as possible.

In practice, this means taking time to write the abstract, keeping it simple, reading the submission guidelines, checking the text, and showing the abstract to colleagues. Several months or years have been spent on this groundbreaking research, so take the time to show this. Five minutes before the call for abstracts closes is not the time to start putting it together. Some abstracts churn out lots of unrelated results and then have a conclusion that does not relate to the results, and this is just confusing. Read the submission guidelines and keep to the instructions provided in the call for abstracts. Don rsquo t submit an unstructured abstract if the guidance has asked for a structured one.

An abstract comprises five parts of equal importance: the title, introduction and aims, methods, results, and conclusion. The introduction should include a brief background to the research and describe its aims. For every aim presented there needs to be a corresponding result in the results section. There is no need to go into detail in terms of the background to the study, as those who are reviewing the abstract will have some knowledge of the subject. The methods section can be kept simple mdash it is acceptable to write ldquo retrospective case control study rdquo or ldquo randomised controlled trial. It is distracting and irritating to read results that have no apparent relation to the professed aims of the study. If something is important, highlight it or put it in italics to make it stand out.

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Include the number of participants, and ensure recognition is given if 10 thinsp 0 charts have been reviewed. In the conclusion, state succinctly what can be drawn from the results, but don rsquo t oversell this. Words like ldquo possibly rdquo and ldquo may rdquo can be useful in this part of the abstract but show that some thought has been put into what the results may mean. Many people are capable of doing research, but the logical formation of a hypothesis and the argument of its proof are what make a real researcher. Show the abstract to the supervisor or principal investigator of the study, as this person rsquo s name will go on the abstract as well.

Then show the abstract to someone who knows nothing about the particular area of research but who knows something about the subject. Someone detached from the study might point out the one thing that needs to be said but that has been forgotten. For one conference, we limited the number of case reports so that only about 10% were accepted. It may be that your research is in a popular or topical area and not all abstracts in that area can be chosen. On occasions, politics play a part, and individual researchers have little control over that. Finally, remember that sometimes even the best reviewer may not appreciate the subtleties of your research and another audience may be more appreciative.

Competing interests: we have read and understood the bmj group policy on declaration of interests and have no relevant interests to declare. To give you some sense of how to write a good abstract, and how to properly grade the abstracts that other students have written, here is some information reguarding apa style, my thoughts, and some additional links. apa guidelines in psychology, there is an association called the american psychological association apa and one of there jobs is to set the guidelines for scientific writing in the area of psychology. The abstract is a one paragraph, self contained summary of the most important elements of the paper. Abstract centered on the first line below the manuscript page header format. All numbers in the abstract except those beginning a sentence should be typed as digits rather than words. That is, since your abstract will not be presented in the context of a paper, you don't need to worry about page numbers and such.

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my thoughts an abstract is typically the first thing a reader encounters after the title and authorship listing when reading a paper, and it is meant to give the reader a general sense of what the paper is about. It is typically the very last thing the author of the paper writes, despite the fact that it is presented so early in the paper. That is, once an author has written a paper they then consider the paper, and try their best to summarize what they have argued, and how they have supported that argument, in a single paragraph. If they do this well, then the reader will have a good sense of what the paper is about, which lets them know whether they want to read on or not.

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The abstract should give the reader a sense of what the author was arguing, and how they went about supporting that argument. A well written abstract will clearly and concisely sum up the article, in a way that truly represents what the article is about. It is very hard for me to give you any specific rules beyond this as writing definately has a subjective nature to it. But you will know when an abstract is written well because the points made will be clear, with a written style that flows nicely from one point to the next this is where proper grammer comes in, and yes mistakes in grammer or spelling should result in lower marks.

In addition, given you all have also read the papers in question, a good abstract should represent what you view as the major flavour of that paper. A non repetitive and non painful to read manner, and it represents the paper in question well, then it is a very good abstract. For examples of abstracts i have written, here are a couple of my published papers complete with abstracts. Note that you may not want to print out these papers as they are a little long, and i am not assuming you know the arguments of my papers in any way, shape or form. a few more thoughts in an attempt to provide a relatively concise set of things to look for when writing and evaluating abstracts: all the critical points of the article should be mentioned these points should be organized in a manner that links them together in a meaningful and therefore, memorable way the topical i.e. First sentence should set the tone of what will be discussed in the abstract the remaining sentences should then flesh out the details suggested by the topical sentence space permitting, the final sentence should bring everything back together with respect to the main point proper grammatical structure, referencing apa style , and spelling should be used throughout.

internet links of course, there is also more great information and further examples available online. If you try slightly different terms, you will get slightly different lists of potentially interesting sites. Ok, so here are some interesting links: jcclark/classes/bio190/abstract.html i decided to change my search term because i was getting too many general scientific writing links which, or course, are useful. All i did was remove the +scientific term, and that lead me to these links: completing the captcha proves you are a human and gives you temporary access to the web property. If you are on a personal connection, like at home, you can run an anti virus scan on your device to make sure it is not infected with malware.

If you are at an office or shared network, you can ask the network administrator to run a scan across the network looking for misconfigured or infected devices. 178.150.66.157 bull performance amp security by cloudflare respect is an abstract social category, which reflects the evaluation of the feeling of dignity, superiority, greater perfection of that person, towards which this feeling is addressed. Respect is based on the recognition of the superior qualities of an object or individual towards which this evaluation is applied. The category of respect belongs to the categories existing in the pyramidal structures and it is connected with such categories as trust. Both trust and respect depend on the stronger and more important category of power. If one possesses serious power, the people of the lower level often respect the person on the higher position.

According to the psychological peculiarities of the human organism, the objectiveness of evaluation of the individual of the lower level depends on the importance of the position of the person of the higher level. People who occupy more important position receive much respect from the people of lower level, in spite of the qualities and traits of character they possess. Respect belongs to the philosophic and ethical categories which cause a great impact on the social life and human relations. One can speak about respect in the field of family relations, respect in the workplace, education, etc. The respect can touch upon strangers, unknown people, formal and informal conversations, attitude towards elderly people, etc.

Respect is one of the foundations of the human society, because without this feeling the constructive human relations are impossible. Respect is a positive topic for the research, because it provides student with the opportunity to learn about the issue more and observe the topic on respect from all possible sides and from the point of view of different disciplines. The student is able to dwell on the explanation of the problem relying on the ideas of philosophy, ethics, psychology, sociology, political sciences, etc. The student should explain the original of the term, evaluate the importance of respect for the existence of the human society and development of the human civilization.