The purpose of the Abstract has changed. No longer a document for library cataloguing, the Abstract is a tool for rapidly communicating important findings to interdisciplinary readers. It may be the only part of the paper that many readers will read.

Given its prominence, researchers need to make sure that every word is precise, that clutter is ruthlessly removed, that specialized terms are strictly limited and that the structure is logical.

Consider the Structured Abstract: The beauty of the Structured Abstract is that it tells “the story” of your research in a logical fashion that readers can follow easily. This format also helps the writer keep discrete elements of the abstract in their proper places – no more mixing Introduction and Methods, Results and Discussion- or Results in the Discussion. (Such a hodgepodge is confusing to reader and writer alike!)

The Structured Abstract has 4 parts: the Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion.

The Introduction, usually written in the present tense and about 2-3 sentences long, provides the context for the work by identifying the specific field/category of the research and explains where the question comes from. An effective Introduction includes a hypothesis, states the question to be answered, or the purpose of the study.

Methods, usually written in the past tense and about 3-4 sentences long, explain what procedures you followed to test the hypothesis or answer the question. This section should include only the principle techniques that you used that establish the reliability of the study.

Results, usually written in the past tense and about 2-4 sentences long, identify the answers that you found. The Results should reflect the Methods and appear in the same order as the Methods.

The Discussion, usually written in the present tense and about 2-3 sentences long, points out the most significant finding and explains the connection between the important finding and why it matters to the particular field of research.

Since the Abstract can serve as a blueprint for the full manuscript, I recommend that you write it first. This approach can also be a time saver because writing the Abstract forces you to articulate your hypothesis and nail down your important finding – rather than wandering around a sea of data as you formulate your ideas. And if you write the Abstract first then you won’t submit a hastily written text that fails to capture the significance of your work.

Since the Abstract has become the basic unit of communication for manuscripts and scientific meetings, it deserves to be written and edited scrupulously.