Conclusion

Results

Main outcome measure

Subjects

Setting

Design

Objective

Tips

Structured abstracts

How to write an abstract for the research article

UNIT 11

An abstract is a type of summary in your own words, of an article, chapter or a book. The goal of the abstract is to give sufficient information to a reader to decide if it is worth to read the whole article or not. It is “an art” to give as much information as possible in a few words. The abstracts are possible to find in special collections of abstracts, such as Medline, or in conference programmes, as well as at the beginning of a research article. Many journals demand authors who want to publish their articles in the journal to write a structured abstract - an abstract which is divided into specific sections. There could be informative or descriptive abstracts.

The informative abstract is the most common type of abstract. It summarizes the whole article and includes the core themes and the purpose of the paper, main facts of the results and in the conclusion.

The descriptive abstract is more specific, it emphasizes on identifying the purpose of the paper, describes the main fields which the author is going to cover in his report. It is often met in the review or survey of literature in a particular area.

The author should remember whatever type of abstract he is going to write, it is very important to think about the first impression of it.

Try to follow the following advices, your abstract should include:

- the importance of the topic, what problem it covers

-hypothesis being examined

- methods and approaches used

- key findings (particularly appropriate to a scientific paper).

- conclusions or discussions stem from the findings.

-a short abstract, not longer than one page

-do not include tables, figures, or references in an abstract.

- check with your professor or mentor

The BMJ abstract

The British Medical Journal structured abstract has the following sections:

Look at an example:

Age retirement and long term survival of an industrial population: Prospective cohort study   OBJECTIVE To estimate whetherearly retirement is connected withbetter survival. DESIGN Long term prospective cohort study. SETTING Petroleum and petrochemical industry, United States. SUBJECTS Past employees of Shell Oil who retired at ages 55, 60, and 65 between 1 January 1973 and 31 December 2003. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Risk ratio of death adjusted forsex, year of entry to study, and socioeconomic status.   RESULTS Subjects who retired early at 55 and who were still alive at 65 had a significantly higher mortality than those who retired at 65 (hazard ratio 1.37, 95% confidence interval 1.09 to 1.73). Mortality was also significantly higher for subjects in the first 10 years after retirement at 55 compared with those who continued working (1.89, 1.58 to 2.27). After adjustment, mortality was similar between those who retired at 60 and those who retired at 65 (1.06, 0.92 to 1.22). Mortality did not differ for the first five years after retirement at 60 compared with continuing work at 60 (1.04, 0.82 to 1.31).   CONCLUSIONS Retiring early at 55 or 60 was not associated with better survival than retiring at 65 in a cohort of past employees of the petrochemical industry. Mortality was higher in employees who retired at 55 than in those who continued working.    

(fi/WJ2005;331: 995 Amended with permission from the BMJ Publishing Group)

Note: Slightly different headings are used in some journals. For example, The New England Journal of Medicine divides articles into Background, Methods, Results and Conclusions. You must first consult the Guide to Contributors for the precise requirements of the journal.

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