Tips for writing an abstract for a scientific research paper
An abstract is a short text that provides a summary of the literature, without comments or additional explanations, and describes the important points of the literature in a concise and precise manner. Its basic elements include research objectives, methods, results and conclusions. Specifically, the main object and scope of the research work, the means and methods used, the results and important conclusions, and sometimes also includes other important information of intelligence value. Abstract should be independent and self-explanatory and have the same amount of primary information as the literature, i.e. the necessary information can be obtained without reading the whole text. An accompanying abstract is required for a complete paper.
1 main function of the abstract:
1.1 Let the reader as soon as possible to understand the main content of the paper to supplement the title. Modern scientific and technological literature information is vast, readers retrieve the title of the paper will read the full text, mainly through the reading of the abstract to determine; therefore, the abstract carries the task of attracting readers and introduce the main content of the article to the reader.
1.2 Provide convenience for the construction and maintenance of scientific and technological intelligence literature retrieval database. After the publication of the paper, abstract magazines or a variety of databases on the abstract can be used directly without modification or slight modification, so as to avoid misunderstandings, deficiencies and even errors that may arise from the preparation of abstracts by others. With the rapid development of electronic computer technology and Internet network, online query, search and download professional data has become an important means of scientific and technological information retrieval, online full-text databases, abstract databases, more and more show the level of information exchange in modern society and the development trend. At the same time, the index of the abstract is an important tool for readers to search the literature. Therefore, the quality of abstracts has a direct impact on the retrieval rate and citation frequency.
2 classification of abstracts
According to the different functions of abstracts, there are three types of abstracts
2.1 Reporting Abstracts
Reporting Abstracts are concise summaries that indicate the scope of the subject matter of the paper and the content of the abstract, which is equivalent to the introduction. The abstract is generally used to reflect the purpose, methodology, and main results and conclusions of the scientific paper, to provide readers with as much qualitative or quantitative information as possible in a limited number of words, and to fully reflect the innovation of the research. Scientific and technological papers without innovative content, if there is no proven distinctive methodology or conclusions, will not cause the reader's interest in reading; therefore, it is recommended that academic journals (or proceedings) more often choose to report on the abstract, with a little more than the number of words than other types of abstracts to introduce the main content of the paper to the reader. The author's main research results and more complete quantitative and qualitative information are reported in the form of "excerpts". The length of the paper should be about 300 words.
2.2 Indicative summary
An indicative summary is a summary that identifies the topic of the primary literature and the nature and level of the results obtained, and is intended to give the reader an outline of the main content of the study (i.e. what the authors have done). Less innovative content of the paper, the abstract can be written as an indicative summary, generally applicable to academic journals, such as briefings, discussions and other issues of the journal and technical journals, etc. only general introduction to the the thesis of the paper, so that readers have a general understanding of the main content of the paper. The length of the paper should be about 100 words.
2.3 Reporting-Indicative Abstract
A reporting-indicative abstract is a reporting abstract that summarizes the most valuable part of the paper, while the rest of the paper is in the form of an indicative abstract. It should be 100-200 words in length.
All three types of abstracts are available to authors. In general, for academic journals, a reportable abstract should be used; for less innovative papers, the abstract can be written as a reportable-indicative or indicative abstract. The ultimate goal of publication is to be utilized. If the abstract is not well written, in today's era of information proliferation, the paper into the abstract magazine, search databases, the chance of being read and cited will be much less, or even lost. A paper with a high value and a lot of innovative content may lose more readers if it is written as an indicative abstract. In this case, if the author's abstract is too brief, the editor should remind him/her to revise it when he/she retires the paper.
3 Precautions for Writing Abstracts
3.1 Abstracts should exclude what has become common knowledge in the field of the discipline; never include in the abstract what should be in the introduction; and generally refrain from interpreting and commenting on the content of the paper (especially self-evaluation).
3.2 Do not simply repeat information already in the title. For example, if the title of an article is "A study of rhizogenesis of several Chinese orchid seeds in test tube culture", the abstract should not begin with: "In order ...... to study the rhizogenesis of several Chinese orchid seeds in test tube culture".
