What is the purpose of an abstract?

An abstract is a concise summary of an academic text (such as a journal article or dissertation). It serves two main purposes:

To help potential readers determine the relevance of your paper for their own research.
To communicate your key findings to those who don’t have time to read the whole paper.

Abstracts are often indexed along with keywords on academic databases, so they make your work more easily findable. Since the abstract is the first thing any reader sees, it’s important that it clearly and accurately summarizes the contents of your paper.

Frequently asked questions: Academic writing

What is a rhetorical tautology?: A rhetorical tautology is the repetition of an idea of concept using different words.

Rhetorical tautologies occur when additional words are used to convey a meaning that has already been expressed or implied. For example, the phrase “armed gunman” is a tautology because a “gunman” is by definition “armed.”
What is a logical tautology?: A logical tautology is a statement that is always true because it includes all logical possibilities.

Logical tautologies often take the form of “either/or” statements (e.g., “It will rain, or it will not rain”) or employ circular reasoning (e.g., “she is untrustworthy because she can’t be trusted”).
Is it appendices or appendixes?: You may have seen both “appendices” or “appendixes” as pluralizations of “appendix.” Either spelling can be used, but “appendices” is more common (including in APA Style). Consistency is key here: make sure you use the same spelling throughout your paper.
What’s the difference between a lab report and a research paper?: The purpose of a lab report is to demonstrate your understanding of the scientific method with a hands-on lab experiment. Course instructors will often provide you with an experimental design and procedure. Your task is to write up how you actually performed the experiment and evaluate the outcome.

In contrast, a research paper requires you to independently develop an original argument. It involves more in-depth research and interpretation of sources and data.

A lab report is usually shorter than a research paper.
What are the sections of a lab report?: The sections of a lab report can vary between scientific fields and course requirements, but it usually contains the following:

Title: expresses the topic of your study

Abstract: summarizes your research aims, methods, results, and conclusions

Introduction: establishes the context needed to understand the topic

Method: describes the materials and procedures used in the experiment

Results: reports all descriptive and inferential statistical analyses

Discussion: interprets and evaluates results and identifies limitations

Conclusion: sums up the main findings of your experiment

References: list of all sources cited using a specific style (e.g. APA)

Appendices: contains lengthy materials, procedures, tables or figures
What is a lab report?: A lab report conveys the aim, methods, results, and conclusions of a scientific experiment. Lab reports are commonly assigned in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.
When should I write the abstract?: The abstract is the very last thing you write. You should only write it after your research is complete, so that you can accurately summarize the entirety of your thesis, dissertation or research paper.
How can I edit a paper that is over the word limit?: If you’ve gone over the word limit set for your assignment, shorten your sentences and cut repetition and redundancy during the editing process. If you use a lot of long quotes, consider shortening them to just the essentials.

If you need to remove a lot of words, you may have to cut certain passages. Remember that everything in the text should be there to support your argument; look for any information that’s not essential to your point and remove it.

To make this process easier and faster, you can use a paraphrasing tool. With this tool, you can rewrite your text to make it simpler and shorter. If that’s not enough, you can copy-paste your paraphrased text into the summarizer. This tool will distill your text to its core message.
What’s the difference between revising, proofreading, and editing?: Revising, proofreading, and editing are different stages of the writing process.

Revising is making structural and logical changes to your text—reformulating arguments and reordering information.

Editing refers to making more local changes to things like sentence structure and phrasing to make sure your meaning is conveyed clearly and concisely.

Proofreading involves looking at the text closely, line by line, to spot any typos and issues with consistency and correct them.
Where does the literature review go in a dissertation?: The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation. After the introduction, it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology.
What is the purpose of a literature review?: There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic

To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done

To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address

To develop your theoretical framework and methodology

To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.
What is a literature review?: A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question.

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation, or research paper, in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.
Can you cite sources in an abstract?: Avoid citing sources in your abstract. There are two reasons for this:

The abstract should focus on your original research, not on the work of others.

The abstract should be self-contained and fully understandable without reference to other sources.

There are some circumstances where you might need to mention other sources in an abstract: for example, if your research responds directly to another study or focuses on the work of a single theorist. In general, though, don’t include citations unless absolutely necessary.
Where does the methodology section go in a research paper?: In a scientific paper, the methodology always comes after the introduction and before the results, discussion and conclusion. The same basic structure also applies to a thesis, dissertation, or research proposal.

Depending on the length and type of document, you might also include a literature review or theoretical framework before the methodology.
How can I get better at proofreading?: Whether you’re publishing a blog, submitting a research paper, or even just writing an important email, there are a few techniques you can use to make sure it’s error-free:

Take a break: Set your work aside for at least a few hours so that you can look at it with fresh eyes.

Proofread a printout: Staring at a screen for too long can cause fatigue – sit down with a pen and paper to check the final version.

Use digital shortcuts: Take note of any recurring mistakes (for example, misspelling a particular word, switching between US and UK English, or inconsistently capitalizing a term), and use Find and Replace to fix it throughout the document.

If you want to be confident that an important text is error-free, it might be worth choosing a professional proofreading service instead.
What is the difference between proofreading and editing?: Editing and proofreading are different steps in the process of revising a text.

Editing comes first, and can involve major changes to content, structure and language. The first stages of editing are often done by authors themselves, while a professional editor makes the final improvements to grammar and style (for example, by improving sentence structure and word choice).

Proofreading is the final stage of checking a text before it is published or shared. It focuses on correcting minor errors and inconsistencies (for example, in punctuation and capitalization). Proofreaders often also check for formatting issues, especially in print publishing.
How much does professional proofreading cost?: The cost of proofreading depends on the type and length of text, the turnaround time, and the level of services required. Most proofreading companies charge per word or page, while freelancers sometimes charge an hourly rate.

For proofreading alone, which involves only basic corrections of typos and formatting mistakes, you might pay as little as $0.01 per word, but in many cases, your text will also require some level of editing, which costs slightly more.

It’s often possible to purchase combined proofreading and editing services and calculate the price in advance based on your requirements.
What qualifications do you need to become a proofreader?: There are many different routes to becoming a professional proofreader or editor. The necessary qualifications depend on the field – to be an academic or scientific proofreader, for example, you will need at least a university degree in a relevant subject.

For most proofreading jobs, experience and demonstrated skills are more important than specific qualifications. Often your skills will be tested as part of the application process.

To learn practical proofreading skills, you can choose to take a course with a professional organization such as the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Alternatively, you can apply to companies that offer specialized on-the-job training programmes, such as the Scribbr Academy.

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What type of documents does Scribbr proofread?: Scribbr specializes in editing study-related documents. We proofread:

Essays

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Theses

PhD dissertations

Research proposals

Personal statements

Admission essays

Motivation letters

Reports

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Journal articles

Capstone projects
What plagiarism and AI detection software does Scribbr use?: Scribbr’s Plagiarism Checker is powered by elements of Turnitin’s Similarity Checker, namely the plagiarism detection software and the Internet Archive and Premium Scholarly Publications content databases.

The add-on AI detector is powered by Scribbr’s proprietary software.
Which citation software does Scribbr use?: The Scribbr Citation Generator is developed using the open-source Citation Style Language (CSL) project and Frank Bennett’s citeproc-js. It’s the same technology used by dozens of other popular citation tools, including Mendeley and Zotero.

You can find all the citation styles and locales used in the Scribbr Citation Generator in our publicly accessible repository on Github.