Tips on what NOT to do
when writing an Abstract
Here are a few comments from judges about past Forum abstracts,
giving some ideas of what
not
to do:
-
no details given as to what methods were used to get their results
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too jargon-heavy; use analogy or common comparison to make more understandable
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need to define abbreviations
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wordy; should use concise wording and not digress from question/methods/results
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need to emphasize facts and what actually took place during the research; also, need to remove any speculative statements not founded in data
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gave good background to show relevance, but much of abstract was background, i.e., not discussing their own work.
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too much background info - more detail needed on actual study
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grammatically, abstracts should be written in past impersonal voice (i.e., "it was found", not "we found")
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this document does not appear to be abstracted content, but merely a list of what will be included in the presentation
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can't tell what was actually done as part of this study (i.e., what was already done, and what the student/researcher did). Use clear language such as "this study examined such and such by doing such and such"
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results unclear - more detail is needed
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results unknown -- it was just stated that they will discuss the results during the presentation
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needed more written to explain and define study--purpose, relevance. With such heavy jargon, need to describe model, rationale, and design more clearly