ABSTRACTS AND EXECUTIVE SUMMARIES

1. ABSTRACTS AND EXECUTIVE SUMMARIES THE FINAL SECTION OF THE FORMAL REPORT

2. OVERVIEW • Definition • Abstracts: audience, types, content, organization • Executive summary: audience, content, organization

3. Definition • Abstract: technical precis of a research report • Executive summary: nontechnical precis of a research report

4. Abstracts • Types • Descriptive, sometimes called table-of-contents abstract because it mainly repeats the main headings from the report. • Informative, the type we’ll be using, contains information from the introduction, body, and conclusion of the report

5. Abstracts 2 • Audience • Specialist, technical audience. It’s all right to use technical terms without defining them for this audience. • Be sure to include information in the abstract that will interest this audience.

6. Content • Write the abstract last. Content comes from • introduction: topic, audience and scope • body: method of data collection and findings • conclusion: results and recommendations

7. Organization • No more than two paragraphs or 250 words for the abstract

8. Executive summaries • Audience—managers and executives • No technical language should appear in the summary. • Tone is formal since you’re writing for your supervisors

9. Content • Summarize major points, findings, or recommendations from report. Be specific. Tell what the recommendations are, not just that there are some. • Condense the report; this is not the same as the introduction. • Write the summary last.

10. Organization • Same paragraph format as used in abstracts • Terminology should be used consistently here and in the report itself (ex. Don’t say “aerial” here and “antenna” in the report.)