The purpose of your abstract is to provide a brief yet thorough overview of your paper. It should function much like your title page—it should allow the person reading it to quickly determine what your paper is all about.
Your abstract is the first thing that most people will read, and it is usually what informs their decision to read the rest of your paper. The abstract is the single most important paragraph in your entire paper, according to the APA Publication Manual. A good abstract lets the reader know that your paper is worth reading. According to the official guidelines of the American Psychological Association, an abstract should be brief, but packed with information.
Each sentence must be written with maximum impact in mind. To keep your abstract short, focus on including just four or five of the essential points, concepts, or findings. An abstract must also be objective and accurate.
The abstract's purpose is to report rather than provide commentary. It should accurately reflect what your paper is about. Only include information that is also included in the body of your paper. First, write your whole paper. While the abstract will be at the beginning of your paper, it should be the last section that you write. Once you have completed the final draft of your psychology paper , use it as a guide for writing your abstract. The format of your abstract also depends on the type of paper you are writing.
For example, an abstract summarizing an experimental paper will differ from that of a meta-analysis or case study. It serves two main purposes:. Abstracts are often indexed along with keywords on academic databases, so they make your work more easily findable.
An APA abstract is around — words long. In an APA Style paper , the abstract is placed on a separate page after the title page page 2. Avoid citing sources in your abstract. There are two reasons for this:. There are some circumstances where you might need to mention other sources in an abstract: for example, if your research responds directly to another study or focuses on the work of a single theorist.
APA Style doesn't specifically forbid you from doing this, but it's usually best to avoid it for the most part. Your abstract should be more concise than the rest of your paper, so the sentences, while they can certainly be similar to those used in the text, are usually best modified to make the abstract as direct as possible. That said, there are occasions where the phrasing was already very concise in the main text and reusing the same phrasing is appropriate.
Just try to do so only when necessary. When i want to use a structured abstract, am I allowed to start a new line with each aspect aim, method, results, conclusion , or do I continue in the same line? APA recommends writing the whole abstract as a single paragraph, just using the labels Aim, Method, etc. They do not recommend starting a new line for each aspect. I would like to know if I need to write an abstract in strict order?
For example, first goes on purpose and objectives, etc. My abstract is a bit like storytelling and I am a bit confused, should I do it more academic?
The order of information may vary depending on your field and the type of research. But in general, a storytelling style isn't really appropriate for an abstract; you should aim to be as concise and direct as possible. Skip to content Writing Commons The encyclopedia for writers, researchers, and knowledge workers. Main Menu. How Can We Help You?
Placement The abstract acts as the second major section of the document and typically begins on the second page of the paper.
General Format How should the abstract page be formatted? How should the list of keywords be formatted? To do this, indent as you would if you were starting a new paragraph, type Keywords: italicized , and then list your keywords.
Listing your keywords will help researchers find your work in databases. The page template for the new OWL site does not include contributors' names or the page's last edited date. However, select pages still include this information.
Purdue Online Writing Lab. Title of resource. General Writing FAQs. Contributors' names. Last edited date. Site Name. Title Page Note: APA 7 provides slightly different directions for formatting the title pages of professional papers e. A student paper should not include an author note. Title page for a professional paper in APA 7 style.
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