Abstracts: Promissory
Promissory Abstracts1
People who write regularly in business, industry, technology, medicine, or the academic profession learn to write abstracts early in their careers because the abstract is an essential part of the communication system in their field. A good abstract summarizes an article or report so succinctly and accurately that readers can quickly infer from the abstract the essential content of the longer work. Ideally, an abstract should have the same relationship to an article or report that an architect's model of a building has to the completed building. Just as one should be able to tell from an architect's model what a building is going to look like, one should be able to tell from an abstract what a report is going to say. And both the model and the abstract should be self-contained units, independent miniatures that make sense even when separated from the piece they represent.
Promissory Abstracts
Abstracts are important because they can serve both writers and readers in a number of different ways. First, a writer can draft a preliminary abstract of a paper as a way of beginning to think about the topic and as a device for organizing those ideas. This kind of abstract is preliminary and flexible, more like a working sketch for a building than like a model, and usually it will be substantially revised or discarded altogether when the paper is completed.
Second, a person may write an abstract that is a kind of promissory note to a program chairman or an editor. In this kind of abstract the writer sketches out the paper or report he or she plans to write and submits it for consideration. If the editor or chairman thinks the projected piece of writing is worth publishing or presenting, and if the person submitting the abstract has good credentials for writing such a piece, the abstract may be accepted, and the writer is then committed to produce the paper. People who submit abstracts of this kind must follow them faithfully when they write their final paper because they have made a contract on the basis of the abstract.
People who will be working in fields in which one earns rewards by publishing or presenting papers should master the art of writing these promissory abstracts as part of their professional training. For one thing, you can often meet a deadline for papers or program proposals if you can submit an abstract by the deadline rather than a completed paper. Second, once an editor, or program chairman accepts your proposal on the basis of an abstract, you have made a commitment and established a deadline that will force you to write the paper. Many of us need that kind of motivation.
Summary Abstracts are Different
Abstracts written after a report has been completed can also serve several purposes. First, they may appear at the beginning of a report and function as a kind of preview that lets the reader know what to expect; this is particularly useful for long reports. Second, they can serve as a summary that will give an administrator or executive necessary information in a capsule form. Third, the abstract can consult it quickly. It could also appear in the program for a professional meeting to help participants decide if they want to hear the full paper, or it could be published in a journal or catalog of abstracts so that people searching for material on the topic could determine whether they want to read the full-length paper.
Since an abstract serves so many functions, you can see why it is so important that it be well written. One authority claims that it is the most important part of a paper:
The first significant impression of your report is formed on the reader's mind by the abstract; and the sympathy with which it is read, if it is read at all, is often determined by this first impression.
Writing the Abstract
Good abstracts are hard to write because they must accurately compress so much information into compact form, and because they should be written in easy-to-understand, nontechnical language. Moreover, your method of writing an abstract will differ when you are writing a promissory abstract and when you are writing a summary abstract. The first is creative, the second analytical.
Writing the Promissory Abstract
When you are writing a promissory abstract, you need to go through a process similar to the one you use at the preparatory stages of writing a paper. First write down the main idea or thesis that you want to present; then brainstorm and take notes on all the possible points you might want to make about that thesis. On a new page jot down sources and examples that you might use to illustrate your thesis. Finally, you might write down why you think the paper you propose is worth presenting or why an audience would be interested in reading or listening to what you have to say.
Then, beginning either with a statement of your main idea or a listing of the main evidence on which you base your thesis, write a first draft that answers these questions: What are you going to say? Who needs to know it or what is the information good for?
Don't worry too much about length on this first draft. Get down as much information as you think the program chairman or editor needs in order to make a judgement about the paper. You can trim it to size later. In the second and third drafts cut if necessary, and simplify and polish your writing because this abstract will not only represent the content of your paper but will also be a sample of your prose style. You can present your credentials for giving the paper on a separate sheet or in a letter.
Below is a sample of a promissory abstract that I turned in for a conference:
Sample Promissory Abstract
By using interviews, questionnaires, the examination of drafts, and conference with editors and by drawing from work already done on the writing process, I plan to investigate the writing processes of ten professional writers of nonfiction. From this research, I hope to validate and expand tentative hypotheses that I have constructed about how such writers work and to gather a body of information about the craft of writing that will be available in itself and will also benefit other scholars working in this very new area. These data may also be useful to scholars interested in more general theories of creativity.
Note: The program chairman accepted the paper, and four months later I wrote it.
Length of Abstracts
Although one might think that the length of a finished paper would control the length of the abstract that represents it, such is not usually the case. More often, directions will say that abstracts should not exceed 250 words; that is, one double-spaced page typed in pica type. If the directions say "no more than one page" rather than giving the number of words, you can squeeze in another fifty words by using elite type. It is probably best not to single-space an abstract.
When you begin writing abstracts you will continually face a conflict between keeping the abstract short enough and putting in everything that you think should be included. Inevitably you compromise and your abstracts will never come as close to being perfect miniature reports as you would like. Neither do anyone else's. But as you continue to write them and to realize what a necessary professional tool they are, you will develop an instinct about what to include in an abstract, and your task will gradually become easier.
Supporting Materials
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1 The materials on this page have been adapted from Hairston, Maxine C. (1986). Successful Writing (2nd ed.). New York: W.W. Norton, pp. 223 - 227.