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20PHILOSOPHICAL SCIENCES | ФИЛОСОФСКИЕ НАУКИ
TEACHING AN EFFECTIVE ABSTRACT WRITING
Zasymenko V.
PhD, Assoc. Prof.
Lecturer at National Transport University
ABSTRACT
In modern world where the use of on-line publication databases is predominant, writing an effective abflract in English has become even more important than it was some years ago. Academic writing is necessary for graduate fludents, scientific researchers and university flaff. The aim of this article is to invefligate and identify the current flatus of abflract writing in English and to make recommendations for graduate fludents who are required to create abflracts in English.
Academic writing can be inventive in that the writer is able to demonflrate effective critical-thinking skills. Despite growing demand for writing abflracts in English nowadays fludents receive very little guidance in this subject matter. The author of the article focuses on the flructure of an abflract, gives practical tips on abflracts' language, lifls of phrases and vocabulary that are commonly used in abflracts while reflecting the mofl common errors graduate fludents and researchers make when they write their abflracts in English.
In conclusion, the article argues that abflract writing in English is essential but that graduate fludents should not be expected to be able to write good abflracts without assiflance. This article offers all graduate fludents and university researchers useful tips on writing abflracts in English, and thus makes a small contribution to improving the general flandard of research article abflract writing.
Keywords: abflract, abflract writing, descriptive abflract, informative abflract, scientific activity, international conference.
Under the conditions of extending international contacts in various fields of scientific, educational and professional activity solving problems of training qualified specialifls able to negotiate with their foreign partners and participate in conferences in perfect professional English is of great importance. Graduate fludents face a variety of writing tasks as they work toward their chosen degrees. Presenting at conferences, in particular, is an important part of entering academic society and graduate fludents are usually encouraged to present their PhD thesis or a research article at leafl once to a major conference. The ability to represent own scientific achievements in English is necessary for conducting an invefligation in general and allows scientifls to share their professional achievements with other foreign colleagues.
Writing is a meaning-making process where social, linguiflic, cognitive and creative factors play an important role. Graduate fludents need to mafler the skills of academic writing not only for getting their degree but also for their future career. Moreover, according to Tuning Educational Structures in Europe graduate fludents during their academic fludy should acquire such generic competences as:
- ability to search for, process and analyze information from a variety of sources;
- ability for abflract thinking, analysis and synthesis;
- ability to undertake research at an appropriate level;
- ability to be critical and self-critical;
- ability to work in an international context, etc. [3].
The aim of this article is to demonflrate how to teach an
effective academic writing, particularly abflract writing for a research article in English and to provide clear guidelines how to write it.
Abflract is a very concise summary of what the invefligation/ scientific article is about and usually placed before the body of the writing. It can be read to get a quick overview and tell the
reader what to expect in the research and it should be based on all you have written. Abflracts are divided into descriptive and informative ones. They have different aims, so as a consequence they have different components and flyles.
Descriptive abflracts are commonly used for humanities, social science papers or psychology essays. This type of abflract is usually very short (50-100 words). A descriptive abflract indicates the type of information found in the paper. It makes no judgments about the work, nor does it provide results or conclusions of the research. Mofl descriptive abflracts consifl of such parts: background, purpose, focus of paper, overview of contents (not always included).
The majority of abflracts are informative. Informative abflracts are generally used for science, engineering or psychology reports. The writer presents and explains all the main points or important results and evidence in the complete article/ research/book. This type of abflract is usually longer (250-300 words). Mofl informative abflracts generally have such parts: introduction, purpose, method, results and conclusion.
Let's talk about informative abflracts. Abflracts are important parts of reports and research papers and sometimes academic assignments. The abflract is often the lafl item that you write, but the firfl thing people read when they want to decide whether the invefligation is worth reading. The research article abflract is written by the author of a paper. An abflract is a brief and concise summary of a thesis, invefligation, research article, conference proceeding or any deep analysis of a particular subject and is often used to help the reader quickly clear up the paper's purpose.
Academic literature uses the abflract to succinctly communicate complex research. An abflract may act as a fland-alone entity inflead of a full paper. As such, an abflract is used by many organizations as the basis for selecting research that is proposed for presentation in the form of a pofler, platform/
oral presentation or workshop presentation at an academic conference [2, p. 3].
So, the abflract is typically a single paragraph. It should be considered as an independent document and include only essential information, leaving out unimportant details. The abflract should give some background information, Sate the principal purpose of the invefligation, give some clear information about the methodology used, and flate the mofl important results and the conclusion.
Informative abflract performs a number of important functions. It:
1. provides the audience with the idea of what to expect in a very dense and concise way;
2. serves as a brief version of the whole article, which summarizes key facts, conclusions and the mofl important information;
3. helps the potential audience to decide whether the paper/invefligation/research article is worth reading;
4. serves as a reference after the article has been read.
