An abstract is a concise summary of a research paper or entire thesis, usually about a paragraph long. It is placed at the beginning of the paper, immediately following the title page, and should be the last thing that you write, once you are sure of the conclusions you will reach. The purpose of an abstract is to outline briefly all parts of the paper, including the research purpose, the relevance or importance of the work, and the main outcomes. It serves multiple purposes, such as letting readers get the gist or essence of the paper or article quickly, preparing readers to follow the detailed information, analyses, and arguments in the full paper, and helping readers remember key points from the paper. Abstracts are important for both selection and indexing purposes, and are usually required for submission of articles to journals, application for research grants, completion and submission of theses, and submission of proposals for conference papers. The format of an abstract depends on the discipline in which you are working, but all abstracts generally cover the following five sections: reason for writing, problem, methods, results, and conclusion.