3.3 Rigorous structure, concise expression, semantic precision. The abstract should be organized in a logical order of what to write first and what to write later. Sentences should be coherent, echo each other. Abstracts should not use long sentences and should be simple. Each sentence should be clear, no vague, general, ambiguous words, but after all, the abstract is a complete short essay, telegraphic writing is not desirable. Abstract not subparagraphs.
3.4 Use the third person. It is recommended that the nature and subject matter of the primary literature be indicated by such notations as "a study was conducted on ......", "a report was made on the current state of ......", "a survey was conducted on ......", etc. It is not necessary to use the terms
3.5 Use standardized terminology, not non-public symbols and terms. If the terminology is new or there is no suitable Chinese terminology, it can be used in the original language or translated with brackets to indicate the original language.
3.6 Except for the unavailability of adaptations, mathematical formulas and chemical formulae are not used, and illustrations and tables are not included.
3.7 Citation is not used unless it confirms or refutes the published work of others.
3.8 Abbreviations, acronyms, and code names must be stated when they first appear, except for those that can be clearly understood by readers of neighboring disciplines. Scientific and technological paper writing should pay attention to other matters, such as the use of legal units of measurement, the correct use of language and punctuation, etc., also applies to the preparation of the abstract. At present, the main problems in the preparation of abstracts include: incomplete elements, or lack of purpose, or lack of methodology; the appearance of citations, no independence and self-explanatory; and inappropriate complexity and simplicity.
4 English abstract
The main discussion here is the Chinese scientific and technological papers attached to the English abstract, which contains the title, abstract and keywords. gb7713-87 provides that, for the purpose of international exchange, scientific and technological reports, theses and dissertations should be accompanied by a summary in a foreign language (mostly in English). In principle, the above notes on the preparation of Chinese abstracts are applicable to the English summary, but the English language has its own way of expression, language habits, in writing the English summary should pay special attention to.
4.1 English title
1) Structure of the title. English title to phrase as the main form, especially the noun phrase (nounphrase) is the most common, that is, the title basically consists of a noun or several nouns plus its predicate and (or) postpositional determiners. For example: thefrequentbryophytesinthemountainhelanshan(贺兰山习见苔藓植物);thermodynamiccharacteristicsofwaterabsorptionofheattreatedwood(热处理木材的水水吸着热力学特性). thermodynamiccharacteristicsofwaterabsorptionofheattreatedwood). Phrase-based question titles should identify the center word, and then modify it before and after. The order of the words is important, and improper word order can lead to inaccuracies. The title should not be a declarative sentence, because the title mainly serves as a label, and the declarative sentence tends to give the title a judgmental semantic meaning; besides, the declarative sentence is not concise and eye-catching enough, and it is not easy to highlight the key points. In a few cases (commentary, synthesis and refutation) can be used in the title of the question sentence, because the question sentence can have exploratory tone, easy to arouse the interest of the reader. For example: canagriculturalmechanizationberealizedwithoutpetroleum? .
2) the number of words in the title. The title should not be too long. Foreign scientific and technical journals generally have a limit on the number of words in the title. For example, the American Medical Association stipulates that the title of no more than two lines, each line does not exceed 42 printed symbols and spaces; the National Cancer Institute journal jnat cancerinst requires that the title of no more than 14 words; the British Mathematical Society requires that the title of no more than 12 words. These rules can be used as a reference. The general principle is that titles should be precise, concise and eye-catching, and the fewer the number of words, the better, provided that they accurately reflect the specific content of the paper.
3) The consistency of the title in English and Chinese. The same paper, the English title and the Chinese title should be consistent in content, but it is not the same as saying that the words should be one-to-one correspondence. In many cases, individual non-substantive words can be omitted or changed. For example: the direct heat calculation of industrial wet steam, thedirectmeasurementofheattransmittedwetsteam. The English title of the direct translation of the Chinese translation is "the direct measurement of the heat transmitted by the wet steam", compared with the Chinese title, the two words although there are differences in the content is the same.
4) the title of the title of the article. In the early years, the title of the scientific and technical papers in the article used more, in recent years there is a tendency to simplify, where available can not be used in the article can not be used. For example: theeffectofgroundwaterqualityonthewheatyieldandquality.wherethe two articles of the can not be used.
