Answered By: Jon Allinder
Last Updated: Jan 21, 2022     Views: 11116

An abstract gives you key information about an article or other resource. It is like a summary but with more detailed and structured information. Abstracts vary in length but are very rarely more than a few paragraphs.

Abstracts:

  • provide information such as the scope of the article, research methodology used, theories applied, or surveys and instruments used.

  • can help you determine if the article is relevant to your topic, more so than just the title.

  • are standard for most research articles.  Although not every article you find in a Walden database will have an abstract.

  • may also appear at the beginning of an article, before the introduction.

  • may be written by the article's author or the publisher.

 

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