Question

What must a good abstract include to make it useful to someone to read your research paper?

(business research methods course)

Answer 1

An abstract is a short summary of your research paper. It is usually about a paragraph long. An abstract summarizes, usually in one paragraph of 300 words or less, the major aspects of the entire paper

• An abstract lets readers get the essence of your paper, in order to decide whether to read the full paper;
• An abstract helps readers remember key points from your paper.

Search engines and bibliographic databases use abstracts, the title, key words and terms for indexing your published paper. So what you include in your abstract and in your title are crucial for helping other researchers find your paper or article.

A good abstract includes: 1) the overall purpose of the study and the research problem

2) the basic design of the study

3) major findings as a result of your analysis

4) a brief summary of your interpretations and conclusions.