Writing and Publishing a Scientific Research Paper

s can be broadly classified as descriptive and informative abstracts [4]. 4.1.3.1 Descriptive Abstracts These abstracts describe the purpose and scope of the paper but do not mention about the findings. Typically it is short ranging up to 75–100 words and often used in papers in the field such as social science and humanities. There is no discussion on the results or the conclusion derived from the study. 4.1.3.2 Informative Abstracts These abstracts, on the other hand, apart from providing an overview of the work, emphasize on the important findings and conclusions. It is commonly used for scientific abstracts with usual word limit of 250–300. It can be roughly estimated as one-tenth the length of the original manuscript which is clear and concise and can sketch a succinct picture as an independent entity. Further description in this chapter is pertaining to an informative abstract. The layout of an informative abstract can be classified as structured and unstructured abstract [5]. 4.1.3.3 Unstructured Abstracts In these types of abstracts, there are no pre-labeled sections in the abstract. However, all the details required in the abstract are included similar to a structured abstract. This is more commonly used for case reports rather than original articles. 4.1.3.4 Structured Abstracts The layout of these abstracts has distinct and labeled sections thus enabling better comprehension. It has been reported that, with the use of a better-structured format, there has been a significant improvement in the quality of information provided [6]. Hence, structured abstracts are now the preferred layout by most of the journals. Though initiated for original articles, it is being used for case reports as well. For example: The following table demonstrates how a structured abstract enhances the quality of information and ease of comprehension of the same abstract [7]. The abstract has been modified for explaining the details. 4 Abstract and Keywords