The abstract is the first section of your paper, representing a short summary of your work. (Sometimes, journals call abstracts "summary" instead.) It is most commonly structured as one paragraph and may be 6-7 sentences, 150-250 words long. (There are other ways it can be structured, which will be mentioned later.)
Your abstract is the gate for readers to your research, letting them quickly get the gist or essence of what you did. This is important for readers as they need to quickly decide whether to continue reading your paper or skip it; you'll actually be doing this yourself while doing literature or systematic reviews, which will be described later. In a study named, “Scrutiny or the Abstract,” by Kenneth K. Landes in 1951, it was highlighted that "The abstract is of utmost importance, for it is read by 10 to 500 times more people than hear or read the entire article.”
Your abstract should prepare your reader to follow the information, analyses, and arguments presented in your paper, while also helping them remember key points later. Note that an abstract is only meant to describe your paper, not evaluate or defend it.
(For word counts, this hugely depends on the journal you're submitting to, and although the "150-250" range already mentioned is correct, sometimes a journal would require you to have an abstract of only 100 words or less. Thus, the range may be 100-500 words.)
Just like with titles, search engines and databases also use abstracts, where those engines use key terms for indexing your paper. This means you need to include the most important keywords in your abstract.
A common mistake beginner researchers make is phrasing their abstract like a proposal for what they intend to accomplish, yet your abstract should instead read like an overview of your paper. You should avoid phrasing your sentence beginnings like "this essay will" and using words like "examine/explore/investigate..." or "In this research paper I will attempt to prove..."
Here are two examples of abstracts, one bad and one good from George Mason University, which they took from Form and Style (10th ed.) by Carole Slade, The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers (5th ed.), and the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.).
Begun in 1988, the human genome project intends to map the 23 chromosomes that provide the blueprint for the human species. The project has both scientific and ethical goals. The scientific goals underscore the advantages of the genome project, including identifying and curing diseases and enabling people to select the traits of their offspring, among other opportunities. Ethically, however, the project raises serious questions about the morality of genetic engineering. To handle both the medical opportunities and ethical dilemmas posed by the genome project, scientists need to develop a clear set of principles for genetic engineering and to continue educating the public about the genome project.
This paper will look at the human genome project and its goals. I will prove that scientists have ethical and moral questions about genetic engineering because of this project.
Which one do you think is good or bad? You can identify it yourself, given how obvious it is. Clearl,y the first is good, and the second is bad.
For the first one, you can clearly outline the research scope and identify the goals of the project. It fully explains the aim of the paper and key arguments. Further, the abstract is full of important keywords that would make it visible in search engines, e.g., "human genome project," "genetic engineering," "ethical dilemmas," and "scientific goals." You can also see how the language is direct without any vague terms. All of this means it can be read clearly, where readers would actually be prepared for the following parts of the paper.
The second abstract is, on the contrary, very vague and doesn't provide adequate information. The abstract doesn't avoid phrases like "this paper will look at," and uses first-person point of view writing style, i.e., saying "I will prove." As previously mentioned, abstracts shouldn't include intentions, yet describe work done. You can clearly see that major and essential elements like scope, methods and conclusions weren't included. Now given that the abstract doesn't include important keywords, search engines would find little value in it, and readers wouldn't give it much importance.
(No need to say that we for sure don’t expect you to do something like this. We are confident you already know how highly you and ARPL are regarded.)
You may have noticed that the previous abstract examples don’t include citations, which is correct. Abstracts don’t include citations, except in very rare cases.
For how you can structure your abstract effectively, it's essential to first know what abstracts usually contain. According to University of Wisconsin–Madison, the following are kinds of information abstracts typically include: