The Use of Abstract

Education English | The Use of Abstract | Small (1997:1) says that the use of abstract is not to tell the reader that writer did something but it is to tell the readers what the writer did in the simplest, informative way. Hairston (1986:223-227) explains that abstracts written after a report has been completed can also serve several purposes. First, they may appear at the beginning of a report and function as a kind of preview that lets the reader know what to expect; this is particularly useful for long reports. Second, they can serve as a summary that will give an administrator or executive necessary information in a capsule form. Third, by reading abstract, the reader can consult the content of the report quickly. It could also appear in the program for a professional meeting to help participants decide if they want to hear the full paper, or it could be published in a journal or catalog of abstracts so that people can search for material on the topic could determine whether they want to read the full-length paper.
Moreover, an abstract is to allow the reader to judge whether it would serve his or her purposes to read the entire report, and there should be no need to look elsewhere in the report for an understanding of what is said in the abstract (Dolphin, 1997:1). In addition, Weissberg and Buker (1990:1) state that the use of an abstract is to give a reader a brief summary of a report. He also states that based on the abstract, the reader will often decide if he or she wants to read the whole report.
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