how to make abstract in qualitative research

Writing an Abstract for Your Research Paper

Definition and Purpose of Abstracts

An abstract is a short summary of your (published or unpublished) research paper, usually about a paragraph (c. 6-7 sentences, 150-250 words) long. A well-written abstract serves multiple purposes:

• an abstract lets readers get the gist or essence of your paper or article quickly, in order to decide whether to read the full paper;
• an abstract prepares readers to follow the detailed information, analyses, and arguments in your full paper;
• and, later, an abstract helps readers remember key points from your paper.

It’s also worth remembering that search engines and bibliographic databases use abstracts, as well as the title, to identify key terms for indexing your published paper. So what you include in your abstract and in your title are crucial for helping other researchers find your paper or article.

If you are writing an abstract for a course paper, your professor may give you specific guidelines for what to include and how to organize your abstract. Similarly, academic journals often have specific requirements for abstracts. So in addition to following the advice on this page, you should be sure to look for and follow any guidelines from the course or journal you’re writing for.

The Contents of an Abstract

Abstracts contain most of the following kinds of information in brief form. The body of your paper will, of course, develop and explain these ideas much more fully. As you will see in the samples below, the proportion of your abstract that you devote to each kind of information—and the sequence of that information—will vary, depending on the nature and genre of the paper that you are summarizing in your abstract. And in some cases, some of this information is implied, rather than stated explicitly. The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association , which is widely used in the social sciences, gives specific guidelines for what to include in the abstract for different kinds of papers—for empirical studies, literature reviews or meta-analyses, theoretical papers, methodological papers, and case studies.

Here are the typical kinds of information found in most abstracts:

• the context or background information for your research; the general topic under study; the specific topic of your research
• the central questions or statement of the problem your research addresses
• what’s already known about this question, what previous research has done or shown
• the main reason(s) , the exigency, the rationale , the goals for your research—Why is it important to address these questions? Are you, for example, examining a new topic? Why is that topic worth examining? Are you filling a gap in previous research? Applying new methods to take a fresh look at existing ideas or data? Resolving a dispute within the literature in your field? . . .
• your research and/or analytical methods
• your main findings , results , or arguments
• the significance or implications of your findings or arguments.

Your abstract should be intelligible on its own, without a reader’s having to read your entire paper. And in an abstract, you usually do not cite references—most of your abstract will describe what you have studied in your research and what you have found and what you argue in your paper. In the body of your paper, you will cite the specific literature that informs your research.

When to Write Your Abstract

Although you might be tempted to write your abstract first because it will appear as the very first part of your paper, it’s a good idea to wait to write your abstract until after you’ve drafted your full paper, so that you know what you’re summarizing.

What follows are some sample abstracts in published papers or articles, all written by faculty at UW-Madison who come from a variety of disciplines. We have annotated these samples to help you see the work that these authors are doing within their abstracts.

Choosing Verb Tenses within Your Abstract

The social science sample (Sample 1) below uses the present tense to describe general facts and interpretations that have been and are currently true, including the prevailing explanation for the social phenomenon under study. That abstract also uses the present tense to describe the methods, the findings, the arguments, and the implications of the findings from their new research study. The authors use the past tense to describe previous research.

The humanities sample (Sample 2) below uses the past tense to describe completed events in the past (the texts created in the pulp fiction industry in the 1970s and 80s) and uses the present tense to describe what is happening in those texts, to explain the significance or meaning of those texts, and to describe the arguments presented in the article.

The science samples (Samples 3 and 4) below use the past tense to describe what previous research studies have done and the research the authors have conducted, the methods they have followed, and what they have found. In their rationale or justification for their research (what remains to be done), they use the present tense. They also use the present tense to introduce their study (in Sample 3, “Here we report . . .”) and to explain the significance of their study (In Sample 3, This reprogramming . . . “provides a scalable cell source for. . .”).

Sample Abstract 1

From the social sciences.

Reporting new findings about the reasons for increasing economic homogamy among spouses

Gonalons-Pons, Pilar, and Christine R. Schwartz. “Trends in Economic Homogamy: Changes in Assortative Mating or the Division of Labor in Marriage?” Demography , vol. 54, no. 3, 2017, pp. 985-1005.

Sample Abstract 2

From the humanities.

Analyzing underground pulp fiction publications in Tanzania, this article makes an argument about the cultural significance of those publications

Emily Callaci. “Street Textuality: Socialism, Masculinity, and Urban Belonging in Tanzania’s Pulp Fiction Publishing Industry, 1975-1985.” Comparative Studies in Society and History , vol. 59, no. 1, 2017, pp. 183-210.

Sample Abstract/Summary 3

From the sciences.

Reporting a new method for reprogramming adult mouse fibroblasts into induced cardiac progenitor cells

Lalit, Pratik A., Max R. Salick, Daryl O. Nelson, Jayne M. Squirrell, Christina M. Shafer, Neel G. Patel, Imaan Saeed, Eric G. Schmuck, Yogananda S. Markandeya, Rachel Wong, Martin R. Lea, Kevin W. Eliceiri, Timothy A. Hacker, Wendy C. Crone, Michael Kyba, Daniel J. Garry, Ron Stewart, James A. Thomson, Karen M. Downs, Gary E. Lyons, and Timothy J. Kamp. “Lineage Reprogramming of Fibroblasts into Proliferative Induced Cardiac Progenitor Cells by Defined Factors.” Cell Stem Cell , vol. 18, 2016, pp. 354-367.

Sample Abstract 4, a Structured Abstract

Reporting results about the effectiveness of antibiotic therapy in managing acute bacterial sinusitis, from a rigorously controlled study

Note: This journal requires authors to organize their abstract into four specific sections, with strict word limits. Because the headings for this structured abstract are self-explanatory, we have chosen not to add annotations to this sample abstract.

Wald, Ellen R., David Nash, and Jens Eickhoff. “Effectiveness of Amoxicillin/Clavulanate Potassium in the Treatment of Acute Bacterial Sinusitis in Children.” Pediatrics , vol. 124, no. 1, 2009, pp. 9-15.

“OBJECTIVE: The role of antibiotic therapy in managing acute bacterial sinusitis (ABS) in children is controversial. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of high-dose amoxicillin/potassium clavulanate in the treatment of children diagnosed with ABS.

METHODS : This was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Children 1 to 10 years of age with a clinical presentation compatible with ABS were eligible for participation. Patients were stratified according to age (<6 or ≥6 years) and clinical severity and randomly assigned to receive either amoxicillin (90 mg/kg) with potassium clavulanate (6.4 mg/kg) or placebo. A symptom survey was performed on days 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, 20, and 30. Patients were examined on day 14. Children’s conditions were rated as cured, improved, or failed according to scoring rules.

RESULTS: Two thousand one hundred thirty-five children with respiratory complaints were screened for enrollment; 139 (6.5%) had ABS. Fifty-eight patients were enrolled, and 56 were randomly assigned. The mean age was 6630 months. Fifty (89%) patients presented with persistent symptoms, and 6 (11%) presented with nonpersistent symptoms. In 24 (43%) children, the illness was classified as mild, whereas in the remaining 32 (57%) children it was severe. Of the 28 children who received the antibiotic, 14 (50%) were cured, 4 (14%) were improved, 4(14%) experienced treatment failure, and 6 (21%) withdrew. Of the 28children who received placebo, 4 (14%) were cured, 5 (18%) improved, and 19 (68%) experienced treatment failure. Children receiving the antibiotic were more likely to be cured (50% vs 14%) and less likely to have treatment failure (14% vs 68%) than children receiving the placebo.

CONCLUSIONS : ABS is a common complication of viral upper respiratory infections. Amoxicillin/potassium clavulanate results in significantly more cures and fewer failures than placebo, according to parental report of time to resolution.” (9)

Some Excellent Advice about Writing Abstracts for Basic Science Research Papers, by Professor Adriano Aguzzi from the Institute of Neuropathology at the University of Zurich:

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Research Paper Abstract – Writing Guide and Examples

Table of Contents

Research Paper Abstract

Research Paper Abstract is a brief summary of a research pape r that describes the study’s purpose, methods, findings, and conclusions . It is often the first section of the paper that readers encounter, and its purpose is to provide a concise and accurate overview of the paper’s content. The typical length of an abstract is usually around 150-250 words, and it should be written in a concise and clear manner.

Research Paper Abstract Structure

The structure of a research paper abstract usually includes the following elements:

• Background or Introduction: Briefly describe the problem or research question that the study addresses.
• Methods : Explain the methodology used to conduct the study, including the participants, materials, and procedures.
• Results : Summarize the main findings of the study, including statistical analyses and key outcomes.
• Conclusions : Discuss the implications of the study’s findings and their significance for the field, as well as any limitations or future directions for research.
• Keywords : List a few keywords that describe the main topics or themes of the research.

How to Write Research Paper Abstract

Here are the steps to follow when writing a research paper abstract:

• Start by reading your paper: Before you write an abstract, you should have a complete understanding of your paper. Read through the paper carefully, making sure you understand the purpose, methods, results, and conclusions.
• Identify the key components : Identify the key components of your paper, such as the research question, methods used, results obtained, and conclusion reached.
• Write a draft: Write a draft of your abstract, using concise and clear language. Make sure to include all the important information, but keep it short and to the point. A good rule of thumb is to keep your abstract between 150-250 words.
• Use clear and concise language : Use clear and concise language to explain the purpose of your study, the methods used, the results obtained, and the conclusions drawn.
• Emphasize your findings: Emphasize your findings in the abstract, highlighting the key results and the significance of your study.
• Revise and edit: Once you have a draft, revise and edit it to ensure that it is clear, concise, and free from errors.
• Check the formatting: Finally, check the formatting of your abstract to make sure it meets the requirements of the journal or conference where you plan to submit it.

Research Paper Abstract Examples

Research Paper Abstract Examples could be following:

Title : “The Effectiveness of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Treating Anxiety Disorders: A Meta-Analysis”

Abstract : This meta-analysis examines the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) in treating anxiety disorders. Through the analysis of 20 randomized controlled trials, we found that CBT is a highly effective treatment for anxiety disorders, with large effect sizes across a range of anxiety disorders, including generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and social anxiety disorder. Our findings support the use of CBT as a first-line treatment for anxiety disorders and highlight the importance of further research to identify the mechanisms underlying its effectiveness.

Title : “Exploring the Role of Parental Involvement in Children’s Education: A Qualitative Study”

Abstract : This qualitative study explores the role of parental involvement in children’s education. Through in-depth interviews with 20 parents of children in elementary school, we found that parental involvement takes many forms, including volunteering in the classroom, helping with homework, and communicating with teachers. We also found that parental involvement is influenced by a range of factors, including parent and child characteristics, school culture, and socio-economic status. Our findings suggest that schools and educators should prioritize building strong partnerships with parents to support children’s academic success.

