An academic abstract can be likened to a miniature work of art. It is an academic promo for a larger academic production.
— Dr Jens J. Hansen
Abstracts have always served the function of “selling” your work.
— Philip Koopman
In this unit you will:
·be familiar with the key components of an academic abstract
·grasp the differences between informative abstracts and descriptive abstracts
·learn about the language features of an academic abstract
·know how to compose and polish an academic abstract
Pre-class work
Work with your partners and access school library resources to get some English academic articles with abstracts that you’re interested in. Then do the following exercises.
1. Discuss the following topics with your partners.
(1) What do you find about the length and the information of the abstract compared with those of the complete paper?
(2) What part of the complete paper is included in the abstract?
(3) Can you find any part of the complete paper that is not covered in the abstract?
(4) Why do you think the writer only chose some information in the paper to elaborate on in the abstract?
(5) In some essays assigned by your writing teachers in the past, you often use the first person pronoun “I”. Can you find it in those academic abstracts? Why it’s lost? Can you find any equivalent expressions? What other important language features have you found out about academic abstracts?
2. What key components does an abstract contain? In other words, what does the writer intend to do in the abstract? Read the following statements, and tick(√) those that you think may be the answers.
( ) (1) To provide a brief introduction of the topic, such as the significance of the thesis, the motivation for doing the research, etc.
( ) (2) To state to your readers what problem(s) you want to solve, or what objectives (purpose) you want to achieve by doing the research.