Abstracts
Abstracts can be written before or after you've actually written a paper or an article. A typical reason for writing an abstract before you've written the essay is to respond to a 'call for papers' for a conference or journal. In this case, your purpose is to convince the organisers or editors that you have a valuable idea to deliver. If accepted, your task is to write the paper you have proposed and try to stick to the proposal. An abstract written after the paper is able to detail the content in a very short summary.
When writing an abstract, the key things to consider are:
- purpose,
- central argument,
- methodology,
- results and
- implications of the paper's findings.
Abstracts in different disciplines will contain slightly different components and may be written in different styles - one written for the social sciences or a scientific report is likely to include the scope, purpose and results of the work; one in the arts is more likely to include background to the study, the central thesis and conclusions drawn. The abstract shouldn't be excerpted from the original paper, yet it should contain keywords of the study - this is particularly important so that your abstract can be easily searched in electronic databases.
| In this essay the forms of agricultural assistance will be discussed in terms of the type of assistance, the rates of assistance to agriculture in comparison with those of other industries, the effects of assistance, and finally, whether assistance can be justified. | Purpose |
| Focus group interviews were carried out with Somalian women, analysed by means of the Grounded theory method. | Methodology |
| The results show that factors both in the family and in the outside world influenced their food choice and traditions, both in their home country of Somalia and in their new country, Sweden, after migration. | Results |
| The categories generated in the analysis were brought together in a model showing the women 'struggling for their own cultural identity' and oscillating between 'remaining Somalian' and 'becoming part of Swedish society', food being an important instrument in maintaining the cultural identity of their families. Cultural identity in this respect is a matter of the wishes of the husband, followed by those of the women and children and, at the same time, the strong pressure of the Swedish host country. | Conclusions |
| This indicates how important it is for professionals to be aware of the trust people have in their own cultural food and therefore also how necessary it is to give culturally adapted food advice through public health work, in this case to Somalian families. | Implications |
