Article Abstract

Please read the attached article carefully then write an abstract for that article. The abstract SHOULD be between 290- 330 words.

MAKE SURE THAT YOU use these guidelines as a checklist to make sure you complete the assignment properly.

1. Your abstract must include enough specific information about the article to satisfy most of the administrative needs of a busy executive, student, or teacher and should also be understood by everybody.

2. Your abstract must be a self-contained unit, a complete report-in-miniature. Within a rather short piece of writing, you need to present quite a bit of specific information that is both readable and that captures the scope of the article. You really should read the article carefully to make sure you extract the required information. While this is a shorter assignment, it is also one that you will have to spend some time on.

3. Your abstract must be written in fluent, easy-to-read prose.

4. It must be consistent in tone and emphases with the report, but it does not need to follow the arrangement, wording, or proportion of the original.

5. Your abstract should make the widest possible use of abbreviations and numerals without confusing the reader. (e.g., “DNA” can certainly stand for deoxyribonucleic acid.)

6. Your abstract should not contain any tables or illustrations.

7. Your abstract should not be shorter than 290 words, nor should it be longer than 310 words, and I will need a word count at the end of your abstract in parentheses [i.e., (304 words)].

8. Please do not quote in your abstract.

9. Please do not start either of your abstracts with the phrase “this article,” “this report,” or “the author.” I would like to make the point that “Researchers who are engaged in the prevention of adolescent depression are restructuring their methods” is a stronger first sentence of a summary than “This article examines the restructuring of research programs that are engaged in the prevention of adolescent depression.”

10. Please do not list the author’s name in your abstract.

11. Please do not use contractions. For example, use “Do not” as opposed to “Don’t.”

12. Cite the Scientific American article at the beginning of this assignment. Use the APA citation format. You do not have to cite the page numbers.

14. Do not ask questions in your abstract.

15. Do not use exclamation points.

16. Write without using jargon. It is your job to make the article understandable by the audience I describe above in point number 1. Throwing fancy words around without working hard to explain your ideas undermines good communication in all professions.

17. In the body of the abstract, there is no need to mention the names of the authors, their institutional affiliations, or their academic and/or professional credentials. The names of the authors mentioned in the citation is enough