The document serves as a comprehensive guide on writing abstracts, detailing their definition, purpose, key components, and types. It emphasizes that an abstract is a self-contained summary of a research work, providing essential information for potential readers and indexing. The document distinguishes between informative and descriptive abstracts, outlines tips on effective writing, and specifies what should and should not be included.

2. In The Name Of ALLAH
Who Is The Most Rehman
AndRaheem, The Creator
Of The WorldsAndThe
OnlyDeserveFor The
Worship…!!!

3. Dawood University of
Engineering and Technology
Karachi

4. How To Write An Abstract
PREPARED BY
YOUSUF RAHIL MIR
D-13-MME-08

5. Class Teacher
MR. RAFIQUE JUMANI
M.A. IN ENGLISH, L.L.B FROM LAW COLLEGE

6. Subject’s Name
TECHNICAL REPORT WRITING
AND
PRESENTATION SKILLS

7. Contents• WHO WRITES IT
• WHAT IS AN ABSTRACT
• FOR WHAT PURPOSES
• WHO READS IT
• DIFFERENT TYPES OF ABSTRACT
• WHAT TO INCLUDE
• WHAT NOT TO INCLUDE
• SOME EXAMPLES

9. What Is An Abstract
•An abstract is a brief summary of a research article, thesis,
review, conference proceeding or any in-depth analysis of
a particular subject and is often used to help the reader
quickly ascertain the paper's purpose.

10. (continued)
• The abstract is always self-contained, and is sometimes
presented as a separate page.
• An abstract is an original document, not a collection of quotations taken
from the text it summarizes, i.e. it must be able to stand alone.
• It does not contain vague statements which force the reader to refer to
the main text.
• The length of an abstract is of between 150 to 250 words

11. (continued)
• 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.
• 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.

13. Who Writes An Abstract
•Usually the author of the paper, because they have a
first hand knowledge their piece of research;
•sometimes professional writers, who abstract books
and articles for a wide audience.

15. Purpose of An Abstract
• The two most important are selection and indexing.
• Abstracts allow readers who may be interested in a longer work to quickly decide whether it is
worth their time to read it.
• Also, many online databases use abstracts to index larger works. Therefore, abstracts should
contain keywords and phrases that allow for easy searching.
• 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.
• To persuade the reader to see the full text
• To help readers decide if the article is relevant for their purposes
• To answer a call of paper in a conference
• To make it possible for your piece of research to appear in on-line publication databases
(indexing)

17. Who Reads It
•Same-field professionals (e.g. linguists, psychologists,
biologists) looking for further information;
•Teachers having to evaluate future specialists’ achievements;
•Students charting research in a given area.

19. Four Cs Of Abstract Writing
• Complete — it covers the major parts of the project.
• Concise — it contains no excess wordiness or unnecessary
information.
• Clear — it is readable, well organized, and not too jargon-laden.
• Cohesive — it flows smoothly between the parts.

21. Types Of Abstract
• Abstracts are genre-sensitive; components vary according to discipline
• An abstract of a social science or scientific work may contain the scope, purpose,
results, and contents of the work.
• An abstract of a humanities work may contain the thesis, background, and
conclusion of the larger work.
• An abstract is not a review, nor does it evaluate the work being abstracted.

22. Two Types of Abstracts
•Abstracts are usually divided into two main
categories:
(i)InformativeAbstracts
(ii) Descriptive Abstracts

24. Informative Abstracts
• An informative abstract includes the information that can be found in a
descriptive abstract (purpose, methods, scope) but also includes the
results and conclusions of the research and the recommendations of the
author.
• Informative abstracts are written after a project has been completed.
• The length varies according to discipline, but an informative abstract is
rarely more than 10% of the length of the entire work.

