This article is on “How to Write a Research Abstract in 2025“

An abstract is the first item on your research work after the preliminary and title pages. This is apt because of its relevance during review. The abstract is the first thing your supervisor and examiner would see before proceeding to the other parts of the project or research paper. It is more or less an introduction to the entire work, it is often referred to as a summary of the whole work (that is, chapters 1 to 5 or 6) depending on the type of research embarked on.

As the years go by, more modern and acceptable formats are introduced and appreciated in various local and international institutions, this is not to say that the old formats are thrown away, only that supervisors adopt stricter measures to put their students in check and ensure that the correct things are done. The main essence of the improvement is that the students can easily fall in line with the current advanced approaches to research and appreciation of technology in modern times. Some schools have developed software to check that abstracts and other contents of research papers conform with their standards, it only behoves the students to understand what their schools require and act accordingly without argument. While so many students may decide to ignore changes in writing their abstract at the expense of a reduced mark others are likely to key in to fetch the highest required grades for the semester.

To meet your supervisor’s expectations in writing a research abstract in 2025, here are a few tips to consider:

You need to understand the purpose of an abstract. This will help you know how to start with it. The abstract is a summary page displaying basic information that gives a clear and concise view regarding the problem your research found, the process that helped it tackle the situation, and the outcome.

Adhere to your institution’s approved format of writing an abstract, and try not to deviate from the required standards so as not to cut down on your grades. The general format states that the abstract should not exceed 300 words within a page, the font size is usually 12, using Times New Roman text, all the text should be formatted in block form well compacted with 1.0 line spacing, sometimes you might be required to leave the text in italics, that’s for some institutions though.

Always start your abstract with a summary of the research problem, followed by the objectives properly fit within one sentence e.g. This research explored how the presence of non-academic students impacts the management of universities in the South East region of Nigeria.

Properly describe the research methodology adopted and specify whether it was a qualitative or quantitative research type. e.g

The study employed a descriptive survey design, formulating five research questions and examining five null hypotheses at a significance level of 0.05. The total population for the study was 7,550, which included 3,210 staff members and 4,340 students from the 2017/2018 academic year. The sample comprised 755 individuals, consisting of 321 staff and 434 students from five federal universities located in each of the five southeastern states. For data collection, the “Influence of The Presence of Non-Academic Students on The Administration of South East Universities Questionnaire” (IPNSASEUQ) was utilized. This instrument was validated through face validation by three experts. Reliability was evaluated using the Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient, resulting in a score of 0.79 for a total of 434 students and 321 staff members. The analysis included calculating the mean and standard deviation to address the research questions, along with employing t-test statistics to evaluate the null hypotheses.

Give a summary of the research findings in sentences, this should be done carefully so that the key points won’t be omitted. Where the findings are much, just select the major ones and avoid repetitions. e.g. The study’s results indicated that the unauthorized use of university facilities by non-academic students significantly impacts university administration. All aspects related to the misuse of documents by non-academic students have a substantial effect on the university administration. Additionally, every item regarding the possession of illegal weapons by non-academic students also considerably influences university administration.

Couch a good research recommendations e.g. “It has been suggested that universities, along with the Government and school administrators, ensure that students properly use university facilities and make the most of them. They should also make certain that individuals who are not authorized to utilize school facilities do not access them, as this incurs additional expenses for the university.” conclusion by including the results of a test of hypothesis, research gaps and contribution to knowledge, you will need to develop your skill on this to enable you to insert relevant information without it sounding like literature review or otherwise.

Your write-up must be concise, plain, and straight to the point, avoid repetition.

Do not add citations to the abstract and avoid copying and pasting from your main work. Since it is a summary, you must write in your own words in the simplest words possible.

Always try to review and proofread your abstract before submitting it. This is important because if the abstract contains an error, it will be assumed that the main work has similar errors. So, be in your most careful mood when writing your abstract.

You may need to use software tools like Grammarly to check for grammatical errors and correct them

Most of the tenses in the abstract will be past tense, so know when to use the proper tenses.

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