An abstract should be a specific summary of the paper or report. An abstract should be written in such a way that any reader who is not familiar with the topic will be able to understand and appreciate the main points of the study.

Content of an abstract

It should provide a brief summary of each of the main sections of the paper:

1. First, state principal scientific objectives of the experiment (introduction);
2. concisely describe the experimental methods and scope of what was done by briefly explaining what data was acquired, how it was acquired, and how it was analyzed;
3. mention key experimental conditions that were essential to the obtain results to meet your objectives;
4. summarize the major results(e.g. if your objective included measuring a value, state the value); and
5. rationalize the results with the principal conclusions by stating specific facts that were discovered.

Style of a standard abstract

Because the abstract is evaluated by both the editors and general readers, extra effort should be taken to compose an effective and concise abstract.

An abstract should be fewer than 250 words.

Please write the abstract entirely in the past tense because it refers to work done.

• Note it was once the norm to write abstracts in present tense only. A few authors still publish in this style. Because the present tense abstract is acceptable in the publishing world, you will not lose points for writing in this style.

An abstract must consist of text only . Never include figures or tables.

The abstract is meant to be searchable and readable to anyone, including resesarchers who have no subscription to the journal, and thus no access to the main report. It is intended to help a researcher decide if they need to obtain the report and read it. For these reasons:

• Do not reference figures and tables from the report.

• Do not use footnotes or undefined abbreviations.

• Do not cite references to the literature. The one exception is the unusual case that the article's core purpose is to directly respond to another specific research report. In this case only, complete publication data must be given in the abstract text. For example, "In response to the claim of R. H. White (Biochemistry 21, 1982, 4271-4275) that β-elimination of pyruvate is the first step in the metabolism of thiocystine..."

• Do not assume that the reader can see the visual/video abstract, if one exists. Modern journals often include either a visual or video abstract as a secondary summary of the work in the report. If such an abstract is required, the text abstract must still stand alone without referencing any visual content. You should assume that the image/video will not be available to researchers in all search contexts.