How Long Should An Abstract Be (And Why)?

Exact Answer: Up to 250 words

The size and length of the abstract should be somewhere between 150-250 word count. The length of the abstract differs according to the type of publication. An abstract summaries whatever the whole draft contains, and could vary in size accordingly. Many journals, sites, publications, and websites have their own word counts for a specific article or paper.

The abstract for an article is considerably less, as compared to the abstract of a paper. Before choosing your size of abstract make sure to check any specific guidelines mentioned for the same.

How Long Should An Abstract Be?

An abstract is mainly given in any thesis, research paper, articles, and reviews to describe all the whole content in a summary form. The abstract will catch the attention of the readers making your article more renowned. A better abstract would always come out as a good impression for the whole paper. The abstract is always shorter, as it describes the summary and not the content of the paper.

The length of the abstract may also vary according to the length of the main draft. As the length of the abstract also depends on the content of the abstract. The more you try to cover in your abstract, the more it will increase the word count. Therefore, writing a good and precise abstract is better than writing fluff in order to increase the word count. Many journals already provide their requirement for word count, as they have some fixed conditions to be covered.

If you are writing for any such journals with fixed word counts for abstract, then try to maintain the guidelines. If you are going for writing a paper without fixed guidelines for abstract word count, take the average word count for the abstract. You should always decide your word count for the abstract after deciding the length of your main draft.

Why Should An Abstract Be This Long?

The length of the article is not fixed, as it will have many conditions to be satisfied. For example, many publishers accept abstracts with keywords and many exclude keywords. The length of the abstract comprises the following:

Background (Introduction).

Purpose of your article or paper.

Methods involved in researches.

Results and conclusions.

To cover all these parts your abstract should be of an adequate length. The sections or parts of the abstract may be different for websites and journals, but the basic length would be almost the same for all the abstracts. You can’t write an extremely short abstract or else it will not cover all the parts required in your abstract. Another reason for your abstract being a thing long is the structuring. You need to structure everything properly to make your abstract perfect.

The acceptance of your paper and articles depends upon your abstract, as everyone would start with the abstract. Therefore it’s important to structure your abstract properly and to use correct words. Many people think making short abstract is a good deal for catching more readers and getting it accepted easily. It’s not true the acceptance of your abstract depends on how long and relevant your abstract is.

The more you will make your abstract clear and glitch-free, the chances of acceptance would increase for sure.

There are journals that ask for the abstract submission before accepting the main draft. This is because an abstract plays a very important role in the acceptance process of main drafts. Therefore, the length of the abstract re decided this long, so that it will cover all the required important parts (or sections).

Conclusion

The length of the abstract is most of the time the same for every paper or article, but some journals take it shorter or longer. The abstract should be that long to cover all the points in a correct manner and justifying the main content of the paper. Its always important to write your abstract in such a way, so that it will explain the main content of your paper is a summary brief manner.

Mentioning all the details in a short summary form is vital to make your paper look good and precise. Before following any specific word count of an abstract, make sure to check the guideline given in the instruction page for the abstract in any journal or website.

References

1. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1600-0668.2004.00240.x
2. https://iaap-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1464-0597.2008.00387.x