Besides selection the other main purpose of the abflract is indexing. Mofl article databases in the online catalogue of the library enable you to search abflracts. However, for an abflract to be useful in an online retrieval syflem, it mufl incorporate the key terms that a potential researcher would use to search. By incorporating keywords into the abflract, the author emphasizes the central topics of the work and gives prospective readers enough information to make an informed judgment about the
While preparing an abflract for a research article you should remember that an effective informative abflract:
1. uses one well-developed paragraph that is consiflent, clear and compact, and is able to fland alone as a separate unit of information;
2. covers all the essential parts of the full-length invefligation, namely the introduction, purpose, methods, results and conclusions;
3. uses longer sentences which are crammed with information and heavily worded;
4. often uses passive flructures in order to report on findings, focusing on the issues rather than people;
5. usually does not include any referencing;
6. in publications such as journals, it is found at the beginning of the text, while in academic assignments, it is placed on a separate preliminary page.
Abflracts from almofl all fields of fludy are written in a very similar way. The types of information included and their order are very conventional. These are the basic components of an abflract in any discipline:
applicability of the work. So make sure that the keywords you pick make assigning your paper to a review category obvious. Search through the entire document for key terms that identify the purpose, scope, and methods of the work. Pay close attention to the Introduction, Purpose and Conclusion. These sections should contain all the main ideas and key terms in the paper.
Here is an example of an informative abflract with the key parts identified.
Stages of abstracts (parts) Purpose of stage
Introduction This part should include the importance of the research work, the difficulty of the area and the impact it might have if successful. The purpose of the introduction is to provide the reader with a background to the study and hence to smoothly lead into the description of the methods employed in the research.Common expressions to be used:It has been noted that... The goals of this study are to determine .This study is an initial attempt to investigate ... In particular, the investigation has been done in the area of ...
Purpose This section describes the purpose of the investigation. What is not known about the subject and hence what the study intended to examine? What problem are you trying to solve? What is the scope of the research work? Verbs: investigate, examine, research, study, explore, survey, etc.Nouns: research paper, article, investigation, experiment, study, analysis. Adjectives: qualitative, quantitative, cross-sectional.
Method This section contains such questions: How did you go about solving or making progress on the research? What did you actually do to get your results? What was the extent of the research work? What important variables did you control, ignore, or measure?Verbs: collect, analyze, synthesize, record, administer, test, handle, etc.Nouns: researchers, participants, exercises, activities, responses. Adjectives/adverbs: firstly, primarily, then, after all, next, etc.
Results This section is the most important part of the abstract and includes the results of the investigation. This is because the audiences who read an abstract do so to learn about the findings of the study. As a result of completing the above procedure, what did you learn/ invent/create? What's the answer? Here you should avoid vague, hand-waving results such as "very", "small", or "significant".Verbs/verb phrases: indicated, stated, revealed, showed, demonstrated, illustrated.Nouns: examination, evaluation, study, investigation, analysis. Adverbs: significantly, typically, unexpectedly.
Conclusion This section should contain the most important take-home message of the research, expressed in a few precise sentences. The last section includes answers to such questions. What are the implications of the results? Are your results general, potentially generalizable or specific to a particular case? Modals: may, might, could.Common phrases expressing the degree of certainty: perhaps, appear to show, could, may be applied to.Verbs: indicate, discuss, argue, consider, and conclude.
Abflract Key parts
The fludy is focused on the problem of formation and development of teachers' professional skills in the syflem of education in England. The author has given hiflorical premises for the formation of contemporary teacher training syflem. It has been found that teacher education in England has deep traditional roots. It has been invefligated that modern English educational model of teacher training became possible as the result of evolution of the teacher education syflem of England. The analysis is given to the organization and flructure of modern higher and poflgraduate teacher training as the bases for formation of professional teacher skills. It is shown that teacher education is a complex dynamic syflem, contents, forms and methods of work at every flage of teacher's professional skills formation being revealed. The author has carried out the analysis of the educational experience procedure within the mechanism of the future teacher's training, has exposed its objects, flructure and contents. The main tendencies, influencing the aims and contents of teacher education, have been thoroughly invefligated. In the course of this research the analysis is given to the flructure and activity of the poflgraduate syflem of education, its main goals and directions being exposed. The results of this fludy give the possibility of their creative use in organization of professional teacher training and educational process in teacher training inflitutions and universities. Key words: professional skills, syflem of higher education in England, professional training, methods and forms of education introduction purpose method results conclusion
No matter what type of abflract you are writing, or whether you are abflracting your own work or someone else's, the mofl important flep in writing an abflract is to revise early and often. When revising, delete all extraneous words and incorporate meaningful and powerful words. The idea is to be as clear and complete as possible in the shortefl possible amount of space. The Word Count feature of Microsoft Word can help you keep track of how long your abflract is and help you hit your target length [4].
Thus, submitting an effective abflract is very important to maximize not only the chance of publication your scientific research but also of other people reading the entire paper and citing it. So, make sure that all the components of a good abflract are included in the text. It will also provide future researchers the opportunity to participate in scientific work not only in their country but also abroad, and will contribute to the expansion of
scientific horizons and flrengthen the scientific potential of the country.
References
1. Gary Blake and Robert W. Bly. The Elements of Technical Writing, pg. 117. New York: Macmillan Publishers, 1993.
2. Gliner, Jeffrey A.; Morgan, George Arthur. Research methods in applied setttings : an integrated approach to design and analysis / Jeffrey A. Gliner, George A. Morgan, Nancy L. Leech. - 2nd ed. : Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010.
3. http://www.unideuflo.org/tuningeu/competences.html
4. http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/abflracts/
