Essential Skills for Scientists 1:Writing Abstracts

Being able to write, maybe not well but at least well enough, is a very important skill for a scientist. My experience is that it is not enough to only know science while neglecting writing and reading skills. More to the point, the scientists that I know who have gone the furthest are people who are able to communicate well. It is really that simple. If you cannot communicate your findings clearly, you will have difficulty getting people to take you seriously. This somewhat preachy introduction brings me to the topic of the day, the importance of writing good abstracts.

What is an abstract? An abstract is a short 1-2 paragraph text section appearing at the beginning of a paper right below the title and authors' names. It should concisely communicate the essential parts of a study. In science writing it needs to concisely answer the following questions: 1) What was done? 2) How it was done? and 3) What was the result?

This all sounds very easy, but many students have difficulty getting the balance between the different parts right. Here are a few tips to help you write a better abstract:

1) As a quantitative scientist, I like to see clear quantitative statements. For example, suppose you are measuring the amount of fat in milk products. By the time a reader finishes the abstract, they should know how much fat is in the milk products. Consider the following: "Twelve samples of quadruple cream from the South Park dairy were found to contain 75.0±0.3 % fat (w/v)." This speaks to me. Were this your statement, I would say "I like that you told me how much was there and that you gave an estimated uncertainty."

2) How should you answer the question about how you did your work? This is troublesome because some students make the mistake of turning their abstract into a second methods section. The idea is to give the reader a general view of the methods you used. Some people may, for example, be interested in measuring Cd using inductively coupled plasma (ICP) because that is all they have in their lab. These people will appreciate it if you explain that you are measuring Cd by anodic stripping voltammetry (ASV). That way they don't need to read your paper. Alternately, someone else may take a special interest in your work because you are using ASV.

3) As you enter the university level, you should stop including things like "In this practical..." and "The purpose of this series of labs was to introduce us to..." Instead, you should try to integrate the material into a whole that stands on its own. Formal write ups are part of the assignment and are assigned to teach you how to write like a scientist. Insisting on putting sentences where you second guess the reason we assigned a particular lab exercise makes you sound like a secondary or high school student. I don't think that is what you want.

For students who have an interest, I made an aggregate document of all the abstracts received from a group of 56 students for one formal lab write up. You may find it here:http://drhanleydocs.blogspot.com/. This should give you a good idea what a range of abstracts look like. Some have very high information content. I have indicated the one I thought was best. See if you agree.