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2) Answer the following questions.

  1. What is an abstract?

  2. What is the purpose of the abstract?

  3. What are the kinds of abstracts?

  4. Where is the abstract placed within a paper?

  5. What is a common length of a short abstract (extended abstract)?

  6. What does an extended abstract include?

  7. What does writing an abstract involve?

  8. What are the ABCs of a good abstract?

Text 2: Types of abstracts

There are two types of abstracts: descriptive and informative. They have different aims, so as a consequence they have different components and styles.

Descriptive abstracts

If you are writing an abstract for a less-structured document like an essay, editorial, or book, you will write a descriptive abstract. Descriptive abstracts are generally used for humanities and social science papers. Most descriptive abstracts have certain key parts in common. They are:

  • Background

  • Purpose

  • Particular interest / focus of paper

  • Overview of contents (not always included)

Informative abstracts

If you are writing an abstract for a strictly-structured document like an experiment, investigation, or survey, you will write an informative abstract. Most informative abstracts also have key parts in common. Each of these parts might consist of 1-2 sentences. The parts include:

  • Background

  • Aim or purpose of research

  • Method used

  • Findings / results

  • Conclusion

The table below summarizes the main differences between the two types of abstracts discussed above. In both types of abstracts, your lecturer / tutor may require other specific information to be included. Always follow your lecturer / tutor’s instructions.

Descriptive abstract

Informative abstract

  • Describes the major points of the project to the reader.

  • Includes the background, purpose and focus of a paper or article, but never methods, results and conclusions, if it is a research paper.

  • Is most likely used for humanities and social science papers or essays.

  • Is usually very short – 150 words or less.

  • Informs the audience of all essential points of a paper.

  • Briefly summarizes the background, purpose, focus, methods, results, findings and conclusions of the full-length paper.

  • Is used for technical and scientific papers.

  • Is rarely more than 10% of the length of the entire work (250 and more words).

Here are examples of a descriptive and informative abstract of this report:

Descriptive abstract:

The two most common abstract types – descriptive and informative – are described and examples of each are provided.

Informative abstract:

Abstracts present the essential elements of a longer work in a short and powerful statement. The purpose of an abstract is to provide prospective readers the opportunity to judge the relevance of the longer work to their projects. Abstracts also include the key terms found in the longer work and the purpose and methods of the research. Authors abstract various longer works, including book proposals, dissertations, and online journal articles. There are two main types of abstracts: descriptive and informative. A descriptive abstract briefly describes the longer work, while an informative abstract presents all the main arguments and important results.

Notice how the abstract clearly summarizes information from each of the report’s major sections:

Introduction

Construction sites are major contributors to nonpoint source (NPS) pollution. However, a lack of personnel to enforce erosion control regulations and limited voluntary compliance means that few developers apply effective erosion control.

Research problem

New approaches are needed to increase erosion control on construction sites if this source of NPS pollution is to be significantly reduced.

Body

This study tests whether an economic advantage exists for developers who use vegetative cover for erosion control, independent of advantages gained in addressing environmental or regulatory concerns. Improving residential lot appearance from muddy brown to green grass may increase the appeal of the lot to buyers.

Results

A market survey shows that homebuyers and realtors perceive vegetated lots to be worth more than unvegetated lots, and this increased value exceeds the cost of seeding.

Conclusion

Thus, developers can now be encouraged to invest in vegetative cover because of the potentially high return on the investment.