5) Case in the title. There are three types of case in the title. All letters are capitalized. For example: optimaldispositionofrollerchaindrive The first letter of each word is capitalized, but the articles, conjunctions and prepositions with 3 or less letters are all lowercase. For example: thedeformationandstrengthofconcretedamswithdefects
Capitalize the first word of the title and lowercase the rest. For example: topographicinversionofintervalvelocities. Currently the b. format is the most used, while the c. format is increasing in use.
6) Abbreviations in the title. Acronyms that have been recognized by the scientific and technical community as a whole or by scientific and technical personnel in the industry should be used in the title, otherwise they should not be used lightly.
4.2 English translation of authors and author units
1) Authors. Chinese names are spelled in Hanyu Pinyin; names of other non-English-speaking countries are spelled in the Roman alphabet provided by the authors themselves.
2) Organization. The name of the unit should be written in full (from small to large), with the address and postal code, to ensure easy contact. Some time ago, some units and institutions have taken the English translation of abbreviations, outsiders do not know what, resulting in confusion. fao, who, mit known to all, and bfu is beijingforestryuniversity, I'm afraid that only the "circle" of people know. In addition, the unit of English translation must be used in the unit of unified translation (i.e., the standard translation of the unit), do not start another stove.
4.3 English summary
1) Tense of the English summary. The use of English summary tenses is also better to be concise, commonly used general present tense, general past tense, less use of present perfect tense, past perfect tense, progressive tense and other composite tenses basically do not use.
General present tense. It is used to explain the purpose of the study, describe the content of the study, describe the results, draw conclusions, make recommendations or discussions. Examples are as follows:thisstudy(investigation)is(conducted,undertaken)to...
theanatomyofsecondaryxylem(secondary xylem) instemofdavidiainvolucrate(dove) and
camptothecaacuminata(hi-tree)iscompared.
theresultshows(reveals)...,. itisfoundthat...theconclusionsare...theauthorsuggests.... When it comes to recognized facts, natural laws, eternal truths, etc., of course, the general present tense should also be used.
The general past tense. It is used to describe a discovery, a research process (experiment, observation, investigation, medical treatment, etc.) at a certain time in the past. For example: theheatpulsetechniquewasappliedtostudythestemstaflowoftwomaindeciduousbroadleavedtreespeciesinjulyandaugust,1996.
It should be noted that the discoveries and phenomena described in the general past tense are often not recognized as laws of nature or eternal truths, but only how they were at that time; the research process described also clearly bears traces of the past time.
The present perfect and the past perfect. The present perfect is rarely, but not never, used. The present perfect links something that happened in the past or was done in the past to the present, whereas the past perfect can be used to express something that was done before a certain time in the past, or another past action that was done before a past thing was done. For example:concretehasbeenstudied
formanyyears.manhasnotyetlearnedtostorethesolarenergy.
2)Morphology of the English summary. The language used should not only take into account the characteristics of the abstract, but also meet the needs of expression. A summary is very short, try not to mix them randomly, not to mention in a sentence.
Active voice. There is a growing movement to maximize the use of the active voice for verbs in abstracts, as it contributes to clarity, simplicity, and power of expression. theauthorsystematicallyintroducesthehistoryanddevelopmentofthetissuecultureofpoplar than thehistoryanddevelopmentofpoplar. Theauthorsystematicallyintroducesthehistoryanddevelopmentofthetissuecultureofpoplar than thehistoryanddevelopmentofthetissuecultureofpoplarareintroducedsystematically. If necessary, theauthorsystematically can be dropped and begin directly with introduces.
Passive voice. Previously emphasized the use of the passive voice, the reason is that the scientific paper is mainly to explain the facts, as to who did that thing, do not have to prove it. In fact, in an indicative abstract, the passive voice is preferred in order to emphasize the action-taker. Even in reportative abstracts, where the passive is irrelevant, it is necessary to use the emphasized thing as the subject. For example:inthiscase,agreateraccuracyinmeasuringdistancemightbeobtained.
3) The person of the English summary. Originally,thefirstsentenceoftheabstractwasstartedbythirdpersonthispaper...etc.Nowadays,wetendtoadoptmoreconcisepassiveverbstanceororiginalverbstarting. For example: to describe..., to study..., to investigate..., to assess..., to determine..., thetorrentclassification, thetorrentclassification, thetorrentclassification, thetorrentclassification, thetorrentclassification, thetorrentclassification, thetorrentclassification.... thetorrentclassificationmodelandthehazardzonemappingmodelaredevelopedbasedonthegeographyinformationsystem. It is preferable not to use the first person in the text, so as to make it easier for the editors of the abstract publication to publish it.
