Writing an Effective Abstract for Journal Submission

Writing an Effective Abstract for Journal Submission

With the exception of your covering letter, the abstract of your paper are the first things encountered by the editor considering your submission (and the very first things if you are not able to submit any sort of covering letter). While preparing your article for submission, think of the paper itself as dinner and its title and abstract (as well as any keywords you provide) as appetisers. You want the editor, the reviewers who will hopefully follow and your future readers if the paper is published to be tantalised by your appetisers – to enjoy the texture and flavour of these delicacies while building a hearty appetite and on that basis to expect good things from the dinner (paper) to follow. You do not want them to feel glutted by too much nourishment that is too richly seasoned or repulsed by a dull product of so low a quality that they leave the table before dinner arrives.?

The Abstract An academic or scientific abstract should briefly and comprehensively summarise the contents of the paper it precedes. It should not contain information that is not present in the article and it should report, not evaluate, what can be found in the paper. Like the title, the abstract needs to be precise, concise and as engaging as possible, but it also needs to be densely packed with detailed information. Word limits for abstracts set by journals usually range between 100 and 400 words, with 150–250 being the most common length, and those limits should be strictly observed despite how much must be accomplished in that short space. A carefully prepared abstract will situate your research in both its physical and its intellectual context; it will inform the reader about the problem(s) or concept(s) you investigate, any participants in your study and the essential features of the methodology used; and it will report the basic findings, implications and conclusions of your study. The journal guidelines may indicate that the abstract should form a single paragraph or be divided into shorter paragraphs, each with its own heading (such as ‘Background’, ‘Methodology’ and ‘Results’) and may also require different kinds of abstracts for different kinds of papers (empirical studies, literature reviews, etc.): whatever the requirements are, they should be followed precisely because any deviation will be immediately visible.?

Occasionally, a journal’s guidelines will specify the exact content of the abstract or even of each part of the abstract, but in most cases the balance of information will be determined by the author, and even in a completely structured abstract you will need to decide which concepts, methods and results to include and highlight. This decision should be based not only on what you think is most important about your research, but also on what you think the journal editor will find most appropriate and engaging for his or her readers. Remember that an effective abstract can inspire a journal editor to read on to the paper itself, and when published it can similarly promote potential readers to engage with the paper itself and ultimately cite it in their own research. It is therefore crucial that your abstract be well written in grammatically correct, properly punctuated and complete English sentences. Every sentence should bear the maximum amount of information and meaning possible, with minimal use of minor words, and each main word should be chosen with great care, primarily for its denotations, of course, but also for its potential connotations: it should be precise and informative, and if it manages to nuance matters in a way that seems appropriate to the journal’s interests, that is all to the good. Your first sentence in particular is vital in gaining both the interest and the confidence of your reader, especially that journal editor, so it needs to be polished to perfection in both content and style.?

A good academic or scientific abstract is not easy to produce, and abstracts are notorious for requiring repeated editing as an article is written, submitted, revised and published. The experienced proofreaders at PRS can help you polish your abstract and all aspects of your paper, so please do not hesitate to send your work our way.

Why Is Academic Proofreading Services Important?

Effective academic proofreading is absolutely vital to the production of high-quality scholarly and professional documents. When done carefully, correctly and thoroughly, academic proofreading can make the difference between writing that communicates successfully with its intended readers and writing that does not. No author creates a perfect text without reviewing, reflecting on and revising what he or she has written, and academic proofreading and scientific editing are extremely important of this process.

