HOW TO WRITE AN ABSTRACT:
Links and Tips
An abstract is a short summary of your completed research. If
done well, it makes the reader want to learn more about your
research.
These are the basic components of an abstract in any discipline:
1) Motivation/problem statement: Why do we care about the
problem? What practical, scientific, theoretical or artistic gap
is your research filling?
2) Methods/procedure/approach: What did you actually do to get
your results? (e.g. analyzed 3 novels, completed a series of 5
oil paintings, interviewed 17 students)
3) Results/findings/product: As a result of completing the above
procedure, what did you learn/invent/create?
4) Conclusion/implications: What are the larger implications of
your findings, especially for the problem/gap identified in step
1?
However, it's important to note that the weight accorded to the
different components can vary by discipline. For models, try to
find abstracts of research that is similar to your research.
Below are links and sample abstracts that you may find helpful.
LINKS:
This link has a very thorough description of each of the
components named above. It is aimed especially at engineers but
is relevant for all disciplines.
http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/essays/abstract.html
This link is especially relevant for natural scientists:
http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~sustain/Abstract.html
SAMPLE ABSTRACTS:
History/social science:
"Their War": The Perspective of the South Vietnamese Military in
Their Own Words
Author: Julie Pham (UCB participant in UC Day 2001)
Despite the vast research by Americans on the Vietnam War,
little is known about the perspective of South Vietnamese
military, officially called the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces
(RVNAF). The overall image that emerges from the literature is
negative: lazy, corrupt, unpatriotic, apathetic soldiers with
poor fighting spirits. This study recovers some of the South
Vietnamese military perspective for an American audience through
qualititative interviews with 40 RVNAF veterans now living in
San José, Sacramento, and Seattle, home to three of the top five
largest Vietnamese American communities in the nation. An
analysis of these interviews yields the veterans' own
explanations that complicate and sometimes even challenge three
widely held assumptions about the South Vietnamese military: 1)
the RVNAF was rife with corruption at the top ranks, hurting the
morale of the lower ranks; 2) racial relations between the South
Vietnamese military and the Americans were tense and hostile;
and 3) the RVNAF was apathetic in defending South Vietnam from
communism. The stories add nuance to our understanding of who
the South Vietnamese were in the Vietnam War. This study is part
of a growing body of research on non-American perspectives of
the war. In using a largely untapped source of Vietnamese
history &endash; oral histories with Vietnamese immigrants &endash;
this project will contribute to future research on similar
topics.
Humanities:
Violence, Subalternity, and El Corrido Along the US/Mexican
Border
Author: Roberto Hernandez (UCB participant in UC Day 2001)
The Geopolitical divide that separates the United States and
Mexico has long plagued the region with violence and conflict.
However, its extent and political nature is often overshadowed
and undermined by mainstream information outlets. The boundary
inspires polarized reactions: tough on crime/immigration
rhetoric from politicians and enforcement officials &endash;
exemplified in current border militarization &endash; and
appeasement through feel-good news reporting. Such
contradictions desensitize and deny the essence and root cause
of the conflict &endash; an ongoing sociopolitical, cultural,
and economic struggle between the two nations. While information
transmission in the north has a U.S. focus, south of the divide
knowledge distribution is very Mexico-centered. However, the
border region acts as a third space t hat gives birth to a
distinct border gnosis, a unique form of knowledge construction
among subaltern communities on both its sides. One form of
subalternity, corridos, (border folk ballads), has functioned to
create an alternative discourse to the borderlands imaginary.
This study is an examination of the analysis and critique found
in corridos that seek a critical approach to the violence at the
nations' shared edges and its ensuing political implications. To
illustrate their subaltern function, I will examine two
incidents: the 1984 McDonalds shooting in San Ysidro,
California, and the 1997 death of Ezequiel Hernández in Redford,
Texas. these cases are indicative of the politically charged
environment of a border region that in becoming an increasingly
militarized zone has also set the stage for a cultural battle
amongst different forms of knowledge construction and
legitimation.
Biological Sciences:
"The Listeria monocytogenes p60 Protein is not Essential for
Viability in vitro, but Promotes Virulence in vivo"
Author: Sina Mohammedi, 2002 UC Day nominee and runner-up
Intracellular pathogens (agents which infect host cells), such
as Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Listeria monocytogenes, cause
very high mortality rates in the United States. Therefore,
deciphering the mechanisms through which the pathogens cause
disease is of great interest. Listeria infection of mice is a
well-developed model system for studying the fundamentals of
host-pathogen interactions. In vitro assays in animal cell
cultures have helped show that Listeria causes illness by
secreting molecules, called virulence factors, to the outside of
the bacterial cell in order to affect the host organism. My work
involves one such secreted protein, called p60. P60 is an
antigen (an agent seen by the host immune system) implicated in
regulated bacterial cell wall breakdown. The objective of this
study was to examine two questions: first, is p60 essential to
the viability of Listeria, as previously published? and second,
is p60 a virulence factor in Listeria? To examine these
questions, I contructed a Listeria strain lacking p60 (p60-).
This new strain displayed no defect in viability. In fact, most
standard in vitro pathogenicity assays were normal for p60-.
However, when p60- was tested in a mouse (in vivo), a 1000-fold
reduction in virulence was observed. This discovery suggests
that p60 is indeed a key factor in the disease-causing ability
of Listeria, but not essential for viability. Future studies
will focus on the precise role of p60 in Listeria pathogenesis.
This work increases our understanding of such diseases as
tuberculoses, various food poisonings, and meningitis.
Engineering:
"Quantifying the Mechanics of a Laryngoscopy"
Laryngoscopy is a medical procedure that provides a secure
airway by passing a breathing tube through the mouth and into
the lungs of a patient. The ability to successfully perform
laryngoscopy is highly dependent on operator skill; experienced
physicians have failure rates of 0.1% or less, while less
experienced paramedics may have failure rates of 10-33%, which
can lead to death or brain injury. Accordingly, there is a need
for improved training methods, and virtual reality technology
holds promise for this application. The immediate objective of
this research project is to measure the mechanics of
laryngoscopy, so that an advanced training mannequin can be
developed. This summer an instrumented laryngoscope has been
developed which uses a 6-axis force/torque sensor and a magnetic
position/orientation sensor to quantify the interactions between
the laryngoscope and the patient. Experienced physicians as well
as residents in training have used this device on an existing
mannequin, and the force and motion trajectories have been
visualized in 3D. One objective is to use comparisons between
expert and novice users to identify the critical skill
components necessary for patients, to identify the mechanical
properties of the human anatomy that effect laryngoscopy, and
thus enable the development of a realistic training simulator.
In the future an advanced training mannequin will be developed
whose physical properties will be based on our sensor
measurements, and where virtual reality tools will be used to
provide training feedback for novice users.
More Sample Undergraduate Research Abstracts in the Arts,
Humanities, Science and Social Science:
http://www.sccur.uci.edu/sampleabstracts.html
(note: These are not UC Day abstracts. Disregard application
instructions on that site.)
|