Abstracts

An abstract is an overview of a larger piece of work, such as a journal article or lab report, and its constituent parts. Abstracts are short, concisely written, and broad in their coverage of the work being summarized. The audience for abstracts is usually researchers who are familiar with a field or topic of study and who want to know the gist of a specific researcher’s work (without reading the whole thing). As with any other genre of writing, the key to writing a good abstract is to keep the audience and their needs in mind.

A well-written abstract concisely summarizes the introduction, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion, giving each section appropriate attention. On the other hand, an abstract that focuses too much on the results will fail to establish the purpose of the work; readers may then overlook the work because its necessity and what it adds to the field is not clear.

An abstract can be broken down into the following parts:

• Introduction: The introduction provides necessary background and context for the experiment or research. Generally, the area of study is established in the first sentence.

• Knowledge gap: The gap statement identifies the knowledge gap, i.e. what is not yet known about the subject. It should also explain why filling that knowledge gap is important to the progression of the field.

• Objective: The objective statement establishes the short-term, precise goal of the research. It should identify a measurable, observable, and provable outcome for the research or experiment.

• Methods: The methods statement briefly describes the procedures, lab setup, measurement devices, etc. used in the experiment.

• Results: The results statement describes the major experimental results. It should be limited to primary results, including important numerical values when necessary.

• Discussion: The discussion statement explains how the results respond to the objective statement and what the results mean for the research conducted.

• Conclusion: The conclusion statement identifies the key takeaways from the research and is particularly concerned with whether and how the knowledge gap has been filled.

• Description of future work: The description of future work suggests an opportunity for further research in the area or ways to use the results of the experiment being summarized. It may also propose ways to improve the experimental process.

The following sample abstract summarizes this chapter to demonstrate how these rhetorical moves work together. Read through the example abstract and test your understanding of the rhetorical moves by matching sentences from the sample with the rhetorical move that best describes them.

When designing mechanical systems, engineers must choose appropriate materials for a given application. Hooke’s law can be applied to help engineers account for a material’s elastic behavior as it withstands various forces in a system. Hooke's Law states that the force required to extend or compress a spring is directly proportional to the distance it is stretched or compressed, represented mathematically as F=kx , where F is the force applied, x is the displacement, and k is the spring constant. While this law is clear in theory, it is necessary to understand Hooke’s law in practice. This experiment aims to validate Hooke's Law by investigating the relationship between the force applied to a spring and the resulting displacement. In this lab, various masses were attached to a spring, and the corresponding displacements were measured. The data collected was analyzed to determine the spring constant and to verify the linear relationship predicted by Hooke's Law. The results demonstrated a strong linear correlation between force and displacement, with an average spring constant calculated to be k = 12.5N and a correlation coefficient R2 = 0.99. These results confirm the validity of Hooke's Law within the elastic limit of the spring. This experiment reinforces fundamental concepts of elasticity and provides practical insight into the behavior of materials under mechanical stress. Future work could explore the limits of elasticity by examining the behavior of springs and materials beyond their proportional limit and into plastic deformation. 

Here is the same abstract with the rhetorical moves identified:

• Introduction: When designing mechanical systems, engineers must choose appropriate materials for a given application. Hooke’s law can be applied to help engineers account for a material’s elastic behavior as it withstands various forces in a system. Hooke's Law states that the force required to extend or compress a spring is directly proportional to the distance it is stretched or compressed, represented mathematically as F=kx , where F is the force applied, x is the displacement, and k is the spring constant.

• Gap statement: While this law is clear in theory, it is necessary to understand Hooke’s law in practice.

• Objective: This experiment aims to validate Hooke's Law by investigating the relationship between the force applied to a spring and the resulting displacement.

• Methods: In this lab, various masses were attached to a spring, and the corresponding displacements were measured. The data collected was analyzed to determine the spring constant and to verify the linear relationship predicted by Hooke's Law.

• Results: The results demonstrated a strong linear correlation between force and displacement, with an average spring constant calculated to be k = 12.5N and a correlation coefficient R2 = 0.99.

• Discussion: These results confirm the validity of Hooke's Law within the elastic limit of the spring.

• Conclusion: This experiment reinforces fundamental concepts of elasticity and provides practical insight into the behavior of materials under mechanical stress.

• Description of future work: Future work could explore the limits of elasticity by examining the behavior of springs and materials beyond their proportional limit and into plastic deformation. 

Additionally, you may be asked to identify keywords for your experiment. Keywords help the intended audience locate the work that the abstract summarizes within a database. Here are some potential keywords for the sample abstract: Hooke’s law, spring constant, elasticity. When choosing keywords, authors should think about which words or phrases will attract attention from the appropriate audience to the work.