Abstract (summary)
An abstract is a brief summary of a research
article, thesis, review, conference proceeding or
any in-depth analysis of a particular subject or discipline, and is often used
to help the reader quickly ascertain the paper's purpose.[1] When
used, an abstract always appears at the beginning of a manuscript or
typescript, acting as the point-of-entry for any given academic paper or patent application.
Abstracting and indexing services
for various academic disciplines are
aimed at compiling a body of literature for that particular subject.
The terms précis or synopsis are used in some publications to refer
to the same thing that other publications might call an "abstract".
In management reports,
an executive summary usually contains more information (and
often more sensitive information) than the abstract does.
Purpose and
limitations
Academic
literature uses the abstract to succinctly communicate complex research. An
abstract may act as a stand-alone entity instead of a full paper. As such, an
abstract is used by many organizations as the basis for selecting research that
is proposed for presentation in the form of a poster, platform/oral
presentation or workshop presentation at an academic conference.
Most literature database search engines index only abstracts rather than
providing the entire text of the paper. Full texts of scientific papers must
often be purchased because of copyright and/or publisher fees and therefore the
abstract is a significant selling point for the reprint or electronic form of
the full text.
Abstracts are
protected under copyright law
just as any other form of written speech is protected. However, publishers of
scientific articles invariably make abstracts freely available, even when the
article itself is not. For example, articles in the biomedical literature are
available publicly from MEDLINE which
is accessible through PubMed.
The abstract can convey the main results and conclusions of a scientific
article but the full text article must be consulted for details of the
methodology, the full experimental results, and a critical discussion of the
interpretations and conclusions. Consulting the abstract alone is inadequate
for scholarship and may lead to inappropriate medical decisions.
An abstract
allows one to sift through copious amounts of papers for ones in which the
researcher can have more confidence that they will be relevant to his or her
research. Once papers are chosen based on the abstract, they must be read
carefully to be evaluated for relevance. It is generally agreed that one must
not base reference citations on the abstract alone, but the content of an
entire paper.
According to the
results of a study published in PLOS Medicine, the
"exaggerated and inappropriate coverage of research findings in the news
media" is ultimately related to inaccurately reporting or
over-interpreting research results in many abstract conclusions. A study
published in JAMA concluded that "inconsistencies
in data between abstract and body and reporting of data and other information
solely in the abstract are relatively common and that a simple educational
intervention directed to the author is ineffective in reducing that
frequency." Other
"studies comparing the accuracy of information reported in a journal
abstract with that reported in the text of the full publication have found
claims that are inconsistent with, or missing from, the body of the full
article."
Structure
An academic
abstract typically outlines four elements relevant to the completed work:
·
The
research focus (i.e. statement of the problem(s)/research issue(s) addressed);
·
The research methods used (experimental research, case
studies, questionnaires, etc.);
·
The
results/findings of the research; and
·
The
main conclusions and recommendations
It may also
contain brief references, although
some publications' standard style omits
references from the abstract, reserving them for the article body (which, by
definition, treats the same topics but in more depth).
Abstract length
varies by discipline and publisher requirements. Typical length ranges from 100
to 500 words, but very rarely more than a page and occasionally just a few
words. An abstract may or may not
have the section title of "abstract" explicitly listed as an
antecedent to content. Abstracts are typically sectioned logically as an
overview of what appears in the paper, with any of the following subheadings:
Background, Introduction, Objectives, Methods, Results, Conclusions. Abstracts
in which these subheadings are explicitly given are often called structured abstracts by publishers. In articles that follow
the IMRAD pattern (especially original research, but sometimes other article
types), structured abstract style is the norm. (The "A" of abstract
may be added to "IMRAD" yielding "AIMRAD".) Abstracts that
comprise one paragraph (no explicit subheadings) are often called unstructured abstracts by publishers. They are often appropriate
for review articles that
don't follow the IMRAD pattern within their bodies.
Example
Example taken
from the Journal
of Biology, Volume 3, Issue
2.
The
hydrodynamics of dolphin drafting
by Daniel Weihs,
Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology,
Haifa 32000, Israel.
Abstract:
Background Drafting in cetaceans is defined as the
transfer of forces between individuals without actual physical contact between
them. This behavior has long been surmised to explain how young dolphin calves
keep up with their rapidly moving mothers. It has recently been observed that a
significant number of calves become permanently separated from their mothers
during chases by tuna vessels. A study of the hydrodynamics of drafting,
initiated inmechanisms causing the separation of mothers and calves during
fishing-related activities, is reported here.
Results Quantitative results are shown for the forces
and moments around a pair of unequally sized dolphin-like slender bodies. These
include two major effects. First, the so-called Bernoulli suction, which stems
from the fact that the local pressure drops in areas of high speed, results in
an attractive force between mother and calf. Second is the displacement effect,
in which the motion of the mother causes the water in front to move forwards
and radially outwards, and water behind the body to move forwards to replace
the animal's mass. Thus, the calf can gain a 'free ride' in the forward-moving
areas. Utilizing these effects, the neonate can gain up to 90% of the thrust
needed to move alongside the mother at speeds of up to 2.4 m/s. A comparison
with observations of eastern spinner dolphins ( Stenella longirostris ) is presented, showing savings of up to
60% in the thrust that calves require if they are to keep up with their
mothers.
Conclusions A theoretical analysis, backed by
observations of free-swimming dolphin schools, indicates that hydrodynamic interactions
with mothers play an important role in enabling dolphin calves to keep up with
rapidly moving adult school members.
© 2004 Weihs ;
licensee Bio Med Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article: verbatim copying
and redistribution of this article are permitted in all media for any purpose,
provided this notice is preserved along with the article's original URL
