Writing an abstract and title

An abstract is usually written after a research paper is finished although it is the first section of the paper. Abstracts are the only part of the article indexed in many electronic databases, and the only portion many readers could read. They should be well written and provide as much information as possible within the limited space. For the editors, an abstract is their focus of attention, because they might be influenced by it in their decision to reject it immediately or arrange for peer review. For the researchers who have worked on the same or related problems, they could sometimes simply “cut and paste” the abstract into their articles and cite its main ideas correctly and properly without reading the whole article.?

Although the requirements for its length and format vary from discipline to discipline, a typical abstract should provide 1) the background for the study including the study’s purpose, 2) methodology, 3) main findings including principal conclusions

Background (B)

• Situating the research (optional)
• Setting the background knowledge (optional)
• Indicating the problem to be addressed (optional)?

Purpose (P)

• Announcing the purpose or the principal activity and its scope?

Method?(M)

• Stating the materials/subjects
• Describing the procedure (optional)
• Justifying the method (optional)?

Results (R)

• Reporting the main findings?

?Conclusion (C)

• Providing the conclusion
• Indicating the improvement and the significance or implications (optional)
• Pointing out the application or further research (optional)?

Some abstracts are a little longer, and others have very limited words. Abstracts in medical journals differ from other scientific journals by using “structured” abstracts with subheadings like Aims, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. Therefore, be sure to study the abstract — length, form, and style — of the journal to which you want to submit an article. It is, therefore suggested that novice writers need to prepare their abstracts in the format specified by the journal they have chosen.?

Whatever the formats are, an abstract is to give the reader a “preview” of what is to come. The elements of a typical abstract vary from discipline to discipline. Because of limited space and the fixed target audience, however, many abstracts begin with the purposes without any background information. Therefore most abstracts only contain PMR(or C).?

Basically, an abstract, a single paragraph or several paragraphs, contains about 4 to 10 full sentences (about 150-250 words), each of them fulfilling its respective function mentioned above. Usually there are more sentences to describe the methodology. More often, the purposes and part of the methodology of the study will be expressed in a single sentence.?

Fixed expression used in the Abstract?

1. ?Introduce the problem
2. Tell chief results or findings
3. State the objective or purpose
4. Describe the methods?
5. State the principal process
6. Draw conclusion (include implication and recommendations)?

Standard lines?

Introducing the problem

... is a problem encountered in ...?

... is still an open problem.?

?(sb.) has raised the question of ...?

?... has been a popular topic for journal articles.?

?... are extremely active areas of research because ... ??

Purpose

This paper studies/presents/explores/investigates/exams/reviews/discusses/argues that ...?

This article is to evaluate ...

The aims of this study were twofold. First, ...

In this paper, it will be argued that ...

This paper is an empirical study of ...

This paper attempts to point out some main problems of ...

This study focuses on/emphasizes/addresses ...

This study empirically estimates the impact of ...

The aim/objective/purpose of this paper/investigation is to examine/present/study...

This study seeks to identify ...

Methods

... strategy was chosen in order to evaluate ...

Experiments were carried out to explore ...

We use a... model which ... to examine ...

Using a ... survey, we reexamine ...

A... approach is applied in order to demonstrate the main characteristics.

In this study we used ... to determine ...

A method is employed.

...measured through...

This paper illustrates this effect by...

On the basis of ..., consideration is given to...

The system is based on ...?

Results?

After examining..., the paper suggests...?

The different methods are described and their application to... is outlined with reference?

We argue that...?

We show that ...

We present data demonstrating that ...?

We first consider ..., and argue that ...?

We then propose ...

In particular, ... are examined/discussed.?

Some implications are drawn regarding ...?

... is outlined with reference to?

?Focus is also given to ... ,

In addition, we address the possibility that ...?

We also briefly summarize the main developments of ...?

We calculate an index of ...

Results revealed significant gains in ...?

The empirical results confirm ...?

Results include that ...?

The result/analysis indicates/shows/suggests that ...?

The experiments/examples suggest/support/demonstrate ... e It is shown experimentally ...?

There was no significant difference in ...?

We find that ...?

Conclusion?

We conclude/suggest that ...?

This paper ends with the suggestion that ...?

We recommend that ...?

It is recommended that ...?

As such it has important implications not only for

Further improvements are possible by ...,?

... may have been an important mechanism in

... may provide basis for ..,

... could be used to analyze ...

Keywords?

Unlike research articles in the humanities, many scientific articles do not use keywords, However, sometimes keywords may be supplied in accordance with the requirements of a target journal. The advantage of keywords could allow readers to judge whether or not an article contains information they want and provide them with the terms they could locate other similar topics in web-based databases.?

To help your papers be retrieved among thousands of your disciplinary papers and potentially improving citation counts and journal impact factors, you might supply as many keywords as possible within the requirement if keywords are required. You may?

• avoid terms that are too general and common (e.g. growth),?
• avoid prepositions (e.g. use data quality rather than quality of data)
• avoid acronyms (e.g. EAP) which might puzzle beginners.?

Keywords might include:?

• topic: e.g., 2019-nCov, machine translation, gene editing.?
• method or approach: e.g., case study, experiment, cognitive perspective.?
• data source: e.g., tertiary students, subject teachers, rat pups.?
• location: e.g., country, institution and school.
• The number of keywords may be 5 to 10.??

Like an abstract, the title of a research article tends to be written last although it comes first so that the?author could summarize the main idea precisely and concisely in a title. An effective title of an article should enable the editors and readers to figure out the essence of the basic idea(s) and the main contribution(s), even without reading the paper. It should be self-explanatory to readers in the chosen area. A good title leads to more hits in Google Scholar searches and imprecise titles may lose the chance of being accepted or cited. A proper title may?

• indicate the topic/area/field of the study;?
• state the problem to be addressed;?
• indicate the scope of the study, e.g., the location and data source;?
• contain two or three variables, the relationship of which contributes to the research question;?
• include the essence of the new ideas.?

Some titles directly state the findings of the study, or the answer to the research question, or the methodology used. To make the title more informative, but concise, words or phrases such as "a study of", "an analysis of", "a comparison of" might be left out.?

The length of a title in an academic journal varies from discipline to discipline e.g. between 10 to 16 words. To be informative is important. However, you may avoid cramming too much in a title. To make title informative and concise, noun groups are used although a sentence (especially in natural sciences) or a question is also used. It is recommended that most important words (e.g. the topic or the aim of the study) in the title should be fronted. This can be achieved by using a colon or a dash to separate the topic or problem from research methods or solution.??