Structure for an Effective Abstract

There are many good references for scientific writing, including guidelines and advice for writing an abstract. Below is my brief version. An effective abstract should include a statement or sentence for each numbered part below. In some cases (e.g., statement of results), more than one sentence may be needed.

At the bottom is a model abstract using this structure.

1 State the general topic of subject of your research.

2 State why that topic is important or why more knowledge about it is needed.

3 State the main goal, question, or hypothesis(es) of your research. It should be a subset of (1).

4 State how you addressed (3) in practice -- including study design, sampling strategy, variables measured, and/or methods used.

5 State how you analyzed your data.

6 Summarize your results.

7 State implications of your results for (1), (2), or whatever management, conservation, policy, etc decisions your work bears upon.

How to Write a Good Abstract

This is a model for an effective scientific abstract. Good abstracts are important because most people read them first and many do not read further. An abstract should summarize the entirety of your work, so readers can understand what you did without reading more. An abstract should state your topic, importance, goal or question, methodology, results, and interpretation, in that order. This abstract models these essential components in 84 words. If you adapt this model to your project, you should have an effective abstract.

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