Title : “The Impact of Exercise on Cognitive Function in Older Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis”

Abstract : This paper presents a systematic review and meta-analysis of the existing literature on the impact of exercise on cognitive function in older adults. Through the analysis of 25 randomized controlled trials, we found that exercise is associated with significant improvements in cognitive function, particularly in the domains of executive function and attention. Our findings highlight the potential of exercise as a non-pharmacological intervention to support cognitive health in older adults.

When to Write Research Paper Abstract

The abstract of a research paper should typically be written after you have completed the main body of the paper. This is because the abstract is intended to provide a brief summary of the key points and findings of the research, and you can’t do that until you have completed the research and written about it in detail.

Once you have completed your research paper, you can begin writing your abstract. It is important to remember that the abstract should be a concise summary of your research paper, and should be written in a way that is easy to understand for readers who may not have expertise in your specific area of research.

Purpose of Research Paper Abstract

The purpose of a research paper abstract is to provide a concise summary of the key points and findings of a research paper. It is typically a brief paragraph or two that appears at the beginning of the paper, before the introduction, and is intended to give readers a quick overview of the paper’s content.

The abstract should include a brief statement of the research problem, the methods used to investigate the problem, the key results and findings, and the main conclusions and implications of the research. It should be written in a clear and concise manner, avoiding jargon and technical language, and should be understandable to a broad audience.

The abstract serves as a way to quickly and easily communicate the main points of a research paper to potential readers, such as academics, researchers, and students, who may be looking for information on a particular topic. It can also help researchers determine whether a paper is relevant to their own research interests and whether they should read the full paper.

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Table of Contents – Types, Formats, Examples

• USC Libraries
• Research Guides

Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper

• 3. The Abstract
• Purpose of Guide
• Design Flaws to Avoid
• Independent and Dependent Variables
• Glossary of Research Terms
• Reading Research Effectively
• Narrowing a Topic Idea
• Broadening a Topic Idea
• Extending the Timeliness of a Topic Idea
• Academic Writing Style
• Applying Critical Thinking
• Choosing a Title
• Making an Outline
• Paragraph Development
• Research Process Video Series
• Executive Summary
• The C.A.R.S. Model
• Background Information
• The Research Problem/Question
• Theoretical Framework
• Citation Tracking
• Content Alert Services
• Evaluating Sources
• Primary Sources
• Secondary Sources
• Tiertiary Sources
• Scholarly vs. Popular Publications
• Qualitative Methods
• Quantitative Methods
• Insiderness
• Using Non-Textual Elements
• Limitations of the Study
• Common Grammar Mistakes
• Writing Concisely
• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Footnotes or Endnotes?
• Further Readings
• Generative AI and Writing
• USC Libraries Tutorials and Other Guides
• Bibliography

An abstract summarizes, usually in one paragraph of 300 words or less, the major aspects of the entire paper in a prescribed sequence that includes: 1) the overall purpose of the study and the research problem(s) you investigated; 2) the basic design of the study; 3) major findings or trends found as a result of your analysis; and, 4) a brief summary of your interpretations and conclusions.

Writing an Abstract. The Writing Center. Clarion University, 2009; Writing an Abstract for Your Research Paper. The Writing Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Koltay, Tibor. Abstracts and Abstracting: A Genre and Set of Skills for the Twenty-first Century . Oxford, UK: Chandos Publishing, 2010;

Importance of a Good Abstract

Sometimes your professor will ask you to include an abstract, or general summary of your work, with your research paper. The abstract allows you to elaborate upon each major aspect of the paper and helps readers decide whether they want to read the rest of the paper. Therefore, enough key information [e.g., summary results, observations, trends, etc.] must be included to make the abstract useful to someone who may want to examine your work.

How do you know when you have enough information in your abstract? A simple rule-of-thumb is to imagine that you are another researcher doing a similar study. Then ask yourself: if your abstract was the only part of the paper you could access, would you be happy with the amount of information presented there? Does it tell the whole story about your study? If the answer is "no" then the abstract likely needs to be revised.

Farkas, David K. “A Scheme for Understanding and Writing Summaries.” Technical Communication 67 (August 2020): 45-60;  How to Write a Research Abstract. Office of Undergraduate Research. University of Kentucky; Staiger, David L. “What Today’s Students Need to Know about Writing Abstracts.” International Journal of Business Communication January 3 (1966): 29-33; Swales, John M. and Christine B. Feak. Abstracts and the Writing of Abstracts . Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2009.

Structure and Writing Style

I.  Types of Abstracts

To begin, you need to determine which type of abstract you should include with your paper. There are four general types.

Critical Abstract A critical abstract provides, in addition to describing main findings and information, a judgment or comment about the study’s validity, reliability, or completeness. The researcher evaluates the paper and often compares it with other works on the same subject. Critical abstracts are generally 400-500 words in length due to the additional interpretive commentary. These types of abstracts are used infrequently.

Descriptive Abstract A descriptive abstract indicates the type of information found in the work. It makes no judgments about the work, nor does it provide results or conclusions of the research. It does incorporate key words found in the text and may include the purpose, methods, and scope of the research. Essentially, the descriptive abstract only describes the work being summarized. Some researchers consider it an outline of the work, rather than a summary. Descriptive abstracts are usually very short, 100 words or less. Informative Abstract The majority of abstracts are informative. While they still do not critique or evaluate a work, they do more than describe it. A good informative abstract acts as a surrogate for the work itself. That is, the researcher presents and explains all the main arguments and the important results and evidence in the paper. An informative abstract includes the information that can be found in a descriptive abstract [purpose, methods, scope] but it also includes the results and conclusions of the research and the recommendations of the author. The length varies according to discipline, but an informative abstract is usually no more than 300 words in length.

Highlight Abstract A highlight abstract is specifically written to attract the reader’s attention to the study. No pretense is made of there being either a balanced or complete picture of the paper and, in fact, incomplete and leading remarks may be used to spark the reader’s interest. In that a highlight abstract cannot stand independent of its associated article, it is not a true abstract and, therefore, rarely used in academic writing.

II.  Writing Style

Use the active voice when possible , but note that much of your abstract may require passive sentence constructions. Regardless, write your abstract using concise, but complete, sentences. Get to the point quickly and always use the past tense because you are reporting on a study that has been completed.

Abstracts should be formatted as a single paragraph in a block format and with no paragraph indentations. In most cases, the abstract page immediately follows the title page. Do not number the page. Rules set forth in writing manual vary but, in general, you should center the word "Abstract" at the top of the page with double spacing between the heading and the abstract. The final sentences of an abstract concisely summarize your study’s conclusions, implications, or applications to practice and, if appropriate, can be followed by a statement about the need for additional research revealed from the findings.

Composing Your Abstract

Although it is the first section of your paper, the abstract should be written last since it will summarize the contents of your entire paper. A good strategy to begin composing your abstract is to take whole sentences or key phrases from each section of the paper and put them in a sequence that summarizes the contents. Then revise or add connecting phrases or words to make the narrative flow clearly and smoothly. Note that statistical findings should be reported parenthetically [i.e., written in parentheses].

Before handing in your final paper, check to make sure that the information in the abstract completely agrees with what you have written in the paper. Think of the abstract as a sequential set of complete sentences describing the most crucial information using the fewest necessary words. The abstract SHOULD NOT contain:

• A catchy introductory phrase, provocative quote, or other device to grab the reader's attention,
• Lengthy background or contextual information,
• Redundant phrases, unnecessary adverbs and adjectives, and repetitive information;
• Acronyms or abbreviations,
• References to other literature [say something like, "current research shows that..." or "studies have indicated..."],
• Using ellipticals [i.e., ending with "..."] or incomplete sentences,
• Jargon or terms that may be confusing to the reader,
• Citations to other works, and
• Any sort of image, illustration, figure, or table, or references to them.

Abstract. Writing Center. University of Kansas; Abstract. The Structure, Format, Content, and Style of a Journal-Style Scientific Paper. Department of Biology. Bates College; Abstracts. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Borko, Harold and Seymour Chatman. "Criteria for Acceptable Abstracts: A Survey of Abstracters' Instructions." American Documentation 14 (April 1963): 149-160; Abstracts. The Writer’s Handbook. Writing Center. University of Wisconsin, Madison; Hartley, James and Lucy Betts. "Common Weaknesses in Traditional Abstracts in the Social Sciences." Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 60 (October 2009): 2010-2018; Koltay, Tibor. Abstracts and Abstracting: A Genre and Set of Skills for the Twenty-first Century. Oxford, UK: Chandos Publishing, 2010; Procter, Margaret. The Abstract. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Riordan, Laura. “Mastering the Art of Abstracts.” The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association 115 (January 2015 ): 41-47; Writing Report Abstracts. The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University; Writing Abstracts. Writing Tutorial Services, Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning. Indiana University; Koltay, Tibor. Abstracts and Abstracting: A Genre and Set of Skills for the Twenty-First Century . Oxford, UK: 2010; Writing an Abstract for Your Research Paper. The Writing Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Writing Tip

Never Cite Just the Abstract!

Citing to just a journal article's abstract does not confirm for the reader that you have conducted a thorough or reliable review of the literature. If the full-text is not available, go to the USC Libraries main page and enter the title of the article [NOT the title of the journal]. If the Libraries have a subscription to the journal, the article should appear with a link to the full-text or to the journal publisher page where you can get the article. If the article does not appear, try searching Google Scholar using the link on the USC Libraries main page. If you still can't find the article after doing this, contact a librarian or you can request it from our free i nterlibrary loan and document delivery service .

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• How to Write an Abstract | Steps & Examples

How to Write an Abstract | Steps & Examples

Published on 1 March 2019 by Shona McCombes . Revised on 10 October 2022 by Eoghan Ryan.

An abstract is a short summary of a longer work (such as a dissertation or research paper ). The abstract concisely reports the aims and outcomes of your research, so that readers know exactly what your paper is about.

Although the structure may vary slightly depending on your discipline, your abstract should describe the purpose of your work, the methods you’ve used, and the conclusions you’ve drawn.

One common way to structure your abstract is to use the IMRaD structure. This stands for:

• Introduction

Abstracts are usually around 100–300 words, but there’s often a strict word limit, so make sure to check the relevant requirements.

In a dissertation or thesis , include the abstract on a separate page, after the title page and acknowledgements but before the table of contents .

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Table of contents

Abstract example, when to write an abstract, step 1: introduction, step 2: methods, step 3: results, step 4: discussion, tips for writing an abstract, frequently asked questions about abstracts.

Hover over the different parts of the abstract to see how it is constructed.

This paper examines the role of silent movies as a mode of shared experience in the UK during the early twentieth century. At this time, high immigration rates resulted in a significant percentage of non-English-speaking citizens. These immigrants faced numerous economic and social obstacles, including exclusion from public entertainment and modes of discourse (newspapers, theater, radio).

