How to Write an Abstract

Abstract
Because on-line search databases typically contain only abstracts, it is vital to write a complete
but concise description of your work to entice potential readers into obtaining a copy of the full
paper. This article describes how to write a good computer architecture abstract for both
conference and journal papers. Writers should follow a checklist consisting of: motivation,
problem statement, approach, results, and conclusions. Following this checklist should increase
the chance of people taking the time to obtain and read your complete paper.

Introduction
Now that the use of on-line publication databases is prevalent, writing a really good abstract has
become even more important than it was a decade ago. Abstracts have always served the function
of "selling" your work. But now, instead of merely convincing the reader to keep reading the rest
of the attached paper, an abstract must convince the reader to leave the comfort of an office and
go hunt down a copy of the article from a library (or worse, obtain one after a long wait through
inter-library loan). In a business context, an "executive summary" is often the only piece of a
report read by the people who matter; and it should be similar in content if not tone to a journal
paper abstract.

Checklist: Parts of an Abstract

Despite the fact that an abstract is quite brief, it must do almost as much work as the multi-page
paper that follows it. In a computer architecture paper, this means that it should in most cases
include the following sections. Each section is typically a single sentence, although there is room
for creativity. In particular, the parts may be merged or spread among a set of sentences. Use the
following as a checklist for your next abstract:

Motivation:
Why do we care about the problem and the results? If the problem isn't obviously
"interesting" it might be better to put motivation first; but if your work is incremental
progress on a problem that is widely recognized as important, then it is probably better to
put the problem statement first to indicate which piece of the larger problem you are
breaking off to work on. This section should include the importance of your work, the
difficulty of the area, and the impact it might have if successful.
Problem
statement:
What problem are you trying to solve? What is the scope of your work (a generalized
approach, or for a specific situation)? Be careful not to use too much jargon. In some
cases it is appropriate to put the problem statement before the motivation, but usually this
only works if most readers already understand why the problem is important.
Approach:
How did you go about solving or making progress on the problem? Did you use
simulation, analytic models, prototype construction, or analysis of field data for an actual
product? What was the extent of your work (did you look at one application program or a

hundred programs in twenty different programming languages?) What important

variables did you control, ignore, or measure?
Results:
What's the answer? Specifically, most good computer architecture papers conclude that
something is so many percent faster, cheaper, smaller, or otherwise better than something
else. Put the result there, in numbers. Avoid vague, hand-waving results such as "very",
"small", or "significant." If you must be vague, you are only given license to do so when
you can talk about orders-of-magnitude improvement. There is a tension here in that you
should not provide numbers that can be easily misinterpreted, but on the other hand you
don't have room for all the caveats.
Conclusions:
What are the implications of your answer? Is it going to change the world (unlikely), be a
significant "win", be a nice hack, or simply serve as a road sign indicating that this path is
a waste of time (all of the previous results are useful). Are your results general,
potentially generalizable, or specific to a particular case?

Other Considerations
An abstract must be a fully self-contained, capsule description of the paper. It can't assume (or
attempt to provoke) the reader into flipping through looking for an explanation of what is meant
by some vague statement. It must make sense all by itself. Some points to consider include:

Meet the word count limitation. If your abstract runs too long, either it will be rejected or
someone will take a chainsaw to it to get it down to size. Your purposes will be better
served by doing the difficult task of cutting yourself, rather than leaving it to someone
else who might be more interested in meeting size restrictions than in representing your
efforts in the best possible manner. An abstract word limit of 150 to 200 words is
common.
Any major restrictions or limitations on the results should be stated, if only by using
"weasel-words" such as "might", "could", "may", and "seem".
Think of a half-dozen search phrases and keywords that people looking for your work
might use. Be sure that those exact phrases appear in your abstract, so that they will turn
up at the top of a search result listing.
Usually the context of a paper is set by the publication it appears in (for example, IEEE
Computer magazine's articles are generally about computer technology). But, if your
paper appears in a somewhat un-traditional venue, be sure to include in the problem
statement the domain or topic area that it is really applicable to.
Some publications request "keywords". These have two purposes. They are used to
facilitate keyword index searches, which are greatly reduced in importance now that online abstract text searching is commonly used. However, they are also used to assign
papers to review committees or editors, which can be extremely important to your fate.
So make sure that the keywords you pick make assigning your paper to a review category
obvious (for example, if there is a list of conference topics, use your chosen topic area as
one of the keyword tuples).

