The reading summary is done by: Brianna White (ENGL300-1) and Joe Fleischauer (ENGL300-2)
Due by class time on: Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011
The responses by the whole class are due by class time on: Fri., March 4th, 2011 (although this day is off!!!)
The text you need to read is here.
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ReplyDeleteThis article, written by The Writing Center at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill explains what an abstract is and defines the two major types. They define an abstract as “a self-contained, short, and powerful statement that describes a larger work.” Authors write abstracts for two reasons, selection and indexing, which allow people to search on-line for keywords found in the abstract itself. The Writing Center uses the example of a person searching for “how Brazilian newspapers helped Brazil's ultra-liberal president Luiz Ignácio da Silva wrest power from the traditional, conservative power base.” The person doing research can search for keywords contained within the abstract and allow him or her to make the search as efficient as possible. Abstracts are also used for indexing, which pertains to the way the article is sorted and searched for. Similar to selection, indexing is the process of searching for an article by using keywords, but instead of doing a full text search of the article itself, he or she can perform a search of abstracts.
ReplyDeleteThere are two types of abstracts, descriptive and informative. Descriptive abstracts do not contain any personal opinions on the text and deal primarily with the “reason for writing”, “problem”, and “methodology”. Informative abstracts on the other hand take this a step further and contain “results” and “implications” in addition to the other aspects. The Writing Center advises against referring extensively to other sources in the abstract and defining terms, because those are more specific, and addressed in the article itself. The abstract should function more along the lines of a summary.
For abstracting your own work, they suggest using a technique known as “reverse outlining,” which is where the author summarizes the main points of each section of the article in one sentence. For abstracting someone else’s work, The Writing Center suggests first “identify[ing] key terms,” then “highlight[ing] key phrases and sentences,” and finally, “not look[ing] back,” which can make the process harder than it needs to be.
The Writing Center concludes the article with examples of two abstracts, one from a humanities dissertation and the other from a science dissertation. The humanities abstract “examines the impacts of social movements through a multi-layered study of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement from its peak in the early 1960s through the early 1980s.” They also state that Andrews, who wrote the dissertation and abstract, defines his methodology by stating that he used, “a quantitative analysis of county-level data and three case studies.” His abstract ends with the results or conclusion he came to and a description of the materials he used. He also highlights searchable keywords throughout the abstract.
The science abstract, written by Luis Lehner, also summarizes his dissertation. First, he states why he did the study. In this case it was “the problem of detecting gravitational radiation is receiving considerable attention with the construction of new detectors in the United States, Europe, and Japan.” Second, he says what the study does and third, he gives his results, along with searchable keywords.
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ReplyDeleteMany people may not know what an abstract is or how to even write one. In the article “Abstracts,” written by The Writing Center at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, they explain what an abstract is, how to create one and the different types people use. The article defines an abstract as a “self-contained, short, and powerful statement that describes a larger work.” When an abstract is written it contains key words used in the larger work from the original document.
ReplyDeleteWhen writing abstracts there are two different types of ways it can be done. The first type of abstract is Informative the second type of abstract is Descriptive. When writing an informative abstract the person has to explain all the arguments and statements written in the article or book. The informative abstract also covers the information that could be found in the descriptive abstract. Descriptive abstracts include the purpose, methods, and the scope of the research. It is a short outline that discusses the type of information found in the original document.
In order to write an abstract there are a few key process elements given from the article that could be very helpful. The first step is the reason for writing the abstract, what is its importance. Know what problem the work is trying to solve. Also know what type of evidence is used in the research. You also need to look at the results and include specific data. Lastly figure out how the work adds to the knowledge on the topic. Abstracting your own writing could be more difficult than abstracting someone else’s writing. When abstracting your own work you must find the main ideas from each paragraph and construct it into smaller sentences. When abstracting someone else’s work you have to find out what the reader might want to know about the document.
This article was very informative. Before reading this I had an idea in my head of what an abstract was but I wasn't totally clear on it. I think reading this may help me write my own abstract for our research essay. For me, writing this would be hard because I would want to summarize my work, yet keep it interesting. When reading other people's articles I actually prefer seeing abstracts because they give you an idea of what is to come. When I chose my sources I read through the abstracts to determine if it connected with my purpose for the paper.
ReplyDeleteKnowing how to write an abstract is an important skill for every student since they must have time to write a research paper. Before I read this useful article, I do not know what an abstract is and what the function of it is as Brianna White said in her comment. I think there are also a big amount of students not to know it as well. I think abstract is vital as a spirit of a research paper, it is not only simply introduce its body. It plays a role to attract people to choose it to read. Therefore, this is really an effective article. I like it. :)
ReplyDeleteThis article was very helpful and useful to my research essay. I didn't know very much about abstracts or the exact purpose of them. I didn’t know that there are multiple types of abstracts or details about each of them. The two types of abstracts are: descriptive and informative. An abstract does more than summarize an essay; it grabs the attention of the reader and motivates him/her to continue reading. I now have a better understanding of the purpose of an abstract, and I am looking forward to improving my own.