Incorporating evidence from reviews, personal correspondence, and diaries, this study demonstrates that silent films were an affordable and inclusive source of entertainment. It argues for the accessible economic and representational nature of early cinema. These concerns are particularly evident in the low price of admission and in the democratic nature of the actors’ exaggerated gestures, which allowed the plots and action to be easily grasped by a diverse audience despite language barriers.

Keywords: silent movies, immigration, public discourse, entertainment, early cinema, language barriers.

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You will almost always have to include an abstract when:

• Completing a thesis or dissertation
• Submitting a research paper to an academic journal
• Writing a book proposal
• Applying for research grants

It’s easiest to write your abstract last, because it’s a summary of the work you’ve already done. Your abstract should:

• Be a self-contained text, not an excerpt from your paper
• Be fully understandable on its own
• Reflect the structure of your larger work

Start by clearly defining the purpose of your research. What practical or theoretical problem does the research respond to, or what research question did you aim to answer?

You can include some brief context on the social or academic relevance of your topic, but don’t go into detailed background information. If your abstract uses specialised terms that would be unfamiliar to the average academic reader or that have various different meanings, give a concise definition.

After identifying the problem, state the objective of your research. Use verbs like “investigate,” “test,” “analyse,” or “evaluate” to describe exactly what you set out to do.

This part of the abstract can be written in the present or past simple tense  but should never refer to the future, as the research is already complete.

• This study will investigate the relationship between coffee consumption and productivity.
• This study investigates the relationship between coffee consumption and productivity.

Next, indicate the research methods that you used to answer your question. This part should be a straightforward description of what you did in one or two sentences. It is usually written in the past simple tense, as it refers to completed actions.

• Structured interviews will be conducted with 25 participants.
• Structured interviews were conducted with 25 participants.

Don’t evaluate validity or obstacles here — the goal is not to give an account of the methodology’s strengths and weaknesses, but to give the reader a quick insight into the overall approach and procedures you used.

Prevent plagiarism, run a free check.

Next, summarise the main research results . This part of the abstract can be in the present or past simple tense.

• Our analysis has shown a strong correlation between coffee consumption and productivity.
• Our analysis shows a strong correlation between coffee consumption and productivity.
• Our analysis showed a strong correlation between coffee consumption and productivity.

Depending on how long and complex your research is, you may not be able to include all results here. Try to highlight only the most important findings that will allow the reader to understand your conclusions.

Finally, you should discuss the main conclusions of your research : what is your answer to the problem or question? The reader should finish with a clear understanding of the central point that your research has proved or argued. Conclusions are usually written in the present simple tense.

• We concluded that coffee consumption increases productivity.
• We conclude that coffee consumption increases productivity.

If there are important limitations to your research (for example, related to your sample size or methods), you should mention them briefly in the abstract. This allows the reader to accurately assess the credibility and generalisability of your research.

If your aim was to solve a practical problem, your discussion might include recommendations for implementation. If relevant, you can briefly make suggestions for further research.

If your paper will be published, you might have to add a list of keywords at the end of the abstract. These keywords should reference the most important elements of the research to help potential readers find your paper during their own literature searches.

Be aware that some publication manuals, such as APA Style , have specific formatting requirements for these keywords.

It can be a real challenge to condense your whole work into just a couple of hundred words, but the abstract will be the first (and sometimes only) part that people read, so it’s important to get it right. These strategies can help you get started.

Read other abstracts

The best way to learn the conventions of writing an abstract in your discipline is to read other people’s. You probably already read lots of journal article abstracts while conducting your literature review —try using them as a framework for structure and style.

You can also find lots of dissertation abstract examples in thesis and dissertation databases .

Reverse outline

Not all abstracts will contain precisely the same elements. For longer works, you can write your abstract through a process of reverse outlining.

For each chapter or section, list keywords and draft one to two sentences that summarise the central point or argument. This will give you a framework of your abstract’s structure. Next, revise the sentences to make connections and show how the argument develops.

Write clearly and concisely

A good abstract is short but impactful, so make sure every word counts. Each sentence should clearly communicate one main point.

To keep your abstract or summary short and clear:

• Avoid passive sentences: Passive constructions are often unnecessarily long. You can easily make them shorter and clearer by using the active voice.
• Avoid long sentences: Substitute longer expressions for concise expressions or single words (e.g., “In order to” for “To”).
• Avoid obscure jargon: The abstract should be understandable to readers who are not familiar with your topic.
• Avoid repetition and filler words: Replace nouns with pronouns when possible and eliminate unnecessary words.
• Avoid detailed descriptions: An abstract is not expected to provide detailed definitions, background information, or discussions of other scholars’ work. Instead, include this information in the body of your thesis or paper.

If you’re struggling to edit down to the required length, you can get help from expert editors with Scribbr’s professional proofreading services .

Check your formatting

If you are writing a thesis or dissertation or submitting to a journal, there are often specific formatting requirements for the abstract—make sure to check the guidelines and format your work correctly. For APA research papers you can follow the APA abstract format .

Checklist: Abstract

The word count is within the required length, or a maximum of one page.

The abstract appears after the title page and acknowledgements and before the table of contents .

I have clearly stated my research problem and objectives.

I have briefly described my methodology .

I have summarized the most important results .

I have stated my main conclusions .

I have mentioned any important limitations and recommendations.

The abstract can be understood by someone without prior knowledge of the topic.

You've written a great abstract! Use the other checklists to continue improving your thesis or dissertation.

An abstract is a concise summary of an academic text (such as a journal article or dissertation ). It serves two main purposes:

• To help potential readers determine the relevance of your paper for their own research.
• To communicate your key findings to those who don’t have time to read the whole paper.

Abstracts are often indexed along with keywords on academic databases, so they make your work more easily findable. Since the abstract is the first thing any reader sees, it’s important that it clearly and accurately summarises the contents of your paper.

An abstract for a thesis or dissertation is usually around 150–300 words. There’s often a strict word limit, so make sure to check your university’s requirements.

The abstract is the very last thing you write. You should only write it after your research is complete, so that you can accurately summarize the entirety of your thesis or paper.

Avoid citing sources in your abstract . There are two reasons for this:

• The abstract should focus on your original research, not on the work of others.
• The abstract should be self-contained and fully understandable without reference to other sources.

There are some circumstances where you might need to mention other sources in an abstract: for example, if your research responds directly to another study or focuses on the work of a single theorist. In general, though, don’t include citations unless absolutely necessary.

The abstract appears on its own page, after the title page and acknowledgements but before the table of contents .

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Scientific Writing

A reporting guide for qualitative studies.

Qualitative studies provide insight into complex phenomena. Unlike measurement-based studies which typically quantify what happens under experimental conditions, qualitative studies often help explain behaviors or perceptions under actual circumstances. Qualitative studies in the field of communicable diseases can be used to provide insight into why people choose high-risk behaviours and to identify the factors that influence their decisions. For example, a qualitative study may address why healthcare practitioners do not practice adequate hand hygiene and whether patients might help by reminding them to do so. The results can be surprising. For example, a recent study identified that inpatients in one hospital who were most dissatisfied with the care they received were also the least likely to ask healthcare professionals if they had washed their hands ( 1 ). Furthermore, the study identified that the decision not to pose this question was linked to patient awareness that staff satisfaction was low.

Qualitative research analyzes data from direct field observations, in-depth, open-ended interviews and written documents. Inductive analyses yield patterns and themes that generate hypotheses and offer a basis for future research. Although qualitative studies do not create generalizable evidence, well-reported studies provide enough information for readers to assess the applicability or transferability of findings to their own context ( 2 ).

There are a variety of checklists about how to report qualitative studies ( 3 - 6 ). The Canada Communicable Disease Report (CCDR) has developed a 24-item checklist that synthesizes these including the COREQ checklist noted on the EQUATOR Network ( 6 ). The CCDR checklist identifies the importance of describing how data was gathered and summarized, what trends were determined, exploring corroborative findings, offering alternative explanations and identifying possible next steps or further areas of inquiry ( Table 1 ).

Abbreviation: No., Number

Reports of qualitative studies are usually around 2,500 words in length—excluding the abstract, tables and references. As with all submissions, check CCDR’s Information for authors , published at the beginning of each volume in January of each year for general manuscript preparation and submission requirements ( 7 ).

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31 Writing Up Qualitative Research

Jane F. Gilgun, School of Social Work, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

• Published: 04 August 2014
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This chapter provides guidelines for writing journal articles based on qualitative approaches. The guidelines are part of the tradition of the Chicago School of Sociology and the author’s experience as a writer and reviewer. The guidelines include understanding experiences in context, immersion, interpretations grounded in accounts of informants’ lived experiences, and research as action-oriented. The chapter also covers writing articles that report findings based on ethnographies, autoethnographies, performances, poetry, and photography and other graphic media.

How researchers write up results for journal publications depends on the purposes of the research and the methodologies they use. Some topics are standard, such as statements about methods and methodologies, but how to represent other topics, like related research and theory, reflexivity, and informants’ accounts, may vary. For example, articles based on ethnographic research may be structured differently from writing up research whose purpose is theory development. Journal editors and reviewers often are familiar with variations in style of write-ups, but, when they are not, they may ask for modifications that violate the methodological principles of the research. A common reviewer request is for percentages, which has little meaning in almost all forms of qualitative research because the purpose of the research is to identify patterns of meanings and not distributions of variables. For example, Irvine’s (2013) ethnography of the meanings of pets to homeless people shows a variety of meaning without giving the number of participants from which she drew.

Authors sometimes move easily through the review process, but most often they do not, not only because reviewers might not “get it,” but also because authors have left out, underemphasized, or been less than clear about aspects of their research that reviewers and editors believe are important. Working with editors and reviewers frequently results in improved articles.

The purpose of this chapter is to provide guidelines for writing journal articles based on qualitative approaches. My intended audience is composed of researchers, reviewers for journals, and journal editors. Reviewers for funding agencies may also find this chapter useful. I use the terms “journal article” and “research report” as synonyms, even though some journal articles are not reports of research. I have derived the guidelines from ideas associated with the Chicago School of Sociology and my experience as an author and reviewer. Although the Chicago School was, as Becker (1999) wrote, “open to various ways of doing sociology” (p. 10), the ideas in this chapter are part of the tradition, but they are not representative of the entire tradition. Furthermore, the ideas are not fixed but are open-ended because they evolve over time. I have followed the principles of the Chicago School of Sociology throughout my career, augmented by updates to these ideas, experiments with other traditions, and the sense I make of my own experiences as researcher, author, and reviewer.