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4) Notes. Some common mistakes should be avoided.
Pronouns. The definite article the is easy to miss. the used to express the whole group, classification, time, unique things other than geographical names, adjectives, such as the highest level is easy to grasp, for the special reference is often missed. There is a principle that when we use the, the listener or reader already knows exactly what we are referring to. For example: theauthordesignedanewmachine. themachineisoperatedwithsolarenergy. Since there are more and more abbreviations nowadays, be careful to distinguish between a and an, such as anxray.
Numerals. Avoid the use of Arabic numerals as the first word, such as: threehundreddendrolimustabulaeformislarvaearecollected...in threehundred do not write 300.
Singular and plural. The singular and plural forms of some nouns are not easy to recognize, which can lead to mistakes in the form of predicates.
Try to use short sentences. Because, long sentences are easy to cause semantic ambiguity; but to avoid monotony and repetition. Scientific and technical journals involve a lot of specialties, the English is not easy to grasp, and there are even differences in expressions and phrases between different industries. If you have the opportunity, you should have more contact with your English-speaking counterparts and ask them to change some abstracts or papers written by your countrymen, so as to accumulate experience and find out the rules. If you don't have such opportunities, you should read more English literature, which will also help you to improve your English writing.
5.1 Completeness of the English abstract
At present, most authors write their English abstracts by translating the Chinese abstract (which is usually very simple) into English. This practice ignores the fact that, because the paper is written in Chinese, Chinese readers can get comprehensive and detailed information from the full paper after reading the Chinese abstract, but because English readers (e.g., the editors of ei) generally can't read Chinese, the English abstract becomes his only source of information. Therefore, the completeness of the English abstract should be specially proposed and emphasized here, that is, the information provided in the English abstract must be complete. In this way, even if the reader can not read Chinese, only through the English abstract will be able to have a more complete understanding of the main purpose of the paper, to solve the problem of the main methodology, process, and the main results, conclusions, and the article's innovation, uniqueness, have a more complete understanding. Attention to quantitative analysis is one of the most important features of scientific research. This should also be reflected in the writing of English abstracts. Therefore, when writing an abstract in English, avoid generalizations and conclusions that are too general and empty. Try to utilize the most specific language in the article to describe your methodology, process, results and conclusions, which can not only give readers a clear idea, but also make your thesis well-spoken, well-founded, so that readers have a clear and comprehensive understanding of your research work. Of course, this does not mean that the Chinese abstract does not need to emphasize the integrity. As a matter of fact, the information provided in Chinese abstracts must be complete when the abstracts are published separately on the Internet or when the articles are included in Chinese abstract journals. In addition, due to the great difference between Eastern and Western cultural traditions, China's long-standing traditional education has been somewhat overemphasized intellectuals should be "modest and prudent, guard against arrogance and impatience", so our scholars in the writing of the paper, generally do not pay attention to (or do not dare to) highlight their own contributions. This is the opposite of the Western tradition. Western scholars are always very explicit in highlighting their own contributions, their innovations, and their uniqueness when they write their dissertations. Western readers also pay special attention to what is innovative and unique when they read a paper, otherwise the paper is not considered worth reading. Due to the different readers of Chinese and English abstracts, in view of the above two factors, the author believes that the Chinese and English abstracts do not have to be the same.
5.2 Requirements for English abstracts in ei
At present, most of the English abstracts written by authors are rough and far from the requirements for participation in international communication, and require major revisions and sometimes even rewriting. This is on the one hand due to the limited level of English writing of the authors; on the other hand, it is also due to the fact that most of the authors don't know much about the requirements of writing English abstracts and the international practice. The following is based on the requirements for writing English abstracts in ei, and how to write good English abstracts for scientific and technical papers. The Chinese Information Department of "ei" requires that the informationabstract should use concise and clear language (generally not more than 150 words) to summarize the "purposes" of the paper, the main research "process" and the "methods" used, and the main "results" obtained from it. The main results and important conclusions should be clearly expressed. If possible, try to mention the scope and application of the results and conclusions. That is to say, in order to write a good English abstract, the author must answer the following questions:
1) the purpose of the paper or the problem to be solved (whatiwanttodo?)
