Abstract:
The abstract is one of the most important elements of your article. Why?
Firstly, editors may not have time to read your entire manuscript when
making screening decisions your article. If you can ‘sell’ them the
importance of your research in the abstract they are able to make a
decision on whether the article is acceptable for the scope of the
journal quickly and easily. Secondly, due to abstracting and indexing
agencies, such as Web of Science, Scifinder, PubMed (the list goes on)
more people are going to view your abstract than read your paper. If you
can make it clear why your article is important, it is more likely to be
discovered by the correct audience.
What makes a good abstract?
One should think of an abstract in sections, firstly state the problem,
the reason for the research and why it is important. Remember that your
abstract is the biggest advert for your paper so it is important to put
the research in a broad context stating why the research is important to
a broad public audience and not only your specialist NMR community.
Secondly, introduce the procedure simply describing the investigative
technique and the samples involved. Thirdly, offer a brief and succinct
account of the result followed by the final portion, the conclusion. The
conclusion should convey the take home message of the research.
In general an optimal abstract should follow the following structure,
This will ensure that all of the important points are covered and
expressed logically:
Rationale; state the problem, the reason for the research and why it is important
Method; what procedure/analysis has been undertaken?
Result; what was the outcome of the experiment?
Conclusion; what are the key take home messages of the research?
Below is an example of well structured abstract from the article Performance of new 400‐MHz HTS power‐driven magnet NMR technology on typical pharmaceutical API, cinacalcet HCl by Elipe et al. \cite{Silva_Elipe_2018}