What’s the purpose of an Abstract? 

• Should be able to stand alone and give a high-level summary of the aim, methods, results & conclusion without needing to read the full manuscript.
• Everyone can access the abstract while not everyone can access the full text. 

How to structure the Abstract

Background. The aim here is to hook the reader so 1-2 sentences give a general context (trying to get across why this research is important) and the general aim of the study. Make sure people from lots of disciplines can understand the motivation behind the study as it could be read by people outside of academia too, e.g., clinicians, policy makers, funders, journalists, public. 
Methods. Outline the main inclusion criteria (e.g., inactive 13-18yo girls in Ireland), groupings (e.g., intervention v control arms), main conditions/ intervention (e.g., 12-week community-based yoga programme), data collection time points (e.g., baseline, post and 3-month follow-up). 
Results. Primary outcome results first, followed by secondary. Include p-values, SD, odd ratio etc. wherever possible. For every outcome measure you list in the methods section, male sure to give a result.  You don’t need to give every single results here. 
Conclusion. 1-2 lines summing up the main finding and how this impacts future work. Make sure conclusion links back to primary objective. 

7 Tips on nailing the Abstract is vital. 

1.    Usually about 1 paragraph, 150-250 words.

2.    Unless your paper is open access, the abstract is what will be made available online for free, so more people are likely to read this compared to the full article.

3.    When you submit your manuscript to a journal, the abstract is going to be sent out to invited reviewers. They will read this before they decide whether to review it. If they decline, the publication process is likely to be delayed.

4.    Good idea to write it last. You will have already thought through how you want to communicate the research aims, methods and key results so writing the abstract should be an easier task than tackling it first.

5.    Make sure you read the authorship guidelines on the journal website as journals have different requirements on the layout and word count of the abstract.

6.    You usually don’t need references within the abstract. 

7.    While you are still waiting for the manuscript to be published, the abstract can be used for submission to conference presentations.