Abstract Summary

I. ABSTRACT

1. Definition

2. Types

3. Steps in writing

4. Features

5. Activity

1. Definition

An abstract is a condensed version of a longer piece of writing that highlights the major points covered, concisely describing the content of the writing. It is placed at the beginning of the text and is generally written in smaller characters than the rest of the text, using italic letters. It is followed by key words.

There are two common reasons for writing an abstract:

• to summarize a longer piece of work published as a journal article, thesis, book or web page.

• to submit an application to write a paper for a conference.

• but sometimes, it also serves the function of "selling" your work.

2. Types

Two types of abstracts are typically used: descriptive and informative abstracts.

• Descriptive abstracts introduce the subject to readers, telling them what information the text contains, usually about 120 words. Generally, they state the purpose, scope and methods used. No details about results, conclusions or recommendations are provided.

e.g. a. In the context of business internationalization, more and more emphasis has been put over the last years on teaching English to economics undergraduate students. The present paper aims at giving an overview of the particular features of Business English, with reference to learning objectives, learners’ needs, as well as to teaching materials that should enhance the students’ range of grammar and vocabulary structures, and their language skills.

b. Job quality represents a fundamental objective within the EU employment policy agenda, which allows assessing the labour market performance. The high work intensity, increase in temporary work, deterioration of working conditions and increasing competition on the labour market have caused the decline of employment quality in the EU over the last decades. The paper highlights the importance of considering the job quality as a dimension of the quality of employment services. In order to capture this new dimension, the paper proposes a set of job quality indicators, which are taken and adapted from the set of Laeken indicators. This new multidimensional approach allows measuring the job quality, which itself represents a fundamental dimension of the quality of employment services.

c. The paper explores gender wage gap as well as educational level, work experience and age in the Hellenic maritime companies by utilizing the European Structure of Earnings Surveys of 1995 and 2002. The nonparametric statistical analysis used shows that even though the male-female wage distributions were not identical in 1995, so discrimination was present, though, we did not find evidence of this gap in 2002. Hourly wage rate which proved to be independent of educational level, while dependent on work experience and age, and for both latter characteristics, much more for females than for males, may explain the elimination of the gender pay gap at the end of the investigation period.

• Informative abstracts are an expanded version of descriptive abstracts, as they give details regarding results, limitations, conclusions or recommendations. From the point of view of the length, they range from a paragraph to a page (or even two), depending upon the length of the original work being abstracted. Usually informative abstracts are 10% or less of the length of the original piece.

e.g. a. The experiment performed aims at establishing the evolution of attitudes taking into account their orientation and intensity, after the subjects have participated in a panel debate. The experiment comprises 78 male and female students in the 3rd and 4th years of the Faculty of Psychology. The measurement of the attitude was accomplished using a Rickert scale, doubled by a scale which required participants to indicate the degree of certainty regarding the attitude expressed.

The estimated results regard the differentiated evolution of the orientation and intensity of the attitudes, taking into account the direction (attitude for or against), the type of argumentation used (consistent or inconsistent with the attitude), the subjects’ gender, age and academic achievements.

The information obtained can be used, among other things, for appraising the efficiency of using debates in the learning activity from the academic environment.

b. Research reported by Daly, Miller, and their colleagues suggests that writing apprehension is related to a number of factors we do not yet fully understand. This study suggests that included among those factors should be the belief that writing ability is a gift. Giftedness, as it is referred to in the study, is roughly equivalent to the Romantic notion of original genius. Results from a survey of 247 postsecondary students enrolled in introductory writing courses at two institutions indicate that higher levels of belief in giftedness are correlated with higher levels of writing apprehension, lower self-assessments of writing ability, lower levels of confidence in achieving proficiency in certain writing activities and genres, and lower self-assessments of prior experience with writing instructors. Significant differences in levels of belief in giftedness were also found among students who differed in their perceptions of the most important purpose for writing, with students who identified "to express your own feelings about something" as the most important purpose for writing having the highest mean level of belief in giftedness. Although the validity of the notion that writing ability is a special gift is not directly addressed, the results suggest that belief in giftedness may have deleterious effects on student writers.

c. Internet shopping (or e-shopping) is emerging as a shopping mode and with its requirement of computer access and use, it is interesting to find out whether consumers associate e-shoppers with any gender-specific stereotypes. Such stereotypes may be expected because shopping is considered a "female typed" activity whereas technology is considered to be in the male domain. In this article, we address this central question in an empirical study that varies the shopping context in terms of outlet type, product type, and purchase purpose. The respondents are college students with Internet access and familiarity with online shopping. The experimental results suggest that the global stereotype, held by both male and female respondents, is that of a shopper as a woman. This stereotype reverses when the product purchased is technical and expensive (DVD player). In terms of personality attributions, the female shopper is seen to be less technical, less spontaneous, and more reliable and attributions regarding personal characteristics are not influenced significantly by product type, outlet type, or purchase purpose.

3. Features

a. if published in isolation from the main text, it should stand on its own and be understandable without reference to the longer piece;

b. it should report the essential elements of the text and should not exaggerate or contain material that is not there;

c. it should contain relevant key words

d. it uses an introduction/body/conclusion structure which presents the purpose, results, conclusions and recommendations of the text in that order.

e. it adds no new information, but simply summarizes the text.

f. it is understandable to a wide audience.