The ideas on which I draw include understanding experiences in context, immersion, interpretations grounded in accounts of informants’ lived experiences, and research as action-oriented ( Bulmer, 1984 ; Faris, 1967 ; Gilgun, 1999 d ; 2005 a ; 2012 a ; 2013 b ). To follow these principles, researchers do in-depth studies that take into account the multiple contextual factors that influence meanings and interpretations, seek multiple points of view, and often use multiple methods such as interviews, observations, and document analysis. Researchers do this style of research not only because what they learn is interesting, but because they want to do useful research; that is, research that leads to social actions and even transformations in policies, programs, and interventions. Authors and reviewers pay attention to these principles. Authors convey them in their write-ups, and reviewers look for them as they develop their appraisals.

Excellent writing up of qualitative research matches these principles. In other words, write-ups convey lived experience within multiple contexts, multiple points of view, and analyses that deepen understandings. In addition, if the research is applied, then authors write about how findings may contribute to quality of life. Qualitative researchers from other traditions may follow similar or different guidelines in their write-ups, and I sometimes note other styles of write-ups. Often these variations are related to terminology and not procedures. The reach of the Chicago School of Sociology is wide and deep.

Following these guidelines does not guarantee an easy review process, but this article will be helpful to researchers as they plan and craft their articles and as they respond to reviewers’ and editors’ comments. After almost thirty years of publishing research based on qualitative approaches, almost as many years as a reviewer, and the editing of three collections of qualitative research reports ( Gilgun, Daly, & Handel, 1992 ; Gilgun & Sussman, 1996 : Gilgun & Sands, 2012 ), I am positioned to offer helpful guidelines, not only to authors but also to reviewers and journal editors.

I begin this chapter with a discussion of general principles and then cover the content of typical sections of research reports. Some of the general material fits into various sections of reports, such as methods and findings. In those cases, I do not repeat material already covered and assume that my writing is clear enough so that readers know how the general material fits into particular sections of articles.

Although most of this chapter addresses the writing of conventional research reports, I also cover writing articles that report findings through ethnographies, autoethnographies, performances, poetry, and photography and other graphic media. Ethnographies are based on researchers’ immersion in the field, where they do extensive observations, interviews, and often document analysis (see Block, 2012 ). Geertz’s (1973) notion of “thick description” is associated with ethnographies. Thick description is characterized by research reports that show the matrix of meanings that researchers identify and attempt to represent in their reports. Autoethnographies are in-depth reflective accounts of individual lives that the narrators themselves write ( Ellis, 2009 ). Ethnographies and autoethnographies involve reflections on meanings, contexts, and other wider influences on individual lives. They are studies of intersections of individual lives and wider cultural themes and practices. Reports of these types of research can look different from conventional research reports in that they appear less formal; the usual sections of methods, literature review, findings, and analysis may have different names; and the sections may be in places that fit the logical flow of the research and not the typical structure of introductory material, methods, results, and discussion. Despite these superficial differences, researchers who write these kinds of articles seek to deepen understandings and hope to move audiences to action through conveying lived experience in context and through multiple points of view. They also typically seek transformations of persons and societies. Links between these forms of research and Chicago School traditions are self-evident.

Some General Principles

Research reports that have these characteristics depend on the quality of the data on which the reports are based, the quality of the analysis, and the skills of researchers in conveying the analysis concisely and with “grab” ( Glaser, 1978 ), which means writing that is vivid and memorable ( Gilgun, 2005 b ). Grab brings findings to life. With grab, human experiences jump off the page. Priority is given to the voices of research participants, whom I call informants, with citations and the wisdom of other researchers providing important contextual information. The voices and analyses of researchers do not dominate ( Gilgun, 2005 c ), except in some articles whose purpose is theory development or the presentation of a theory. Researcher analyses often are important, especially in putting forth social action recommendations that stem from the experiences of informants.

A well-done report shows consistency between research traditions and the writing-up of research. For example, reflexivity statements, writing with grab, and copious excerpts from fieldnotes, interviews, and documents of various sorts are consistent with phenomenological approaches whose emphasis is on lived experience and interpretations that informants make of their experiences. Researchers new to qualitative research, however, often mix their traditions without realizing it, which works when the traditions are compatible. When the traditions are not compatible, the write-ups can be confusing and even contradictory ( Gilgun, 2005 d ). Some authors may write in distanced, third-person styles while attempting to convey informants’ lived experiences. These scholars may, therefore, have difficulty getting their articles accepted. Hopefully, this chapter will facilitate the writing of research reports that show consistency across their many parts and save scholars from rejections of work over which they have taken much care.

Details on These General Principles

In this section, I provide more detail on writing up qualitative research. I begin with a discussion of the need for high-quality data, high-quality analysis, and grab. I then move on to the details of the report, such as the place of prior research and theory, contents of methods sections, organization of findings, and the balance between descriptive material and authors’ interpretations. Dilemmas abound. Writing up qualitative research is not for the faint of heart.

High-Quality Data

Since qualitative researchers seek to understand the subjective experiences of research informants in various contexts, high-quality data result in large part from the degree that researchers practice immersion and to the degree that both researchers and informants develop rapport and engage with each other. Through active engagement, informants share their experiences with the kind of detail that brings their experiences to life. How to develop rapport is beyond the scope of this article, but openness and acceptance of whatever informants say are fundamental to engagement. Interviewers do not have to agree with the values that informants’ accounts convey, as when I interview murderers and rapists ( Gilgun, 2008 ), but we do maintain a neutrality that allows the dialogue to continue ( Gilgun & Anderson, 2013 ). The content of interviews is not about us and our preferences, but about understanding informants.

Prolonged engagement can result in quality data. In interview research, prolonged engagement allows for informants’ multiple perspectives to emerge, including inconsistencies, contradictions, ambiguities, and ambivalences. In addition, prolonged engagement facilitates the kind of trust needed for informants to share personal, sensitive information in detail, which are the kinds of data that qualitative researchers seek. Prolonged engagement also gives researchers time to reflect on what they are learning and experiencing through the interviews. This provides opportunities to develop new understandings and test new understandings through subsequent research. Their understandings thus deepen and broaden. Informants, too, can reflect, reconsider, and deepen the accounts they share.

Prolonged engagement means in-depth interviews, typically multiple interviews of more than an hour each. As mentioned earlier, time between interviews allows researchers and informants to reflect on the previous interview and prepare for the next. Researchers can do background reading, discuss emerging ideas with others, and formulate pertinent new questions. Informants may retrieve long-forgotten memories and interpretations through interviews. If they have only one interview, they have no opportunity to share with researchers the material that arises after the single interview is concluded.

There are exceptions to multiple interviews as necessary for immersion and high-quality data. When researchers have expertise in interviewing and when the topic is focused, one interview of between ninety minutes to two hours could provide some depth. Even under these conditions, however, more than one interview is ideal. I did a study that involved one ninety-minute interview with perpetrators of child sexual abuse in order to understand the circumstances under which their abusive behaviors became known to law enforcement. Thus, the interview was focused. The interviewees were volunteers who had talked about the topic many times in the course of their involvement in sex abuse treatment programs. They shared their stories with depth and breadth. I, too, was well-prepared. By then, I had had about twenty-five years of experience interviewing people about personal, sensitive topics. The informants provided accounts not only because the topic was focused, but because they were willing to share and I was willing to listen and to ask questions about their sexually abusive behaviors. With one interview, however, I knew relatively little about their social histories and general worldviews. Thus, I did not have the specifics necessary to place their accounts into context. The material they provided remained valuable and resulted in one publication ( Sharma & Gilgun, 2008 ) and others in planning stages. I prefer two or more interviews because of the importance of contextual data.

In observational studies, prolonged engagement means that researchers do multiple observations over time to obtain the nuances and details that compose human actions. Observational studies often have interview components and also may have document analysis as well. In document analysis, prolonged engagement means researchers base their analyses on an ample storehouse of documents and not just flit in and out of the documents. The quality of document analysis depends on whether the analysis shows multiple perspectives, patterns, and variations within patterns. Ethnographies have these characteristics. Block’s (2012) ethnographic research on AIDS orphans in Lesotho, Africa, is an example of a well-done ethnography.

Sample Size

In principle, the size of the sample and the depth of the interview affect whether researchers can claim immersion. The more depth and breadth each case in a study has, the smaller the sample size can be. For example, researchers can engage in immersion through a single in-depth case study when they do multiple interviews and if multiple facets of the case are examined. Case studies are investigations of single units. The case can be composed of an individual, a couple, a family, a group, a nation, or a region. Single case studies are useful in the illustration, development, and testing of theories, as well as in in-depth descriptions.

The more focused the questions, the larger the sample will be. A study on long-term marriage would require a minimum of two or three interviews because the topic is complicated. The sample would include at least ten participants and up to twenty or thirty, depending on the number of interviews, to account for some of the many patterns that are likely to emerge in a study of a topic this complex. In the one-interview study I did of how sexual abuse came to the notice of law enforcement, one interview was adequate because of the tight focus of the question. Yet, I used a sample size of thirty-two to maximize the possibility of identifying a variety of patterns, which the study accomplished. As mentioned, the one interview, however, did not allow me to contextualize the stories the informants told. Fortunately, I have another large sample that involved multiple, in-depth interviews in which informants discussed multiple contexts over time. This other study was helpful to me in understanding the accounts from the single-interview study.

Recruitment can be difficult. When it is, researchers may not be able to obtain an adequate sample. For example, a sample of seven participants engaging in a single sixty- to ninety-minute interview may not provide enough data on which to base a credible analysis. In a similar vein, articles based on a single or even a few focus groups may not provide enough depth to be informative. Some depth is possible if, in a single-interview study of less than fifteen or twenty interviewees, researchers meet with informants a second time to go over what researchers understand about informants’ accounts. This sometimes is called member-checking , and it provides additional data on which to base the analysis. In summary, the more depth and breadth to a study, the smaller the sample size can be—even as small as one or two—depending on the questions and the complexity of the cases.

Quality of the Analysis

A quality analysis begins with initial planning of the research and continues until the article is accepted for publication. An excellent research report has transparency , meaning the write-up is clear in what researchers did, how they did it, and why. I often tell students they can do almost anything reasonable and ethical, as long as they make a clear account in the write-up.

During planning, some researchers identify those concepts that they can use as sensitizing concepts once in the field. Transparency about the sources of sensitizing concepts characterizes well-done reports. The sources are literature reviews and reflexivity statements. Most researchers, however, have only a limited awareness of the importance of being clear about the sources of sensitizing concepts and other notions that become part of research coding schemes. Sensitizing concepts are notions that researchers identify before beginning their research and that help researchers notice and name social processes that they might not have noticed otherwise ( Blumer, 1986 ). Other researchers wait until data analysis to begin to identify concepts that they may use as codes and that may also become core concepts that organize findings. Either approach is acceptable and depends on purpose and methodologies.

