General Advice: Writing Abstracts

by Joe Essid, Writing Center Director

What is an Abstract?

Many journals for which I have published mandate an abstract before each article. You may be asked to write them in classes. So what purpose do they serve?

For academic readers, the abstract works like an executive summary in business. The writer gives, in broad strokes, the scope, findings, and implications of the article. A potential reader should be able to decide if the entire piece merits reading, after looking at the abstract. 

Your Job:

When you must write an abstract, consider:

• House rules from the class or publication regarding subheadings, length, and more.

• What are your key findings? What, briefly, forms the basis for them?

• What have others in your field said? You don't need a full literature review here! Save that for the essay but a point or two may help readers.

• What are the implications of your scholarship?

Sample Abstract and Commentary

I am not blowing my own horn (too loudly) by including my own published work. I use the following because I know the content well and can remark best on what it reveals. Key words appear in bold font.

Abstract:

Institutions are scrambling, at an unaccustomed pace, to adapt to generative artificial intelligence. While justified concerns focus on plagiarism, the nature of student learning, and changes to assignments, recent scholarship has largely ignored the potential for faculty and staff unemployment that may accompany acceptance and deployment of the new technology. As we ponder seismic changes in higher education, one voice should join, indeed lead, campus discussions. Writing center professionals have proven adept at weathering technological changes, budget cuts, administrative big ideas, and professional marginalization for more than half a century. Early on, centers were sometimes dismissed as mere “fix-it shops” for the least-competent writers of academic prose. Recent scholarship reveals, however, that centers have at last moved from the precariat to earn respect as practitioners of effective writing pedagogy. This article discusses how writing-center professionals, exemplifying Greenleaf’s model of servant leadership and Bruffee's theory of collaborative learning, may help in steering campus policy on AI. Thus far three affordances critical to in-person work at writing centers–metacognitive questioning, active listening,  principles of fair use—lie beyond the reach of generative AI. This gap reveals “reverse salients,” areas when a rapidly advancing technology cannot meet its advertised promises. Writing center leadership on this issue could also model adaptation to AI outside academia, in ways that benefit those whose livelihoods stand most at risk of being replaced by a set of algorithms.|

Essid, Joe (2023) "Writing Centers & the Dark Warehouse University: Generative AI, Three Human Advantages," Interdisciplinary Journal of Leadership Studies: Vol. 2, Article 3. https://scholarship.richmond.edu/ijls/vol2/iss2/3

Discussion:

For my full article in a Leadership journal, I focused on threats to employment, within and outside the Academy, from generative AI. Additionally, I intended my piece to reveal shortcomings inherent (for now) in the technology that I and a research assistant had tested. Finally, I intended to show how the history of writing centers reveals a model for leadership that may help higher education. After a reader suggested that I add more about lapses in recent scholarship, I revised my article (and abstract) accordingly.

Using Keywords:

Some publications ask authors for these. While in the sample I highlight words that I feel prove critical to the reader, those are not necessarily the same as the terms a scholar might use when employing a search engine. 

If you find yourself in that situation, consider short phrases that a search engine might use to "tag" the work. I include both "AI" and "artificial intelligence" as well as "leadershp" and "servant leadership," since I think readers looking for information might type either. Here are mine:

Keywords: AI, leadership, servant leadership, artificial intelligence, pedagogy, writing, writing centers, praxis, collaborative learning