Following these five simple guidelines for structure and content will help you to ensure that your abstract can be understood by a wide audience.

Ethics

• Indicate the ways in which your research approaches and methodologies are underpinned by ethical decision-making (refer to the GERAIS).

Purpose

• Explain the purpose of your study/paper.
• Ideally in one sentence, state the primary objectives and scope of the study or the reasons why the document was written.
• Also state the rationale for your research. Why did you do the research? Is the topic you are researching an ignored or newly discovered one?

Methodology

• Clearly state the techniques or approaches used in your study.
• For papers concerned with non-experimental work (such as those in the humanities, some social sciences and the fine arts) describe your sources and your use/interpretation of the sources.

Result

• Describe your findings, the data collected and the effects observed as informatively and concisely as possible.
• If these results are experimental or theoretical, note it.
• Give special priority to new and verified findings that contradict previous theories. Mention any limits to the accuracy or reliability of your findings.

Conclusions

• Describe the implications of the results — why the results of your research are important to your field — and how they relate to your investigation’s purpose.
• Include recommendations, suggestions and both rejected and accepted hypotheses if appropriate.