During data collection, researchers reflect on what they are learning, typically talk to other researchers about their emerging understandings, and read relevant research and theory to enlarge and deepen their understandings. Researchers also keep fieldnotes that are a form of reflection. Based on their various reflections, researchers can reformulate interview and research questions and formulate new ones, do within—and across—case comparisons while in the field, and develop new insights into the meanings of the material.

Also, while in the field, researchers identify promising patterns of meanings and identify tentative core concepts, sometimes called categories , which are ideas that organize the copious material that they amass. Once researchers identify tentative core concepts, they seek to test whether they hold up, and, when they do, they further develop the patterns and concepts. Sometimes researchers think they have “struck gold” when they identify a possible core concept or pattern, only to find that the data—or metaphorical vein of gold—peter out (Phyllis Stern, personal communication, November 2002). They then go on to identify and follow-up on other concepts and patterns that show promise of becoming viable.

Core concepts become viable when researchers are able to dimensionalize them ( Schatzman, 1991 ) through selective coding ( Corbin & Strauss, 2008 ). This means that researchers have found data that show the multiple facets of concepts, such as patterns and exceptions to any general patterns. Authors may use other terms to describe what they did, such as thematic analysis. What is important is to describe the processes and produces; and what researchers call them is of less importance.

Core concepts may begin as sensitizing concepts. Researchers sometimes identify, name, and code core concepts through notions that are part of their general stores of knowledge but were not part of the literature review or reflexivity statement. Glaser (1978) called the practice “theoretical sensitivity.” The names researchers choose may be words or phrases informants have used. However derived, core concepts are central to the organization of findings ( Gilgun, 2012 a ).

At some point, data collection stops, but analysis does not. Researchers carry analysis that occurred in the field into the next phases of the research. Immersion at this point means that researchers read and code transcripts of interviews, observations, and any documentary material they find useful. They carry forward the core concepts they identified in the field. An example of a core concept is “resilience,” which in my own research organized a great deal of interview material. The concept of resilience has been an organizing idea in several of the articles I have written and plan to write ( Gilgun, 1996 a ; 1996 b ; 2002 a ; 2002 b ; 2004 a ; 2004 b ; 2005 a ; 2006 , 2008 ; 2010 ; Gilgun & Abrams, 2005 ; Gilgun, Keskinen, Marti, & Rice, 1999 ; Gilgun, Klein, & Pranis, 2000 ).

Corbin and Strauss (2008) stated that selective coding helps researchers to decide if a concept can become a core concept, meaning it organizes a great deal of data that have multiple dimensions. An example of dimensionalization is a study of social workers in Australia whose clients were Aboriginal people. The researchers identified several core concepts, among them critical self-awareness ( Bennet, Zubrzycki, & Bacon, 2011 ). The dimensions of critical self-awareness included understanding motivations to work with Aboriginal people, fears of working with Aboriginal people, and personalization and internalization of the anger that some Aboriginal people express.

Like many other researchers, Bennet et al. (2011) were not working within an explicit Chicago School tradition. They therefore do not use terms such as core concepts, dimensionalization, and selective coding. Instead, they described their procedures as thematic analysis, conceptual mapping, and a search for meaning. However, they did use the term “saturation,” which is part of the Chicago School tradition.

A single core concept or multiple related core concepts compose research reports. The Bennet et al. (2011) article, for example, linked multiple core concepts. The authors showed how critical self-awareness leads to meaningful relationships that in turn connect to “acquiring Aboriginal knowledge” (p. 30).

With viable core concepts and rich data, researchers are positioned to present their findings in ways that are memorable and interesting; that is, with “grab” ( Glaser, 1978 ). “Grab” requires compelling descriptive material: excerpts from interviews, field notes, and various types of documents, as well as researchers’ paraphrases of these materials. An example of a research report with grab is Irvine’s (2013) account of her study of the meanings of pets to homeless people. She provided vivid descriptions of her interactions with the participants and compelling quotes that show what pets mean. Here, an example from Denise’s account of her relationship with her cat Ivy:

I have a history with depression up to suicide ideation, and Ivy, I refer to her as my suicide barrier. And I don’t say that in any light way. I would say, most days, she’s the reason why I keep going.... She is the only source of daily, steady affection and companionship that I have. (p. 19)

These and other quotes, as well as Irvine’s well-written, detailed descriptive material, show what grab means.

Grab equates with excellence in writing. Irvine’s (2013) article is an example. In terms of the grab of her article, her work is in the Chicago School tradition. She wrote in the first person. She told complete stories in which she quoted extensively from the interviews, described the persons she interviewed and the settings in which she interviewed them, and provided biographical sketches. Robert Park and Ernest Burgess, both of whom trained generations of graduate students in qualitative research at the University of Chicago in the first quarter of the twentieth century, held seminars on the use of literary techniques, such as those used in novels and autobiographies, in writing up research ( Bulmer, 1984 ; Gilgun, 1999 d ; 2012 a ). These educators wanted researchers to report on their “first-hand observation.” Park told a class of graduate students to

[g]o and sit in the lounges of the luxury hotels and on the doorsteps of the flophouses; sit on the Gold Coast settees and on the slum shakedowns; sit in the Orchestra Hall and in the Star and Garter Burlesk. In short, gentlemen [sic], go get the seat of your pants dirty. ( McKinney, 1966 , p. 71)

Park suggested to Pauline Young (1928 ; 1932) to “think and feel” like the residents of Russian Town, the subject of her dissertation, published in 1932 ( Faris, 1967 ). Irvine’s work shows these qualities. She immersed herself in the settings, she conducted in-depth interviews, and she conveyed her first-hand experiences in vivid terms.

The Chicago School also encouraged students to write in the first person. A good example is a report by Dollard (1937) , who was concerned about the racial practices of the Southern town where he was doing fieldwork. He said he was afraid that other white people watched as he talked to “Negroes” on his front porch, when he knew that custom regarding the “proper” place of “Negroes” was at the back door. He wrote

My Negro friend brought still another Negro up on the porch to meet me. Should we shake hands? Would he be insulted if I did not, or would he accept the situation? I kept my hands in pockets and did not do it, a device that was often useful in resolving such a situation. (p. 7)

This description is a portrait of a pivotal moment in Dollard’s fieldwork, and it is full of connotations about the racist practices of the time ( Gilgun, 1999 d ; 2012 a ).

Irvine (2013) also wrote in the first person. Here’s an example:

I met Trish on a cold December day in Boulder. She stood on the median at the exit of a busy shopping center with her Jack Russell Terrier bundled up in a dog bed beside her. She was “flying a sign,” or panhandling, with a piece of cardboard neatly lettered in black marker to read, “Sober. Doing the best I can. Please help.” (p. 14)

These two excerpts illustrate a methodological point Small (1916) made in his chapter on the first fifty years of sociological research in the United States: namely, the importance of going beyond “technical treatises” and providing first-person “frank judgments” that can help future generations interpret sociology. Without such contexts, “the historical significance of treatises will be misunderstood” (p. 722). Throughout his chapter, Small wrote in the first-person and provided his views—or frank judgments—on the events he narrated. From then until now, research reports in the Chicago tradition are vivid and contextual, conveying to the extent possible what it was like to be persons in situations.

There are many other examples of well-done research reports. Eck’s (2013) article on never-married men includes the basic elements that are present in almost all reports based on qualitative methods. It is transparent in its procedures, situated within scholarly traditions, well-organized, vivid, and instructive both for those new to qualitative research and for long-term researchers like me. The other articles I cite in this chapter also show many desirable qualities in research reports.

Research Report Sections

The main sections of standard reports based on qualitative methods are the same as for articles based on other types of methods: Introduction, Methods, Findings, and Discussion. The American Psychological Association (APA) manual (2009) provides information on what goes into each of these sections. Research reports in sociology journals follow a similar format, although the citation style is slightly different. The American Sociological Association uses first and last names in the reference section, a practice I support. In articles based on qualitative approaches, researchers sometimes change the names of sections, add or omit some, or reorder them. When changes are made, the general guideline is whether the changes make sense and are consistent with the purpose of the research. As Saldaña (2003) pointed out, researchers choose how to present their findings on the basis of credibility, vividness, and persuasive qualities and not for the sake of novelty. Because some articles report findings as fictionalized accounts, poetry, plays, songs, and performances (including plays), it makes sense that the sections on these findings vary from the standard format that I discuss here.

Although there are no rigid rules about how to write journal articles based on qualitative research, much depends on the methodological perspectives, purposes of the research, and the editorial guidelines of particular journals. For example, if researchers want to develop a theory, it is important to be clear from the beginning of the article to state this as the purpose of the research. The entire article should then focus on how the authors developed the theory. Research and theory cited in the literature review should have direct relevance to the substantive area on which the authors theorized. The methods section should explain what the researchers did to develop the theory. The findings section should begin with a statement of the theory that the researchers developed. The rest of the findings section should usually be composed of three parts. The first is composed of excerpts from those data that support the concepts of the theory. This is the grounding of the theory in something clear and concrete. The second is the authors’ thinking or interpretation of the meanings of each of the concepts. The third is an analysis of how the theory contributes to what is already known, such as how the findings elaborate on and call into question what is known. Thus, a research report on the development of a theory should contain a lot of scholarship that others have developed.

A report based on narrative principles or one based on an ethnography should contain copious excerpts from interviews, citing less scholarship than an article whose purpose is to develop theory. However, it is good practice to bring in related research and theory in the results section when this literature helps in interpretation, when findings have connections to other bodies of thought, and when findings are facets of a larger issue. In my now older publication on incest perpetrators ( Gilgun, 1995 ), the editors suggested that I show that when therapists engage in sexual relationships with clients, they are engaging in abuses of power similar to those of incest perpetrators. I was at first indignant that the editors wanted me to do even more work on the article, but I soon was glad they did. It is important to show that incest or any human phenomenon is not isolated from other phenomenon but is part of a larger picture. Doing so fit my purposes, which was to show how to do theory-testing/theory-guided qualitative research. Showing how findings fit into related research and theory is part of this type of research.

Whenever researchers are ready to submit an article for publication, it is wise to read recent issues of journals in which they would like to publish. If they can identify an article whose structure, methodologies, and general purpose are similar to theirs, they could study how those authors presented their material. If, for example, in a report on narrative research, the introductory material is relatively brief, and the findings and discussion sections compose most of the pages, researchers would do well to format their articles in similar ways. I study journals in which I have interest and model much of my own articles after those published in these journals. I make sure, however, that I cover topics that in my judgment are important to cover.

Prior Research and Theory

In my experience, something as simple as the place of prior research and theory can get complicated in the writing of reports based on qualitative research, even when the purpose of the article is primarily descriptive and is not to construct an explicit theory. In general, related research and theory literature can be presented at the beginning of a report as part of a review of pertinent research and theory, in the findings section when prior work helps in the interpretation and analysis of findings, or in the discussion section, where authors may reflect on how their findings add to, undermine, or correct what is known and even add something new.