25. (continued)
• If you are writing an abstract for a strictly-structured document like an
experiment, investigation, or survey, you will write an informative
abstract.
• An informative abstract is made up of four parts:
• Purpose
• Methodology
• Results
• Conclusions

26. •Purpose
•The purpose section of an informative abstract
should state either the reason for or the primary
objectives of the experiment or investigation. The
purpose section of an informative abstract might also
contain the hypothesis of the experiment.

27. •Methodology
•The methodology section of an informative abstract
should describe the techniques used in conducting the
experiment. This section should give only as much detail
as is necessary to understand the experiment; the abstract
should not focus entirely on research methods unless that
is the primary focus of the original document.

28. •Result
•The results section of an informative abstract should
relate the observations and/or data collected during
the experiment. This section should be concise and
informative, and only the most important results
need be included.

29. • Conclusion
•The conclusion section of an informative abstract should
state the evaluation or analysis of the experiment results.
It should also briefly state the implications of these results.
This conclusion section might also state whether the
driving hypothesis of the experiment was correct.

30. Descriptive Abstracts
• A descriptive abstract indicates the type of information found in the work.
• It is an outline of the work, rather than a summary.
• Descriptive abstracts are usually very short—100 words or less.
• Descriptive abstracts are often written before a project is completed.
• It makes no judgments about the work, nor does it provide results or
conclusions of the research. It does incorporate key words found in the text
and may include the purpose, methods, and scope of the research.

32. What To Include
• Reason for writing:
What is the importance of the research? Why would a
reader be interested in the larger work?
• Problem:
What problem does this work attempt to solve? What is the
scope of the project? What is the main argument/thesis/claim?

33. (continued)
• Methodology:
An abstract of a scientific work may include specific models or
approaches used in the larger study. Other abstracts may describe the types of
evidence used in the research (e.g. qualitative interviews, book reviews, etc.)
• Results:
Again, an abstract of a scientific work may include specific data that
indicates the results of the project. Other abstracts may discuss the findings in a
more general way.

34. (continued)
• Implications:
What changes should be implemented as a result of the findings of the work? How does this
work add to the body of knowledge on the topic?
• To put it simple:
• What the author did.
• How the author did it.
• What the author found.
• What the author concluded.
• Short attention-catching titles are the most effective.
• Write an introductory sentence; this will be a statement of purpose for your article.

36. What Not To Include
• You should limit the length of the title to no more than 12 words;
• Information not contained in the original work;
• Emphasize the information, not the author;
• References to other work;
• Quotations from the original work or from other works;
• Lengthy explanations of words and concepts;
• Unexplained acronyms or abbreviations;
• Tables and maps;

37. Some Examples Of Abstracts
 A Sample Of Descriptive Abstracts
• Plasma arc welding process uses a highly constricted arc to produce a keyhole inside the weld pool, process efficiency
is much increased compared to the traditional gas tungsten arc welding process. Keyhole stability is one of the critical
factors to determine the process stability and the resultant weld quality. Deeper understanding of the keyhole, and
appropriate process control methods are required to improve the welding process stability. This survey paper
provides variants of the plasma arc welding process, recent advances in plasma arc keyhole process sensing,
controlling and numerical modeling. It shows that recent research works, especially the employment of camera-based
vision system to observe the keyhole behavior, deepen the understanding of the keyhole process, sound quality welds
have been made in mid-thick stainless steels (9.5–12.5 mm) by new designed control systems; more accurate
numerical models have established to explore the keyhole behavior evolution process.

38.  A Sample Of Informative Abstract
• Subjects’ car clocks were set ten minutes fast in order to determine if deliberately setting
a clock ahead will reduce lateness. One group of subjects knew their clocks had been set
ahead, while a second group of subjects was not informed of the change. Over a four-
week period, the subjects who were aware of the clock change regularly arrived on time or
late for their scheduled appointments. Over the same period of time, the subjects who
were unaware of the clock change tended to arrive early or on time for their
appointments. Data suggest that intentionally setting a clock to run fast does not reduce
lateness because one accounts for that extra time in his or her schedule.

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