2) the methodology and process of solving the problem (howididit?)
3) the main results and conclusions (whatresultsdidigeto?)
3) the main results and conclusions (whatresultsdididigeto?). whatresultsdidigetandwhatconclusionscanidraw)
4) the innovation and uniqueness of this paper (whatisnewandoriginalinthispaper?)
5.3 The writing of each part of the English abstract
According to the requirements for the writing of English abstracts in the ei
According to the "ei" requirements for the writing of English abstracts, there is no set format for the writing of English abstracts, but in general, an English abstract is an accurate and brief summary of the original document without interpretation or comment, and it is required to reflect the main information of the original document.
5.3.1 Purpose (whatiwanttodo?)
Purpose. The main statement of the author's purpose in writing the paper, or the main problem solved in this paper. Generally speaking, a good English abstract, the beginning should be the author of the paper's purpose or the main problem to be solved in a very clear statement clearly. If necessary, a brief description of previous work can be included, utilizing the most recent literature listed in the paper, but this description must be extremely concise. In this regard, ei has two specific requirements:
1) eliminateorminimizebackgroundinformation.
2) avoidrepeatingthetitleorpartofthetitleinthefirstsentenceoftheabstract(avoidrepeatingthetitleorpartofthetitleinthefirstsentenceoftheabstract).
5.3.2 Process and methodology (howididit?)
The main description of the author's main work process and the methodology used should also include the many boundary conditions, the main equipment and instruments used. In an English abstract, the description of the process and methodology serves as an introduction. After the opening statement of the problem to be solved (whatiwanttodo), the next question to be answered is howididit, and the final results and conclusions are often closely related to the research process and methodology. The most common problem of most authors in describing the process and methodology is the generalization, emptiness and only qualitative description, which makes it difficult for readers to understand the process and methodology of solving the problems in the paper. Therefore, in the description of the process and methodology, should be combined with (pointing to) the paper formulas, experimental block diagrams, etc. to elaborate, which can not only give the reader a clear idea, but also to those who can not read the Chinese (but can understand the formulas, diagrams, tables, etc.) of the English readers with a credible feeling.
5.3.3 Results and conclusions (whatresultsdidigetandwhatconclusionscanidraw?)
The results and conclusions section represents the main achievement and contribution of the paper, whether the paper has value, whether it is worthwhile for the reader to read it, mainly depends on the results and conclusions you have obtained. Therefore, in writing the results and conclusions, generally try to combine the experimental results or simulation results of graphs, tables, curves, etc. to illustrate, so that the conclusion of the part of the words of the material, well-founded; at the same time, for those who can not read the Chinese English readers, through the charts and graphs, combined with the English summary of the description of the paper's results and conclusions can be more clearly understood. Only in this way can the conclusions of the paper be persuasive. If possible, you can also compare the results of the paper with the latest research results of others in the concluding part, in order to highlight the main contribution of the paper and the innovation and originality of the paper (answer whatisnewandoriginalinthispaper).
5.3.4 How to improve the quality of the abstract
ei emphasizes the quality of the abstract. In order to improve textual efficiency, all redundant words and sentences should be deleted as much as possible. In this regard, ei proposes two principles:
1) Limit the abstract to one piece of new information.
2) driveforbrevity (try to make the abstract as concise as possible). At present, because most authors are relatively deficient in English writing, the English abstracts written by the authors are far from the requirements of "ei". Some authors write very long English abstracts, but the textual efficiency is very low, and there are a lot of redundant words and sentences; some authors write very short English abstracts, but there are also redundant words and sentences. In short, the information content of the text is low. Therefore, the Chinese Information Department of ei also put forward the following specific requirements for the writing of English abstracts.
5.3.5 Syntax of English abstracts
Regarding the syntax of English abstracts, ei puts forward the following three general principles:
1) Try to use short sentences (useshortsentences).
2) Describe the author's work in the past tense (because the work was done in the past), but use the present tense when stating the conclusions drawn from the work.
3) The active voice of the verb should always be used, e.g. it is better to write aexceedsb than bisexceededbya.
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