Readers expect and journal editors typically want articles to begin with literature review, with some exceptions. A perusal of journals that publish qualitative studies shows this. Yet there are exceptions. Valásquez (2011) began her report on her encounter with scientology with an extended and rather meandering first-person narrative. Her literature review began toward the end of the article. She tailored the review to the report that preceded it. In this article and others, the literature review helped in the interpretation of findings and helped to situate the report in its scholarly contexts. In other articles, the literature review appears in the introductory section. This sets the scholarly context of the research, highlights the significance of topics, and identifies gaps in knowledge. Neither authors nor reviewers should have rigid expectations about where the scholarship of others belongs. It belongs where it makes the most sense and has the most impact.

For many, the placement of literature reviews seems self-evident. Yet, some well-known approaches, such as grounded theory, can set authors up for confusion about where the literature review belongs. This can result in delays in writing up their results. The procedures of grounded theory are open-ended and designed to find new aspects of phenomena—often underresearched—and then develop theories from the findings. At the outset of their work, researchers cannot anticipate what they will find. Therefore, teachers such as Strauss and Glaser advised students not to do literature reviews until they had identified basic social processes that become the focus of the research ( Covan, 2007 ; Glaser & Strauss, 1967 ).

How, then, do researchers write up research reports when they are doing an open-ended study that, by definition, will culminate in unanticipated findings? Do they write their reports as records on how they proceeded chronologically, or do they follow APA style and the dominant tradition that says the literature review comes first? For the most part, I follow the tradition, as, apparently, do most researchers. However, to structure reports in this way sometimes feels strained and artificial. I would prefer to write a more chronological account, in which I can share with readers the lines of inquiry and procedures I followed. The literature review at the beginning of the report, therefore, would be brief. The methods section is quite detailed in how I went about developing the theory. The findings section would have the three-part format I discussed earlier: statement of the theory, presentations of excerpts that support assertions that certain concepts compose the theory, my interpretation of the meanings of the concepts and the excerpts that support them, and then the use of related research and theory to further develop the theory and to situate it in its scholarly traditions.

In all but one of the research reports that I have published, I did the literature after I had identified findings. The one exception was research I did based on the method of analytic induction, in which researchers can use literature reviews to focus their research from the outset ( Gilgun, 1995 , 2007 ). In this research, I used concepts from theories on justice and care to analyze transcripts of interviews I had previously conducted on how perpetrators view child sexual abuse. Even though I was familiar with the transcripts, I found that the concepts of justice and care and their definitions sensitized me to see things in the material that I had not noticed as I did data collection and during previous analyses of the data.

Furthermore, in writing up the results, I brought in research that was not part of the literature review to help me to interpret findings and to show how findings fit with and added to what was already known. I did not place this material in the introductory literature review. Placing related research and theory as parts of the results and discussion sections is common and may be necessary in articles that are reporting on a theory that the authors developed. For descriptive studies whose purpose is not theory-building, such as ethnographies, some findings sections include the addition of research and theory not present in the introductory section. Often, however, authors do not follow this pattern. An example is found in Ahmed (2013) , who described how migrants experience settling into a new country. She presents excerpts from interviews and her interpretation of them, including organizing them into a typology, but she does not bring additional research and theory into her interpretations.

Tensions can arise between how much space to give to literature reviews and how much to allot to presentation of informants’ accounts/findings ( Gilgun, 2005 c ). This happened in the most recent article I co-wrote, which is on mothers’ perspectives on the signs of child sexual abuse ( Gilgun & Anderson, 2013 ). We believed the literature review was important because it not only set up our research but summarized a great deal of information that was important to our intended audience of social service professionals. We also wanted to anticipate the expectations of reviewers and the journal editor. Yet, we put much effort into making the literature review as concise as possible in order to have reasonable space for findings. We wrote the literature review before we did data analysis. When we wrote up the results, the first draft was probably three times longer than any journal article could be.

We had written case studies first to be sure that we understood each case in detail. We had wanted to share what the women said in the kind of detail that had helped us deepen our own understandings, so we cut back on the case material. The article was still too long. We decided to exclude the few instances we had in which women knew of the abuse but tried to handle it themselves or did not believe the children when told. We did more summarizing of the literature review. We eliminated many references.

After much effort, we finally had a manuscript that was the required length of twenty-two pages. It included a literature review that set up the research in good form, an adequate accounting of the method, and findings that conveyed with grab the complexities of the signs and lack of signs of child sexual abuse. We wove points made in the literature review into our interpretations, yet we had to leave out important patterns for the sake of space. The editor’s decision was a revise and resubmit, which we did. The main recommendation was to elaborate on applications. This was a great suggestion, and we dug deep to think about this. We are pleased with the results. We had to do further reading on topics we had not anticipated at the onset of our project, and we squeezed in a few new citations in the discussion section that related to implications of the research. This additional material greatly enhanced the meanings and usefulness of the research.

There is much more to say about qualitative research and literature reviews. Sometimes researchers get stuck, as I have more than once. I have research that I have not yet published because I have been unable to figure out how to do the multiple literature reviews I think I must show how my theory builds on, adds to, and challenges what is already known. I have written up this research as conference papers, where expectations about literature reviews are more relaxed ( Gilgun, 1996c , 1998 , 1999c , 2000 ). One of these. papers was on a comprehensive theory of interpersonal violence ( Gilgun, 2000 ). I wanted to write my theory first and then show how the findings contribute to what is already known. Doing so doesn’t seem so outlandish today, and I now can imagine writing it up exactly as I would want to. At the same time, I wonder if I would? I really don’t know if any journal that would publish a theory of violence would also accept an article that places a literature review after findings. Furthermore, my writing up of the theory would take so many pages that I would not have enough space to do a comprehensive literature review. As of today, the theory I am developing has links to sixteen or more bodies of literature. No way can I publish a journal-length article that will accommodate that much research and theory!

So, here I am, many years into the development of a comprehensive theory, still reflecting on how to create journal articles out of my analysis. I have published many articles in social media outlets exploring ideas that are the basis for the theory. I have put these articles into collections that are available on the internet ( Gilgun, 2012 b ; 2012 c ; 2013 a ). The theory is so complex that writing bits and pieces over the years and having a place to put them have been very helpful.

Finally, some articles may cite few if any related research and theory. This may fit articles whose purpose is to convey lived experience that stands on its own. These articles feature performances, plays, autoethnographies, fictionalized accounts, poetry, and song, among others. Egbe (2013) wrote two poems that she explained were accounts of her experiences of doing research in Nigeria with young smokers. She said she was “dazed by the vast opportunity this method gives a researcher to dig deep into a research problem and be submerged into the world of participants” (p. 353). Her two-page article is composed of two poems and her explanation. The article showed grab, evidence of immersion, experiences in contexts, and multiple perspectives. Her work, therefore, followed well-established guidelines for writing up qualitative research. Egbe not only omitted a literature review, but she did not write about how to use the results of her research, assuming that its uses are self-evident. Obviously, she thought a literature review unnecessary; the reviewers and journal editors agreed with her.

Reflexivity Statements

A growing number of journals encourage researchers to include reflexivity statements in research reports. Researchers may place these in the introductory material of an article, after the literature review and before the methods section; this probably is the most important place to put them because reflexivity statements often influence the focus and design of the research, including the choice of sensitizing concepts and codes. Reflexivity statements may also appear in the methods and findings and methods sections when important. Reflexivity statements are accounts of researchers’ experiences with the topic of research; accounts of their expectations regarding informant issues and their relationships to informants, especially in regard to power differentials and other ethical concerns; and accounts of their reflections on various issues related to possible experiences that informants may have had. They also may include the experience they had while participating in the research ( D’Cruz, Gillingham, & Melendez, 2007 ; Presser, 2005 ). My article on doing research on violence is an extended reflexivity statement ( Gilgun, 2008 ). There appears to be no standard content for reflexivity statements and no standard places for them to appear. Personal and professional experiences and reflections on power differentials may be the emergent standard. Whatever decisions researchers make about reflexivity statements, they alert audiences to researchers’ perspectives, which can be helpful to readers as they attempt to make sense of research reports.

An example of a reflexivity statement is found in Winter (2010) work. Winter is a practitioner turned researcher who had a previous relationship as a guardian ad litem with the children with whom she later conducted the research that she was reporting. Winter was reflexive about the implications of her prior relationship with these children. I imagine, based on my own experience, that she put only a fraction of her thinking into her article. Not only did she write in her reflexivity statement that she had a prior relationship with the children, but she also wrote about the ethical issues involved.

Ethical issues have a place in reflexivity statements. I have run into ethical questions over the course of my research career. One situation that stands out is the encounter I had with a mother and her eleven-year-old daughter who had participated in my dissertation research on child sexual abuse ( Gilgun, 1983 ). The mother cried and told her daughter how sorry she was that she had been unable to protect her from sexual abuse. The girl was touched but did not seem to know what to do. I suggested that she go stand by her mother. When she got close, the mother and daughter hugged each other and cried. This is a significant event with ethical implications that I included in the findings section of my dissertation and in a subsequent research report ( Gilgun, 1984 ). The ethical issue is, first, whether I should have stepped out of my role as detached researcher and guided the girl to go to her mother, and, second, whether I should have made my blurring of boundaries public by publishing them.

As far as the placement of reflexivity statements, the initial statement has a logical location after the literature review because the reflexivity statement contributes to the development of the research questions, the identification of sensitizing concepts, the interview schedule, and the overall design of research procedures. Accounts of ongoing reflexivity could be part the findings section and of the discussion section. Reflexivity statements are not a standard part of research reports, but they can contribute to readers’ understandings of the research.

Along with the literature review, reflexivity statements contribute to practical and applied significance statements and may also help to identify gaps in knowledge. Literature reviews and reflexivity statements contain key concepts. The concepts that researchers define at the end of introductory sections typically become codes during analysis, although researchers may not label the concepts as codes either in the introductory section or in the methods section. I am unsure why such labeling has not become routine. When concepts carry the label code , this clarifies where codes come from. Without naming codes and stating where they come from, much of analysis is mystified. Many reports read as if the codes appear out of nowhere during analysis. Even Glaser’s (1978) notion of theoretical sensitivity mystifies the origins of codes. How, for example, do researchers become theoretically sensitive? What if researchers are beginning their scholarly careers? How theoretically sensitive are they ( Covan, 2007 )? What are the implications for the quality of the analysis?

Research Questions, Hypotheses, and Definitions

The final part of the introductory section of a research report is devoted to research questions, hypotheses to be tested (if any), and definitions of core concepts. In general, in qualitative research, hypotheses are statements of relationships between concepts. Theories usually are composed of two or more hypotheses, although, at times, some researchers may use the term theory to designate a single hypothesis ( Gilgun, 2005 b ). Concepts are extractions from concrete data. Sometimes concepts are called second-order concepts and data first-order concepts .

