How to Write An Abstract

1. How to Write An Abstract Liping Liu

2. Introduction • An abstract is a short summary of your completed research. If done well, it makes the reader want to learn more about your research. • Despite the fact that an abstract is quite brief, it must do almost as much work as the multi-page paper that follows it. • Use the following as a checklist for your next abstract .

3. Motivation • Why do we care about the problem and the results? • This section should include the importance of your work, the difficulty of the area, and the impact it might have if successful.

4. Problem statement • What problem are you trying to solve? • What is the scope of your work (a generalized approach, or for a specific situation)?

5. Approach • How did you go about solving or making progress on the problem? • Did you use simulation, analytic models, prototype construction, or analysis of field data for an actual product? • What was the extent of your work. • What important variables did you control, ignore, or measure?

6. Results • What's the answer? • What did you learn/invent/create?

7. Conclusion • What are the implications of your answer? • Are your results general, potentially generalizable, or specific to a particular case?

8. Other Considerations • An abstract must be a fully self-contained, capsule description of the paper. • Meet the word count limitation. An abstract word limit of 150 to 200 words is common. • Avoid using bibliographic references in the Abstract unless they are absolutely essential to understanding the scholarship or results of the study.

9. Further Reading • Google search online • http://www.sccur.uci.edu/sampleabstracts.html • http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/essays/abstract.html • http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~sustain/Abstract.html • Michaelson, Herbert, How to Write & Publish Engineering Papers and Reports, Oryx Press, 1990. Chapter 6 discusses abstracts. • Cremmins, Edward, The Art of Abstracting 2nd Edition, Info Resources Press, April 1996. This is an entire book about abstracting, written primarily for professional abstractors.

10. Sample Abstract Persistent Global Activation of the Aplysia Serotonergic System After Sensitizing Stimuli Kristine Kolkman Mentor: Dr. Thomas Carew The marine mollusk Aplysia responds to noxious stimulation with a stereotyped arousal reaction that includes escape locomotion, increased heart rate and sensitization of defensive reflexes. Although previous studies have shown that serotonin (5-HT) is important for most of these behavioral responses, it is still unclear how the 5-HT system is activated in response to noxious stimuli. To address this question, I used a specific staining of the 5-HT neurons in the living central nervous system (CNS) that allowed me to (1) systematically record their electrical activity following a noxious stimulus, and (2) trace their projections using the neuronal tracer Neurobiotin. I found that in response to tail-nerve shock, a procedure known to mimic a noxious tail stimulus, the vast majority of 5-HT neurons increased their firing rate for several minutes and became more excitable. 5-HT neurons were found to project toward various peripheral targets such as the gill, heart, body wall, tail, siphon, head, and tentacles as well as to other ganglia in the CNS. This study shows that the Aplysia 5-HT system is globally and persistently activated after a noxious stimulus. Such an activation might serve to synchronize the different aspects of the arousal reaction in Aplysia.