At its simplest, an abstract is a short piece of writing containing all the key points of the article or project report to follow. The abstract may, or may not, have a visible structure, and its function is to indicate the potential usefulness of a piece of writing. As an author, your aim is to share enough information in the abstract for the readers to decide if your writing is likely to be useful or of interest to them.
Writing an abstract can be daunting, which is where the six sentences come in. Writing a single sentence feels much more achievable, and by writing a single sentence in answer to each of six prompts, you’ll have the foundation of your abstract, without feeling stifled by the pressure of working to a formal abstract structure.
The six sentence prompts are:
- What did you want to find out?
- What did you find out?
- What did you learn?
- What did you do to find out?
- Why is your topic important?
- Sum up your project in one sentence.
The average sentence is 25 words, so you’re likely to have already written about 150 words in your six sentences, and for some publications this is enough! When you look back you can see that your sentence line up with abstract headings, and your sentences simply need reordering:
- What did you want to find out? (3. Purpose)
- What did you find out? (5. Results)
- What did you learn? (6. Conclusion)
- What did you do to find out? (4. Methods)
- Why is your topic important? (2. Background/Introduction)
- Sum up your project in one sentence. (1. Descriptive Title)
For other publications you’ll have an opportunity to add more detail. This extra word count can be especially helpful if you want to provide more context to for your writing project (your Background/Introduction), or further details of what you did to find out (your Methods). Check the author guidelines to confirm the word allowance and, if they use them, the preferred section headings of your chosen journal or event.
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