The summary is the only part of your submission (besides the cover letter) that the chief editor will read right away (and the very first thing you should do if you are not able to submit any sort of covering letter). The title, abstract, and keywords you submit for your piece should be treated as appetisers. Equally divided, 40% of time should go to the title finalisation, and rest 60% to design the contents of abstract along with the keywords. You want the editor, the reviewers who will ideally follow, and your future readers (should the paper be published) to be enticed by your appetisers, to appreciate the texture and flavour of these delicacies, and to work up an appetite for the weekend dinner (paper) that will follow. You don’t want them to be so stuffed from overly seasoned food or so turned off by a bland, low-quality product that they abandon the table before dinner is served.
The Synopsis or an abstract and in some case, the executive summary for a scholarly or scientific paper ought to be a brief and at the same time, comprehensive summary of the paper’s contents. It should describe rather than assess the content of the article, and it should not include any new information not found there. The abstract, like the title, needs to be detailed without being overly long, and it needs to be written in a way that makes the reader want to know more. Abstracts are usually limited in length to anywhere from 200 to 500 words, with the most common length being 150–250 words; authors are strongly encouraged to stick to these limits despite the challenges they may present. An effective abstract will provide the reader with background information on the problem or concept being studied, details about the study’s participants and methodology, and a brief summary of the study’s main findings, implications, and conclusions, along with limitations that the study could not explore. Bring the fact that, the relevance and rigour in which the study methodology was adopted makes the abstract qualitative, per se. Have a line or two, in bringing the value and impact, along with implications of the study outcomes.
The abstract should be written in accordance with the journal’s instructions, which may state that it should be a single paragraph or divided into shorter paragraphs, each with its own heading (such as “Background,” “Method,” and “Results”), and may also specify that different types of abstracts are required for different types of papers (empirical studies, literature reviews, case study, general review, etc.).
Sometimes, a journal’s rules will tell you what should be in the abstract or what each part of the abstract should be about. But most of the time, only the author can decide what the abstract is about and how it is put together.You should base your decision on what you think the journal editor will find most appropriate and interesting for his or her readers, as well as what you think is the most important part of your study. Keep in mind that the abstract is your chance to entice the journal editor to read the rest of the paper, as well as your chance to entice potential readers to engage with the paper and cite it in their own work once it’s released. As a result, you should use complete, well-structured, and grammatically accurate English sentences to write your abstract. Each sentence should convey as much information and meaning as possible in as few words as possible, and each main word should be selected with great care, not only for its denotations but also for its potential connotations. The writing should be clear and concise, and if it manages to add nuance in a way that seems appropriate to the journal’s interests, then all the better. Getting the focus and confidence of your reader, especially the journal editor, depends on a first sentence that is flawless in terms of both content, style, and relevance. As good as keywords, balance them and present so that, your comprehensive work is reflected in keywords, and maximum search one does, your paper should reflect on first page of any search engine.
Writing a high-quality abstract for a scholarly article is a difficult job, and abstracts are frequently revised before publication. In my personal experience, whether I write it in the beginning or last after a first one to be changed later, I invest nearly 70% of my time designing and structuring the abstract. This is a experience I’m sharing because I received 3-4 fully funded International Financial scholarship to attend World Conferences, and it was only half page with limited words for the abstract to be given, which was approximately 20 pages of full length paper. Craft carefully and you never know, the next full funding is on your way.
