Carl Said:

What is an "Abstract" in an essay/report? ?

We Answered:

Hi Pix,
An "Abstract" in an essay or report is a specific literary exercise. It is indeed a summary, but there are some key words and a format that are used in an abstract, depending upon the type of essay you are writing.

Here is a nice website with some clear guidelines for writing an abstract. There is good information for either the descriptive or informative abstract, and lots of other incidental pointers.
http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/writing_cen…

Hope this helps!

Jason Said:

Need some helping writing an abstract?! Please!?

We Answered:

In the abstract you write about the experiment.

Findings

(Ex: We found that the applied force on a spring is proportional to the displacement of the spring...)

Expectations

Anomalies or novel findings

(Ex: You found that Hooke's law does not hold when you apply enormous forces to the spring...)

If your work is congruent with other works

(Ex: Our experiment is in good agreement with Hooke's Law blablabla)

Albert Said:

What is teh difference between Abstract and Conclusion in a Lab Report?

We Answered:

They're almost alike.

Abstract is more of an outline of your entire project. e.g. what was tested, methods, results, and implications of the outcome. It's almost like an introductory paragraph of an essay.

Conclusion is the summary of your outcome and you can include your judgement relevant to the interest of your project in this part. It's more less like rephrasing the abstract with additional details.

I hope this helps!! Good Luck.

Derek Said:

What do you write in 'discussion' in a science report?

We Answered:

You discuss what your results mean, any limitations of your research and additional research that may be needed.

Timothy Said:

What does one write about in a scientific abstract for a project that's not finished?

We Answered:

Welcome to the business of science! What you are experiencing is something that many scientists deal with all the time when it comes to sending in abstracts for conferences. Sometimes, the actual data has not yet come in, and sometimes people don;t want to give away all the information since they don;t want anyone to steal their work.

Okay, here is what you do. You write the abstract in such a way that it sounds real sexy without giving too much away. Focus on the question you are trying to answer (don't get too hung up with the methodology, unless it happens to be a very sexy one), and write your description of the experiment so that it becomes clear to the reader that you are indeed approaching the problem in a very smart and interesting way. Here it is not the details of your methodology as much as the overall approach. The reader needs to have the feeling that your question is one she or he has been wanting to ask all her or his life. (I am exeggerating a little, but you get the drift.)

Instead of presenting your sexy data, which you don;t have yet, you have to write something more general such as "Our work indicates that..." You see, indication is a LOT of things, so you are not lying, but you can later always say that your data SURPRISINGLY came out differently, which is then of course presented as even MORE sexy.

It is absolutely legitemate to remain rather general in your abstract. people know that often what you present is not necessarily exactly the same as you wrote in the abstract of your application. So, try to make it interesting, but keep your final conclusions somewhat open. Do not, repeat NOT, write, as someone suggested, "If I find ... then..." That makes you llok like you are guessing and have no idea what you are doing. Formulate openly...

I would suggest you go to the library and look for abstract catalogues of conferences. They are often published in journals. For example, Biology of Reproduction has one issue that is for the abstracts of their annual meeting. Go through the abstracts, see how they are written. This is the best way to learn how to do it - except, of course, if your PI or postdoc would help you.

Good luck! Go get 'em!

Miguel Said:

How do you write a really good science fair report?

We Answered:

Make sure you talk to your teacher about what he or she wants to see in your report. Afterall, he or she is grading it and what he or she wants matters the most. If you want to get some ideas, check out these:

http://www.scifair.org/howtowriteakiller…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory_…

Have fun with your project and don't blow up anything :)