Conclusion

Writing an efficient abstract is hard work, but will repay you with increased impact on the world
by enticing people to read your publications. Make sure that all the components of a good
abstract are included in the next one you write.

HOW TO WRITE AN ABSTRACT:

Links and Tips

An abstract is a short summary of your completed research. If done well, it makes the reader
want to learn more about your research.
These are the basic components of an abstract in any discipline:
1) Motivation/problem statement: Why do we care about the problem? What practical,
scientific, theoretical or artistic gap is your research filling?
2) Methods/procedure/approach: What did you actually do to get your results? (e.g. analyzed 3
novels, completed a series of 5 oil paintings, interviewed 17 students)
3) Results/findings/product: As a result of completing the above procedure, what did you
learn/invent/create?
4) Conclusion/implications: What are the larger implications of your findings, especially for the
problem/gap identified in step 1?
However, it's important to note that the weight accorded to the different components can vary by
discipline. For models, try to find abstracts of research that is similar to your research.

SAMPLE ABSTRACTS:
History/social science:
"Their War": The Perspective of the South Vietnamese Military in Their Own Words
Author: Julie Pham (UCB participant in UC Day 2001)
Despite the vast research by Americans on the Vietnam War, little is known about the perspective
of South Vietnamese military, officially called the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (RVNAF).
The overall image that emerges from the literature is negative: lazy, corrupt, unpatriotic,
apathetic soldiers with poor fighting spirits. This study recovers some of the South Vietnamese
military perspective for an American audience through qualititative interviews with 40 RVNAF
veterans now living in San Jos, Sacramento, and Seattle, home to three of the top five largest
Vietnamese American communities in the nation. An analysis of these interviews yields the

veterans' own explanations that complicate and sometimes even challenge three widely held
assumptions about the South Vietnamese military: 1) the RVNAF was rife with corruption at the
top ranks, hurting the morale of the lower ranks; 2) racial relations between the South
Vietnamese military and the Americans were tense and hostile; and 3) the RVNAF was apathetic
in defending South Vietnam from communism. The stories add nuance to our understanding of
who the South Vietnamese were in the Vietnam War. This study is part of a growing body of
research on non-American perspectives of the war. In using a largely untapped source of
Vietnamese history &endash; oral histories with Vietnamese immigrants &endash; this project
will contribute to future research on similar topics.
Humanities:
Violence, Subalternity, and El Corrido Along the US/Mexican Border
Author: Roberto Hernandez (UCB participant in UC Day 2001)
The Geopolitical divide that separates the United States and Mexico has long plagued the region
with violence and conflict. However, its extent and political nature is often overshadowed and
undermined by mainstream information outlets. The boundary inspires polarized reactions: tough
on crime/immigration rhetoric from politicians and enforcement officials &endash; exemplified
in current border militarization &endash; and appeasement through feel-good news reporting.
Such contradictions desensitize and deny the essence and root cause of the conflict &endash; an
ongoing sociopolitical, cultural, and economic struggle between the two nations. While
information transmission in the north has a U.S. focus, south of the divide knowledge
distribution is very Mexico-centered. However, the border region acts as a third space t hat gives
birth to a distinct border gnosis, a unique form of knowledge construction among subaltern
communities on both its sides. One form of subalternity, corridos, (border folk ballads), has
functioned to create an alternative discourse to the borderlands imaginary. This study is an
examination of the analysis and critique found in corridos that seek a critical approach to the
violence at the nations' shared edges and its ensuing political implications. To illustrate their
subaltern function, I will examine two incidents: the 1984 McDonalds shooting in San Ysidro,
California, and the 1997 death of Ezequiel Hernndez in Redford, Texas. these cases are
indicative of the politically charged environment of a border region that in becoming an
increasingly militarized zone has also set the stage for a cultural battle amongst different forms
of knowledge construction and legitimation.
Biological Sciences:
"The Listeria monocytogenes p60 Protein is not Essential for Viability in vitro, but Promotes
Virulence in vivo"
Author: Sina Mohammedi, 2002 UC Day nominee and runner-up
Intracellular pathogens (agents which infect host cells), such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis and
Listeria monocytogenes, cause very high mortality rates in the United States. Therefore,
deciphering the mechanisms through which the pathogens cause disease is of great interest.
Listeria infection of mice is a well-developed model system for studying the fundamentals of
host-pathogen interactions. In vitro assays in animal cell cultures have helped show that Listeria
causes illness by secreting molecules, called virulence factors, to the outside of the bacterial cell