Research questions may be absent. In their place are purpose statements that make the focus of the report clear. Hypotheses are rarely present in qualitative research. When they are, the purpose of the research is to test them and typically to develop them more fully. This type of research has in the past been called analytic induction ( Gilgun, 1995 e), whereas a more up-to-date version of qualitative hypothesis testing and theory-guided research is called deductive qualitative analysis ( Gilgun, 2005 d ; 2013 ). Analytic induction and deductive qualitative analysis are part of the Chicago School tradition.

Methods Section

Most methods sections for reports based on qualitative approaches have the same elements as any other research report. Descriptions of the sample, recruitment, interview schedule, and plans for data analysis are standard. The APA manual provides guidelines ( American Psychological Association, 2009 ) that fit many types of qualitative research reports. However, reports based on autoethnographies, poetry, and performances may have brief or no methods sections. As is clear by now, the report’s contents depend on the purposes and methodologies of the research and on the editorial requirements of journals.

Accounts of Methodologies

In writing up qualitative research, methods sections usually contain a brief overview of the research methodology, which is the set of principles that guided the research. The following is an account of the methodology used in a research report on cancer treatment in India:

For this project we drew upon interpretive traditions within qualitative research. This involved us taking an in-depth exploratory approach to data collection, aimed at documenting the subjective and complex experiences of the respondents. Our aim was to achieve a detailed understanding of the varying positions adhered to, and to locate those within a broader spectrum underlying beliefs and/or agendas. ( Broom & Doron, 2013 , p. 57)

Sometimes, statements of methodology are much more elaborate, but in research reports, such a statement is sufficient, again depending on the editorial policies of particular journals. A few citations, which this article had, round out an adequate statement of methodology.

However, many reports are written in a clear and straightforward way with scant or no account of methodologies. Examples are the work of Eck (2013) and Spermon, Darlington, and Gibney (2013) . These kinds of well-done write-ups might eventually be considered generic. Spermon et al. said their study was phenomenological, which sets up assumptions that the report will be primarily descriptive. In actuality, the intent was to develop theory. Such mixing of methodologies may be the wave of the future; in many ways, distinctions between phenomenological studies whose purposes are descriptive and those whose purposes are to build theory are blurred. Such blurring may have been the case for decades because it is possible and often desirable to build theories based on phenomenological perspectives; that is, in-depth descriptions of lived experience. However, authors are wise to state in one place what their methodologies are and how they put them to use, such as for descriptive purposes or for theory-building.

Description of Sample

Placing descriptions of sample size and the demographics of the sample in the methods sections is typical. As mentioned earlier, evaluation of sample size depends on the depth and breadth of the study. The more depth a study has, the smaller the number of cases can be. The more breadth and the sharper the focus, the larger sample sizes typically are. Samples on which a study is based must provide enough material on which to base a credible article. A sample size of one may be adequate if researchers show their work demonstrates the basic principles of almost all forms of qualitative research: perspectives of persons who participate in the research, researcher immersion into the settings or the life stories of persons interviewed, multiple perspectives, contextual information of various types, and applications. Autoethnographies often have an n of one, but joint autoethnographies are possible. Ethnographies may not give a sample size, as was the case in the performance ethnography of Valásquez (2011) who wrote in the first person about her experience with scientology. In her first-person ethnography, Irvine (2013) also did not mention sample size. She said that the narratives she used for the article were from a larger study on the meanings of animals to people who have no homes. She did not describe the usual demographics of age, gender, social class, and ethnicity.

Most articles describe the demographics of the sample. In a recently accepted article ( Gilgun & Anderson, 2013 ), I saw no relevance in mentioning the size of the larger sample from which we drew in order to tell the stories of how mothers responded to their learning that their husbands or life partners had sexually abused their children. We included an exact count of the larger sample because we assumed that it would be the journal’s expectations. We also gave particulars of the demographics. Except for social class and ethnicity, we saw little relevance for the other descriptors. These status variables were relevant to us because most of the sample was white and middle or upper class. This is important because much research on child sexual abuse is done with poor people, and there are stereotypes that poor families and families of color are more likely to experience incest than are white middle and upper class families. Overall, as with some other issues related to writing, the adequacy of the sample description depends on the methodological principles of the research and the journal’s editorial policies.

Recruitment

Accounts of recruitment procedures are important because researchers want to show that their work is ethical. Respect for the autonomy or freedom of choice of participants needs to be demonstrated. In addition, often the persons in whose lives we are interested have vulnerabilities. To show that the research procedures have not exploited these vulnerabilities is part of ethical considerations. Most articles have these accounts. Furthermore, when there are accounts of recruitment procedures, it becomes obvious why the sample is not randomly selected. Irvine’s (2013) account of recruitment is exemplary. She recruited through veterinary clinics that took care of the pets of homeless persons. She did not approach potential participants herself. Doing so risked making refusals difficult. The staff informed persons of the research and its purposes. If individuals said they were interested, they gave permission for the staff to give their names to researchers. The research interviews took place in the clinics.

The ethics of recruitment revolve around values, such as respect for autonomy, dignity, and worth. Other ethical issues that are important to mention in reports include the use of incentives for participation. Although many human subjects committees now require monetary incentives for participation, this has ethical implications. Irvine (2013) solved this by giving gift cards after the interviews were completed. Reports on ethical issues have a place in methods sections.

Data Collection and Analysis

Accounts of data collection and analysis are part of the methods section. Data collection procedures should be detailed for many reasons. Primary among them is the need for transparency in terms of the ethical standards the researchers followed, as well as the need to allow for replication of the study. Such details also provide guidelines for others who might be interested in using the methods. In addition, there are many different schools of thought and procedures for each of the methods used with the three general types of data collection: interviews, observations, and documents. It is helpful to state which particular data collection procedures the researchers used. Researchers often provide examples of the kinds of questions asked and procedures used for recording observations and excerpts from documents. Some researchers may omit such an accounting, as with some autoethnographies and articles that turn research material into performances.

How researchers analyzed data is part of the methods sections. As with data collection, there are so many types of analysis that researchers need to describe the particular forms that they used. For figuring out how to report on data analysis, researchers would do well to study articles in journals in which they want to publish. Irvine (2013) used a method of analysis I have never heard of called “personal narrative analysis” (p. 8). She gave enough detail to provide the general idea of what she did and a sufficient number of citations for additional information.

The level of detail can vary. In some sociology journals, for example, researchers may say little about analysis and sometimes little about data collection. This is because the journal editors, reviewers, and those who publish in and read the articles have assumptions that they for the most part take for granted. Even in these journals, however, researchers may want to account for their analytic procedures, especially if they are writing on topics outside of what is usual in such journals.

Other journals require a great deal of detail. In those instances, researchers first decide what they think is essential and then shape their accounts to fit what appears to be usual practice in the journal. The following paragraphs describe data analysis in a recently accepted article on signs of child sexual abuse in families ( Gilgun & Anderson, 2013 ).

Data Analysis

In the analysis of data, the first author read the transcripts multiple times and coded them for instances related to disclosures of child sexual abuse and associated signs of the abuse, such as how and when the women first learned of the abuse or suspected it was occurring in their families, their responses, and their reflections on the signs of abuse they might have missed, as well as child and perpetrator behaviors that they did not realize were related to child sexual abuse. Their initial and longer term responses and reflections were also coded. The second author independently read and coded about one-third of the transcripts using this coding scheme to arrive at a 100 percent agreement.

Sources of the codes were our professional experiences in the area of child sexual abuse, the review of research, and the first author’s familiarity with the content of the interviews because she had been the interviewer. These codes served as sensitizing concepts, which, as Blumer (1986) explained, are ideas that guide researchers to see aspects of phenomena that they might otherwise not notice. Although altering researchers’ ideas to what might be significant serves an obvious useful purpose, sensitizing concepts might also may blind researchers to other aspects of phenomena that might be important. Therefore, we also used negative case analysis, which is a procedure that guides researchers to look for aspects of phenomena that contradict or do not fit with emerging understandings. In this way, researchers are positioned to see patterns, variations within patterns, exceptions, and contradictions in findings ( Becker et al., 1961 ; Bogdan & Biklen, 2007 ; Cressey, 1953 ; Lindesmith, 1947 ).

As we wrote this section, we were aware of the limited space that we had to fill. Yet we were committed to accounting for where our codes came from for reviewers and editors who may be unfamiliar with pre-established codes. As discussed earlier, many reports are written as if codes appear by magic. We decided that, in this report, we would be as clear as possible about where our codes came from. We also reasoned that we would have to call on the authority of well-respected methodologists if reviewers and editors had questions about what we had done. Furthermore, we were aware of the dated nature of the references; we could do nothing about that because there has not been much written recently about pre-established codes. I have written about this quite a bit, but as one of the authors, I not only had to be anonymous during the review process, but I could not be the sole authority.

Generalizability

Many reviewers and editors have questions about the generalizability of the results of qualitative research. Authors themselves sometimes question the generalizability of their own findings. That’s why it remains important to provide clear guidelines in research reports about how the authors view the usefulness of their findings. The following ideas may be helpful to authors as they write their reports and to reviewers who are positioned as gatekeepers. The results of qualitative research are not meant to be generalized in a probabilistic sense. But because dropouts and refusals limit the randomness of samples, most forms of research can’t be generalized in a probabilistic sense.

Conversely, as Cronbach (1975) wrote almost forty years ago, the results of any form of research are working hypotheses that must be tested in local settings. Thus, the applicability of qualitative or any other kind of research can be demonstrated only through attempts at application. Do the findings illuminate other situations? Do the results provide researchers, policy makers, and direct practitioners with ideas on how to proceed? Those who apply the research expect to have to adjust findings to fit particular new situations. Many researchers and some journal editors and reviewers know through common sense and everyday experience how to use the results of qualitative research. Our personal lives are extended case studies. What we learn in one situation, we carry over into another. We know we have to test what we have learned in past situations for fit with new situations. If we do not, we impose our ideas on situations that may demand new perspectives. This common practice of applying results to all situations is disrespectful of local conditions and autonomy of persons. We want to avoid such disrespect in how we suggest readers use the results of our research.

Trustworthiness and Authenticity

Pointing out the trustworthiness of procedures and the findings that result from them sometimes are parts of methods sections. Related to trustworthiness are issues of authenticity ( Guba & Lincoln, 2005 ). Both trustworthiness and authenticity arise from immersion, seeking to understand the perspectives of others in context, reflexivity, and seeking multiple points of view. Researchers who have applied these principles will produce reports that are trustworthy and authentic. In addition, the reports will have grab. Extended discussions related to these issues are beyond the scope of this chapter and the scope of research reports as well.

