Abstracting Research
Abstracting is a technique used in research to help you assimilate
large volumes of research. The purpose of this assignment is for you to become familiar with
the skill.
Do the project in the following steps:
1. Select five articles using one of the
following methods:
- Choose the top five articles from your bibliography cards.
- Take the latest issue of the most important journal to your reading.
Select five articles from it that interest you. If the latest issue
does not contain five articles, go into the next earlier issue.
2. Abstract the articles.
Write an abstract for each of the articles selected. We want you to master the art of
abstracting and time has shown that the following conventions produce the most useful abstracts:
- Each abstract should be on a separate page
- Write in paragraph style rather than just listing information.
- At the top of the page, provide the proper citation for the article (in APA or MLA format).
- In one or two paragraphs, summarize the content of the article. Include the following:
- Provide a summary statement for the purpose of the article
- List the hypotheses being tested or the thesis of the article.
- Identify the key concepts informing the work and how those concepts are defined.
- Describe how the researcher went about his/her work.
- Explain the findings of the article.
- Explain the significance of the findings.
- DO NOT copy or simply reword the abstract at the top of the journal article. These abstracts are usually
insufficient summaries compared to the information required above.
Return to the Weekly schedule