怎么写论文摘要

How to Write an Abstract

PhilipKoopman, Carnegie Mellon University
October, 1997

Abstract

Because on-line search databases typically contain only abstracts, it isvital to write a complete but concise description of your work to enticepotential readers into obtaining a copy of the full paper. This articledescribes how to write a good computer architecture abstract for bothconference and journal papers. Writers should follow a checklist consisting of:motivation, problem statement, approach, results, and conclusions. Followingthis checklist should increase the chance of people taking the time to obtainand read your complete paper.

Introduction

Now that the use of on-line publication databases is prevalent, writing areally good abstract has become even more important than it was a decade ago.Abstracts have always served the function of "selling" your work. Butnow, instead of merely convincing the reader to keep reading the rest of theattached paper, an abstract must convince the reader to leave the comfort of anoffice and go hunt down a copy of the article from a library (or worse, obtainone after a long wait through inter-library loan). In a business context, an"executive summary" is often the only piece of a report readby the people who matter; and it should be similar in content if not tone to ajournal paper abstract.

Checklist: Parts of an Abstract

Despite the fact that an abstract is quite brief, it must do almost as muchwork as the multi-page paper that follows it. In a computer architecture paper,this means that it should in most cases include the following sections. Eachsection is typically a single sentence, although there is room for creativity.In particular, the parts may be merged or spread among a set of sentences. Usethe following as a checklist for your next abstract:

• Motivation:
  Why do we care about the problem and the results? If the problem isn'tobviously "interesting" it might be better to put motivation first;but if your work is incremental progress on a problem that is widely recognizedas important, then it is probably better to put the problem statement first toindicate which piece of the larger problem you are breaking off to work on.This section should include the importance of your work, the difficulty of thearea, and the impact it might have if successful.
• Problem statement:
  What problem are you trying to solve? What is the scope of yourwork (a generalized approach, or for a specific situation)? Be careful not touse too much jargon. In some cases it is appropriate to put the problemstatement before the motivation, but usually this only works if most readersalready understand why the problem is important.
• Approach:
  How did you go about solving or making progress on the problem? Did youuse simulation, analytic models, prototype construction, or analysis of fielddata for an actual product? What was the extent of your work (did youlook at one application program or a hundred programs in twenty differentprogramming languages?) What important variables did you control,ignore, or measure?
• Results:
  What's the answer? Specifically, most good computer architecture papersconclude that something is so many percent faster, cheaper, smaller, orotherwise better than something else. Put the result there, in numbers. Avoidvague, hand-waving results such as "very", "small", or"significant." If you must be vague, you are only given license to doso when you can talk about orders-of-magnitude improvement. There is a tensionhere in that you should not provide numbers that can be easily misinterpreted,but on the other hand you don't have room for all the caveats.
• Conclusions:
  What are the implications of your answer? Is it going to change theworld (unlikely), be a significant "win", be a nice hack, or simplyserve as a road sign indicating that this path is a waste of time (all of theprevious results are useful). Are your results general, potentiallygeneralizable, or specific to a particular case?

Other Considerations

An abstract must be a fully self-contained, capsule description of thepaper. It can't assume (or attempt to provoke) the reader into flipping throughlooking for an explanation of what is meant by some vague statement. It mustmake sense all by itself. Some points to consider include:

• Meet the word count limitation. If your abstract runs too long, either itwill be rejected or someone will take a chainsaw to it to get it down to size.Your purposes will be better served by doing the difficult task of cuttingyourself, rather than leaving it to someone else who might be more interestedin meeting size restrictions than in representing your efforts in the bestpossible manner. An abstract word limit of 150 to 200 words is common.
• Any major restrictions or limitations on the results should be stated, ifonly by using "weasel-words" such as "might","could", "may", and "seem".
• Think of a half-dozen search phrases and keywords that people looking foryour work might use. Be sure that those exact phrases appear in your abstract,so that they will turn up at the top of a search result listing.
• Usually the context of a paper is set by the publication it appears in (forexample, IEEE Computer magazine's articles are generally about computertechnology). But, if your paper appears in a somewhat un-traditional venue, besure to include in the problem statement the domain or topic area that it isreally applicable to.
• Some publications request "keywords". These have two purposes.They are used to facilitate keyword index searches, which are greatly reducedin importance now that on-line abstract text searching is commonly used.However, they are also used to assign papers to review committees or editors,which can be extremely important to your fate. So make sure that the keywordsyou pick make assigning your paper to a review category obvious (for example,if there is a list of conference topics, use your chosen topic area as one ofthe keyword tuples).

Conclusion

Writing an efficient abstract is hard work, but will repay you withincreased impact on the world by enticing people to read your publications.Make sure that all the components of a good abstract are included in the nextone you write.

Further Reading

Michaelson, Herbert, How to Write & Publish Engineering Papers andReports, Oryx Press, 1990. Chapter 6 discusses abstracts.

Cremmins, Edward, The Art of Abstracting 2nd Edition, Info ResourcesPress, April 1996. This is an entire book about abstracting, written primarilyfor professional abstractors.

Translations of this article:

• Belarusian: http://www.fatcow.com/edu/abstract-be/
• Romanian:http://www.azoft.com/people/seremina/edu/abstract-rom.html
• German:http://autoersatzteile.de/blog/das-schreiben-einer-zusammenfassung