Abstract

You must pay particular attention to writing the abstract of your paper. Your abstract is essential for providing a condensed, potted history of your results in a fraction of the words that you use in the paper. Like a Readers Digest Condensed Book, this section of your paper should only convey the most interesting and most important parts of your work. Ideally, your abstract will be added to a public database such as MEDLINE® or PubMed® and will therefore achieve a much wider distribution than the journal article itself. People don’t read the whole article unless they have a vested interest in the topic and many people rely on reading the abstract to decide whether to obtain the entire article.  The abstract should be organised by first stating the aims of the study followed by the basic study design and methods. This should then be followed by the main results including specific data and their statistical significance. Finally, finish with the conclusion and interpretation.