An abstract is a short, objective description of an intellectual resource, usually a written document. Professors often assign students to write abstracts to accompany their papers.
When writing an abstract, it is important to keep in mind the purposes of an abstract. One main purpose is to provide readers with useful information about a document. Another main purpose of an abstract is to help readers to evaluate and select a document that they would find useful in their own research. An abstract should allow a reader to get the bare-bones information about a document without requiring them to read the actual document.
An abstract is NOT, however, a simple summary of a document; neither is it a critique of a document.
Writing the Abstract
Because an abstract is a description of an entire document, you can write an abstract only for a document that is complete. If you are writing an abstract as part of a class paper, you need to finish your paper before you start working on your abstract.