ReplyDeleteThis article contains information about what an abstract is. By reading this article, I learned that an abstract is a self-contained, short, and powerful statement that describes a larger work. This article was more useful to us as students, I believe, because this information is something we can use on a regular basis throughout college. For example, in our English class we have recently had to write an abstract for our research paper. After writing my abstract and then reading this article, the reason for writing that abstract has become a little more clear.
ReplyDeleteThis article was very informative. When I am reading journals and research papers online, I usually read the abstract. Therefore, I had an idea of what an abstract is, but I never thought I would have to write one. This article would have been helpful to read a week ago, and not after I wrote my abstract.
ReplyDeleteThis article is not only interesting, but will be helpful to me in writing the abstract for my research paper. I have had to write an abstract in the past, but it was a very long time ago, so I have gotten quite rusty at it. I hope that it helps me in writing a better abstract. I'll make sure to keep the recommendations in mind while writing my own abstract.
ReplyDeleteThis article was informative but I think I still have the preconceived idea about abstract writing. When it comes to this type of writing, I think of it when it comes to writing stories, in a deep way or deep expressed ideas. I'm in English 381A and I can see more abstract writing on a regular basis. I do now have a better understanding of abstract writing and reading a particular piece in the abstract. This was a good teaching on how to write in the abstract, which was completely different from my preconceived notions about this topic.
ReplyDeleteFor me, this article was very interesting and informative. I hadn’t ever really been taught what abstract was, so I definitely was not clear on the topic before reading the articles/summaries. I can relate this article to our research essays, so that is useful. I learned abstract is not just summarizing an article, which was what my basic idea was. It needs to keep it interesting as best as possible, which is something I think I could improve on. I am glad we had the opportunity to learn a little bit more before submitting our final copy of our essay.
ReplyDeleteThis article was very good because it taught us an important skill to learn. Honestly, before this class and especially before reading this article I didn't know anything about writing an abstract. this very vital to learn because this could help you excel in your writing. I believe that it is good and helpful to read on informative tips. I agree with the commenter above, this will definitely help me improve my research essay.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this article I felt as though I became well rounded on why we use abstracts in our papers and just period. When am abstract s available it makes searches a lot easier than without one being available. I do find that sometimes even with the extra help of an abstract it doesn't Always help. I would say the flaw in this is when you type in keywords and results you never anted pop up. All in all this does narrow things down.
ReplyDeleteThis was a very informative article. I never quite knew that one way to write an abstract is to treat it like an outline. That would be the most logical way to do it really. It always seemed tough to write an abstract considering you had to almost smash a multi page paper together and in only one pararaph. But treating it as an outine would cut back on the tnesion involved in that.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that most interested me in this article was the abstract being a place for key terms. Abstracts are great for getting the gist of a paper and seeing if it will be useful to you. I just started using the Morris Library's journal sources and those abstracts have saved me a lot of time. My own abstract for our paper was been struggling but I believe I have a better hold on it now.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very important article for doing our research paper. It gives us a clear idea of what an abstract looks like and what it contains. I did not know much about indexes within abstracts before I read this article and it definitely helped with learning that. Also, the two types of abstracts are informative and descriptive. We will be writing an informative for our upcoming paper.
ReplyDeleteI thought that this article would be a great handout for students who have never written an abstract before. I didn't necessarily learn anything new because I've read a lot of abstracts before and written a few of them, but it was a good review for me. I like the way the author of the article laid everything out so plainly, and I thought it was very thoroughly explained. I liked that the author included plenty of examples for reference, as well.
ReplyDeleteThere are two types of abstracts, descriptive and informative. This article, written by The Writing Center at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill explains what an abstract is and defines the two major types. Many people may not know what an abstract is or how to even write one. This article was very informative. Before reading this I had an idea in my head of what an abstract was but I wasn't totally clear on it. Knowing how to write an abstract is an important skill for every student since they must have time to write a research paper. . It always seemed tough to write an abstract considering you had to almost smash a multi-page paper together and in only one paragraph.
ReplyDeleteI do not fully understand the difference between informative and a descriptive abstract. They seem the same with the exception of the word length.
ReplyDeleteBefore reading this article I had no idea what an abstract was. After reading it however it made more sense to me and was apparent that it was an important piece in a research paper. Once I understood this writing my own abstract for my research paper became easier. Before I was unsure of what needed to be included in it for my research paper to be successful, but now I am confident that it is. The summaries done for this article helped better my understanding of that.
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