in order to affect the host organism. My work involves one such secreted protein, called p60. P60
is an antigen (an agent seen by the host immune system) implicated in regulated bacterial cell
wall breakdown. The objective of this study was to examine two questions: first, is p60 essential
to the viability of Listeria, as previously published? and second, is p60 a virulence factor in
Listeria? To examine these questions, I contructed a Listeria strain lacking p60 (p60-). This new
strain displayed no defect in viability. In fact, most standard in vitro pathogenicity assays were
normal for p60-. However, when p60- was tested in a mouse (in vivo), a 1000-fold reduction in
virulence was observed. This discovery suggests that p60 is indeed a key factor in the diseasecausing ability of Listeria, but not essential for viability. Future studies will focus on the precise
role of p60 in Listeria pathogenesis. This work increases our understanding of such diseases as
tuberculoses, various food poisonings, and meningitis.
Engineering:
"Quantifying the Mechanics of a Laryngoscopy"
Laryngoscopy is a medical procedure that provides a secure airway by passing a breathing tube
through the mouth and into the lungs of a patient. The ability to successfully perform
laryngoscopy is highly dependent on operator skill; experienced physicians have failure rates of
0.1% or less, while less experienced paramedics may have failure rates of 10-33%, which can
lead to death or brain injury. Accordingly, there is a need for improved training methods, and
virtual reality technology holds promise for this application. The immediate objective of this
research project is to measure the mechanics of laryngoscopy, so that an advanced training
mannequin can be developed. This summer an instrumented laryngoscope has been developed
which uses a 6-axis force/torque sensor and a magnetic position/orientation sensor to quantify
the interactions between the laryngoscope and the patient. Experienced physicians as well as
residents in training have used this device on an existing mannequin, and the force and motion
trajectories have been visualized in 3D. One objective is to use comparisons between expert and
novice users to identify the critical skill components necessary for patients, to identify the
mechanical properties of the human anatomy that effect laryngoscopy, and thus enable the
development of a realistic training simulator. In the future an advanced training mannequin will
be developed whose physical properties will be based on our sensor measurements, and where
virtual reality tools will be used to provide training feedback for novice users.
Abstract
This paper focuses on demonstrating the feasibility of applying expert system methodology as a
new approach for assisting the development of engineering degree curricula particularly in
developing countries. A number of subdomains in which a rule-based system can be applied have
been identified in the field of curriculum development. The subdomain developed and presented
in this paper concerns methods of identifying curriculum content, and the major subgoal of
developing a profile of 'staff experience' in this context is investigated in depth. Knowledge in
this subdomain has been encapsulated in an expert system which has been refined to the
satisfaction of a curriculum expert and tested by potential end-users of the system.

Writing an Abstract
Summaries, as you know, are common in all kinds of writing, usually appearing at the end of a
chapter or article, highlighting the major point of the piece and outlining the significant detail.
However, writers use many other forms of summary too. In business writing, for example,
reports often begin with a summary, called an executive summary, allowing the reader a chance
to see if the report (or some section of the report) is relevant to him/her before reading much of
it. In academic writing, essays, articles, and reviews often begin with a summary too, called an
abstract.

Abstracts

are very common in academic writing, and they have a fairly standard form. In
essence, abstracts inform the reader of six bits of information about the piece of writing being
summarized:
1. purpose
o What is the author's reason for writing?
o What is the author's main idea?
2. scope
o What is the author's focus in this piece?
o Where does the author concentrate his/her attention?
3. method
o What kinds of evidence does the author provide?
o How does the author try to convince the reader of the validity of his/her main
idea?
4. results
o What are the consequences of the problem or issue that the author is discussing?
5. recommendations
o What solutions does the author present to the reader to resolve the problem of
issue in the piece?
o Does the author recommend action or change in his/her piece?
6. conclusions
o Does the author describe a 'cause and effect' relationship or explain the origins of
this issue or problem?
o What conclusions does the author draw from his/her study of the issue or
problem?

Abstracts are not long only about a paragraph. (If each point above, for example, got its own
sentence, then the abstract would be six sentences long. Many writers find that they can combine
several of the sentences of the abstract when the ideas are closely related.) At the beginning of an
essay, abstracts allow you to introduce your subject to your readers before you go into your
analysis in detail.

I have a sample abstract that I wrote summarizing a Roger Simon column (Simon is a syndicated
newspaper columnist). In the example, I try to illustrate the thinking process I am going through
as I read and interpret Simon's piece to compose my abstract.