Your abstract is the shop window of your article. This is where customers (researchers) can sample your wares and decide whether to read and cite your content or instead look elsewhere. So it’s important to get it right.

Each journal will have its own word limit for abstracts (see the Instructions for Authors page), but approximately 100–200 words are what you have to work with. In this short paragraph, you should create a selling pitch, focusing on what your research is about, what methods have been used, and what you found out.

• It probably won’t be at the forefront of your mind, but keywords play an important role in creating an effective abstract.
• As you would expect, accuracy is crucial. Whatever you argue or claim in the abstract must reflect what is in the main body of your article. There’s no room for hyperbole here.
• Have you followed the submission rules? Every journal has an Instructions for Authors page – check the guidelines before you start writing.
• Ensure that the abstract is self-contained, without abbreviations, footnotes, or incomplete references. It needs to make sense on its own.

Finally, there is a significant difference between original research papers and review papers when it comes to abstracts. For original papers, you should describe your method and procedures. For reviews, take a different approach: you must first state the primary objective of the review, the reasoning behind your choice, the main outcomes and results of your review, and the conclusions that might be drawn, including their implications for further research, application, or practice.