An abstract is a short summary of a research paper or entire thesis, usually about a paragraph long. It is an original work, not an excerpted passage, and must be fully self-contained and make sense by itself, without further reference to outside sources or to the actual paper. The purpose of an abstract is to give the reader a complete, yet concise, understanding of the papers research and findings. It should be well-developed, self-contained, and concise, explaining the work as briefly and clearly as possible. Different disciplines call for slightly different approaches to abstracts, but most abstracts should contain the following elements:

• The overall purpose of the study and the research problem or questions being addressed
• The methods used to study the problem
• The main findings or results obtained
• The conclusions drawn from the results

An abstract should be intelligible on its own, without a reader having to read the entire paper. It should also be well-written and concise, highlighting key content areas, research purpose, relevance or importance of the work, and main outcomes. The importance of the research and the problem it attempts to solve should also be included. A well-prepared abstract allows a reader to quickly and accurately identify the basic content of the paper and decide if the related research is of interest to them.