How (Not) to Write an Abstract

As readers, reviewers, and editors of the Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management for many years, the authors have read plenty of abstracts. Although many have been skillfully crafted—leading to scrutiny of the full paper—it is continually surprising how many first drafts are poorly written and need significant revisions to make them acceptable. This paper offers authors some unsolicited advice.

An abstract is not background or introductory material; rather, it should be a summary of the paper. ASCE’s Publishing in ASCE Journals: A Guide for Authors defines an abstract by saying, “The abstract should be a single paragraph (150–175 words long) written in plain language and include a summary of the key conclusions of the manuscript. It should clearly state the purpose of the work, the scope of the effort, the procedures used to execute the work, and major findings” (ASCE 2014, p. 21). That sounds like a difficult task, and it is. It requires efficient writing.

An author should write an abstract under the assumption that it is all a reader will read. In a survey of medical internists, respondents reported reading only the abstract in 63% of the articles they perused because of the limited time available to read journals (Saint et al. 2000). Therefore, the abstract needs to focus on the most important points in the paper, not on background. A big mistake is writing the abstract immediately after writing the title and before writing the introduction. Instead, the author should write the full paper before the abstract. Then, several days later and starting with a clean sheet of paper (nowadays a blank computer screen), write the abstract without copying and pasting anything from the paper.

If this guidance is followed, the abstract should meet its intended purpose. Someone can read it, quickly understand the primary contribution of the work, and, most important, decide whether to acquire and read the full paper.

Happy writing.