What is an Abstract?
An abstract is a brief narrative highlighting and/or summarizing the major points or most important ideas of a project. When you did background research for your project, you probably read a lot of abstracts! Each abstract gave you enough information about the research to help you decide if you should read the rest of the article. The abstract you’re writing will allow the judges to learn a bit about your project before they interview you at the Fair. They will receive your abstract two weeks before the event, which will give them time to do a bit of background research of their own and formulate some questions to ask you about your project.
A typical abstract has the following sections:
- Purpose (2-3 sentences)
- An introduction to the topic that provides important background information and the reason you’re studying the topic.
- A short explanation of the problem you seek to solve (for an engineering project) or the question(s) you are testing (for a science project).
- Procedure (2-3 sentences)
- A short explanation of how you conducted your experiment, highlighting any key materials or methods you used.
- Only discuss problems you encountered during your experimentation if they had a significant effect on your results.
- Discussion (3-4 sentences)
- Describe the observations, data or results that are connected to the conclusions you make in your project.
- Do not include graphs, charts, or photos. These items can go on your poster, but the abstract is in paragraph form.
- Data Analysis (2-4 sentences)
- Name statistical tests you completed.
- Discuss any significant results you found or explain why you accept the null hypothesis.
- Conclusions (1-2 sentences)
- Discuss any conclusions you made based on your data, including any important contributions made to your field of study. Identify areas for future research.
Do not include:
- Section headings or titles such as “Purpose”, “Procedure”, etc.
- Acknowledgements
- the name of a research institution where you did your work
- the name of your mentor
- Work procedures done by a mentor or anyone not listed as an official member of your team
- Jargon or abbreviations, unless you introduce the whole term first. Exceptions: commonly used abbreviations such as DNA or LED
- Work you completed in a prior year (if you are doing a Continuation Project)
- A bibliography or works cited (this belongs on your poster, but not in your abstract
Your MSSF Abstract
- Your abstract must be no longer than 250 words.
- Submit your abstract by March 1. We recommend submitting it a few days early in case you have technical difficulties!
- Write and edit your abstract in Google Docs or Word and then paste it into the form once it’s complete.
Next lesson: A Sample Abstract