Why are scientific editing and academic proofreading important for academic and scientific authors??First and foremost, a proofreader brings a fresh and ideally objective perspective to your writing. He or she will almost certainly not be as familiar with your research as you are and in most cases will have no predetermined idea about what you are trying to communicate. This means that a proofreader will be able to focus on exactly what your text does say and catch ambiguities and errors that you, as the author well aware of what you want to say, may read right over without noticing. If the proofreader is a trained professional who is an expert in the English language and a specialist in your subject area, he or she will have the skills to correct and polish your grammar, spelling and punctuation, determine if your references are accurate, thorough and consistent, and ensure that your writing meets the high standards expected in your discipline and field. An academic proofreader will also have the disposition and time to give your writing the exacting attention it requires to ensure that every detail is as it should be so that your work communicates with precision and sophistication. Many members of our research paper editing and proofreading team focus on journal editing, manuscript editing, dissertation proofreading services, thesis editing services and phd thesis proofreading. An academic proofreader can be thought of as an author’s ambassador, and while an author can and should be his or her own ambassador whenever possible, it is always wise to benefit from an ambassador with the appropriate linguistic and academic skills to ensure that your writing represents both you and your work as professionally and effectively as possible. Some of our carefully trained editors and proofreaders work exclusively on PhD thesis editing, master’s dissertation proofreading, bachelor’s dissertation proofreading, thesis editing, dissertation editing, thesis proofreading and dissertation proofreading, applying their education and instructional skills in providing thesis editing and dissertation proofreading services that help advanced students to improve the formatting and language of their theses and dissertations.

Why is journal article editing important for the readers you hope to reach? The most obvious answer is that a journal proofreader is a reader, often the first reader beyond the author of a text, and a reader who acts as an advocate for all future readers. Professional journal proofreaders serve the needs of authors by anticipating the needs of readers, and doing so with an objective but critical eye alert to potential problems. Descriptions of methodology and explanations of trends that seem perfectly clear to the author who is familiar with the material may in fact prove ambiguous, confusing and even misleading for readers who do not possess the same knowledge. Tables and figures that are not clearly designed, labelled and referred to may obscure procedures and findings for viewers instead of highlighting and clarifying them. Arguments presented in language that contains errors of grammar, spelling and punctuation may fail to convince readers even when the evidence presented is extremely persuasive, and terminology designed for communicating in sophisticated and specific ways may lose readers entirely if it is not defined, explained and used with care. An academic proofreader, scientific proofreader, medical proofreader or journal proofreader can detect and help you resolve these and many other kinds of problems that prevent the successful communication of complex and ground-breaking research.

Why is proofreading services important when submitting your scholarly writing for publication? As a general rule, the editors responsible for accepting or rejecting the manuscripts that academics and scientists submit for publication are inundated with text. They receive far more submissions than the journals and publishers for whom they work can ever publish, so they are looking for reasons to reject manuscripts as much as they are seeking reasons to accept them. A manuscript that accurately and precisely adheres to a publisher’s guidelines, boasts a structure that organises material in a logical and effective fashion, and uses language that clearly and efficiently communicates facts and ideas is sure to receive more positive attention and far more likely to be successfully published than a manuscript that does not achieve such a high standard. Since these are the very aspects of scholarly writing that a professional proofreader can help you perfect, engaging the services of a qualified academic or scientific proofreader can prove invaluable, particularly if your manuscript has been rejected due to problems with language and formatting. Once you have benefitted from the proofreading services of a professional proofreader, you will no doubt be able to determine for yourself why PRS proofreading is so very important to successful authors.

Our?scientific editing,?medical editing,?bioscience editing,?life science editing,?environmental science editing,?pharmaceutical science editing,?physical science editing,?agricultural science editing,?LaTeX paper editing,?social science editing,?political science editing,?engineering paper editing,?psychology editing,?research paper editing,?manuscript editing,?humanities editing,?journal article editing,?biomedical science editing,?planetary science editing,?plant science editing,?material science editing,?veterinary science editing,?behavioural science editing?and?neurosurgery editing services?for authors of scientific papers and reports are especially popular, but we also excel at?book editing?and have the experience and expertise to?proofread?and?edit books?and papers of all kinds across every scholarly discipline.?

If you are in the process of preparing an article for an academic or scientific journal, or planning one for the near future, you may well be interested in a new book, Guide to Journal Publication, which is available on our Tips and Advice on Publishing Research in Journals website.

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