I get more requests for revisions of methods sections, especially for accounts of data collection and analysis, than for any other parts of a manuscript. This is not surprising, given the multiple possible variations. I never know who the reviewers will be and what their expectations are. I rely first on my beliefs about what I want in the procedures section and then I study articles the journal has already publishes. I include what journal editors appear to expect, but I also add information that I think is important, even when it is not part of what I see in methods sections.

Findings Sections

Findings sections in research reports include both descriptive and conceptual material. Descriptive material is composed of researchers’ paraphrasing and summarizing of what they found and excerpts from interviews, fieldnotes, and documents. The descriptive material, at its best, is detailed and lively; it not only is informative, it has grab. This material contributes to understandings of human experiences in context. In addition, descriptive material is the basis of researchers’ theorizing and it also provides documentation and illustrations of assertions that researchers make.

Conceptual material comprises the analysis and is made up of inferences such as the general statements, concepts, and hypotheses that researchers develop from the material (data). One way to think about the relationship between descriptive and conceptual material is to think of descriptive material as composed of first-order concepts and conceptual material as composed of second-order concepts. Each type depends on the other. Credible conceptual material is based on descriptive material, some of which is contained in the article. Qualitative research yields mountains of data, a fraction of which can be placed into a published article.

As with other sections of research reports, findings sections have many possible variations that depend on the purpose of the research and the methodologies on which the research is based. Thus, the findings can range from heavily descriptive to heavily conceptual. Heavily conceptual research reports arise from research whose purpose is theoretical, in which researchers set out to test, refine, reformulate, or develop theory. Theoretical reports require some descriptive material to show the basis of theoretical statements, but they are often relatively short on descriptive material.

Reports that are primarily descriptive are composed of excerpts from data. Theoretical material appears in often subtle ways, such as in the form of concepts that organize findings. Irvine’s (2013) study of homeless people and their pets is largely descriptive, composed of excerpts from the interviews and Irvine’s paraphrases and narration of what she did, how, and when. The findings were narrative case studies based on interviews and observations. The details of the narratives were vivid and had the kind of grab that Glaser (1978) recommended. They showed multiples perspectives and variations on what it meant to homeless informants to have pets in their lives. The first three pages were a review of relevant literature and a presentation of method. The last five pages were a discussion of the findings.

As lengthy as the descriptive material is, conceptual material frames the entire report. In the literature review, Irvine introduced notions of positive identity, generativity, and redemption. She used them to analyze her data and organize findings, which were the narrative case studies. She used the concept of redemption as the core or organizing concept, going into some detail about how the research material supports the significance of this idea of pets as redemptive for homeless people.

This analysis is based squarely on the descriptive material. For instance, Irvine wrote that in the stories she presented in her article, “animals provide the vehicle for redemption.” She illustrated this point with a quote from one of the narratives and then reminded readers that the narratives “contain variations on the theme” of “ life is better because this animal is in it ” (p. 20; emphasis in original). Readers do not take this on faith because the basis of this general statement in presented multiple times in the case studies. Irvine has much more material on which she based these ideas, but there is not enough room in a journal-length article to show all of her evidence.

An example of an article that is theoretical in purpose and short on descriptive material is found in the work of Cordeau (2012) . She developed a grounded theory of the “transition from student to professional nurse” when student nurses work with “mannequins as simulated patients” (p. 90). Based on interviews, observations, and reports that the students wrote on their clinical experiences, the study was composed of about 10 percent descriptive material. This material included excerpts interviews and student reports. In the results section, she used this descriptive material to illustrate and possibly document the grounded theory she constructed. The theory’s “core category” was “linking,” which had four components, called properties. She documented the properties, primarily with her own thinking about her research material and also with excerpts from interviews, observations, and student reports.

Like Irvine’s (2013) study, the purpose of Cordeau’s (2012) work was applied where she wanted to build theory that would contribute to the development of clinical expertise in nursing students. She also devoted about one page of her study to applications.

Core Concepts

I’ve previously provided an extended discussion of core concepts. This section highlights some key points and illustrates them. Core concepts, often called core categories , organize findings. I prefer the term concept because concept is the term used in discussing theory, such as “concepts are the building blocks of theory,” and theory is one of several possible products of qualitative research. Researchers decide on which concepts are core in the course of analysis. Researchers are ready to write up their reports when they have settled on, named, and dimensionalized one or more core concepts. The terms “core concepts” and “core categories” are associated with grounded theory ( Charmaz, 2006 ; Corbin & Strauss, 2008 ), but they are useful in other types of qualitative research, such as interpretive phenomenology and narrative analysis. Core concepts both organize findings and, typically, bring together a great deal of information. The term “dimension” means that researchers account for as many aspects of the core concepts as they can in order to show the multiple perspectives and patterns that typically compose concepts.

In reporting on core concepts, I recommend that researchers name them, introduce them, describe them using excerpts from the research material, comment on them, and then situate each of the concepts and their commentaries within their scholarly contexts. As discussed earlier, this shows how the findings fit with what is already known, or add to, force modification of, or refute what is known. Although many researchers, do not situate findings in their scholarly contexts, they usually cover the other topics.

No matter how authors report findings, they should do so with grab. An example of a report exemplary for its grab is the work of Scott (2003) on what it means to be a professional with a physical disability. Scott began her article not with a literature review but with three reviewer comments on other articles she had written. She then stated that the present article was a response to these comments. She followed up with a description of three male students who waited to speak to her after class about her disability and the notion of embodiment that she discussed in class. She brought in related literature throughout the article. Through her own reflections, reports on how others have responded to her, reports on the accounts that three other women with disabilities gave to her as a person with cerebral palsy, and her literature review, Scott not only showed the meanings of disabilities to persons who have them, but also what others say about their own disabilities, what some people who are able-bodied say about women with disabilities, and how all of this connects to what is known about disabilities and to wide-spread beliefs about disabilities. Her article is full of grab, such as the header that read, “The Day I Became Human.” With the authors’ own experience as the centerpiece, this article exemplifies write-ups that demonstrate the meanings of lived experience in various contexts, immersion, grab, and implications for social action. The analysis she presented as part of her findings is exemplary.

In the production of quality research, no matter the type of write-up, there are no short cuts. Research reports based on poetry, for example, are held to the same standards as any other article: grab, immersion, lived experience in context, and implications for action. In addition, such research reports typically locate themselves within social and human sciences traditions. Furman’s (2007) reflections and analysis of poetry that he wrote over the course of many years provide an example of how poetry can be used in qualitative analysis. This kind of research is a type of document analysis. In performance studies, researchers create a theater production of informant’s accounts of their experiences whose purpose is to transform audiences and move them to action ( Saldaña, 2003 ). The performances are the equivalent of research reports and when they are effective, they have the four characteristics of qualitative research under discussion.

Discussion Sections

In traditional research reports, the discussion section follows the results section. In discussion sections, authors reflect on findings, including what the findings are, how findings contribute to understandings of phenomena of interest, the lines of inquiry the results open up, and implications for policy and practice. Other generic topics to consider are those related to the focus of the journal. For example, if the journal’s focus is related to health, then authors show how findings are related to health.

Discussion sections present the author with opportunities to advocate for how his or her research can be used. The applied purposes of Irvine’s (2013) research come through when she devoted an entire page to make observations about implications. She pointed out how her research contributes to a transformation of images of homeless persons as isolated to images of them as engaged in relationships not only with their pets but with other persons, too. She noted that rehousing homeless persons requires a change in policy that would allow them to have pets. Furthermore, she said that caring for a pet “can turn things around” (p. 24).

In the discussion section I wrote with Anderson ( Gilgun & Anderson, 2013 ), we addressed methodological issues, such as the probable existence of other patterns in addition to those we identified and the nonrandom nature of our sample. We also acknowledged the difficulties in working with families in which child sexual abuse has occurred. Since qualitative researchers want to understand lived experiences, we had to prepare ourselves to deal effectively in research areas that are difficult emotionally for us as researchers. Although we may acknowledge the emotional challenges of some topics in reflexivity statements, discussion sections are opportunities for authors to acknowledge the difficulties of using the results we produce. In the article I wrote with Anderson, we made such an acknowledgment, one that we hoped would facilitate more effective practice. We wrote

Practitioners themselves may experience shock, rage, and disgust. The practice of neutrality, in its therapeutic sense, is important in these cases ( Gil & Johnson, 1993 ; Rober, 2011 ). Neutrality means that practitioners maintain their analytic stances while at the same time they remain attuned not only to service users but also to themselves. When practicing neutrality, service providers regulate their own emotional responses in order to remain emotionally available to service users. Neutrality also means that service providers remain open-minded so that they can hear stories that they may not expect to hear; in other words, to make room for the unexpected ( Rober, 2011 ). Attunement to inner processes is a form of reflection that can facilitate the development of trust between service users and providers. When providers are reflective, they are less likely to tune out, close down, and otherwise stop listening to what services users express. When they listen and hear what service users say, they are more likely to facilitate the best possible outcomes in difficult situations ( Weingarten, 2012 ).

Doing research on lived experience can be difficult for informants and for researchers. Acknowledgment of the implications of these difficulties for users of the research has a place in discussion sections.

In summary, most articles are fairly straightforward in their write-ups: focused literature reviews, reflexivity statements in many cases, clear statements of purpose, clarity about sources of research questions and/or hypotheses, identification and definition of key concepts, identification of codes the researcher develops from literature reviews and reflexivity statements, succinct accounting of methods, and findings organized logically by core concepts around which the researcher organizes the multiple dimensions of those concepts. Excellent writing makes articles interesting and accessible. Some kinds of write-ups deviate from these components, but they are held to the same standards of immersion, experiences in context, multiple perspectives, and implications for action and other applications. When authors have the good fortune to have a recommendation to revise and resubmit, suggestions for revisions often improve the quality of the article.

The seemingly endless variations that are possible in the write-up of qualitative research makes writing and reviewing manuscripts challenging, especially when compared to traditions in which rigid rules prevail. However, it is important that approaches to qualitative research continue to evolve to meet with our ever-changing understandings of human phenomena. The clarity and transparency of reports are the fundamental guidelines for making judgments about quality. I often tell my students that the guidelines for doing qualitative research are flexible, and what is important is to be clear about what you did, why you did it, and what you came up with.

The notion of grab is central to write-up. Since qualitative research seeks to understand lived experiences, it is logical that findings report on the lived experiences in vivid terms, replete with quotes from data. This is not to undermine the importance of analysis, but grab is possible even in write-ups that require a great deal of analysis. Grab becomes possible because researchers must provide the evidence for the theories and concepts they develop.

When there are questions about priorities related to informants’ voices, researchers’ interpretations, and prior research, I hope that authors, reviewers, and editors remember that as important as analysis and previous work may be, the voices of informants bring these other important parts of manuscripts to life. Researchers make decisions about whose voices take priority.

There is no one way to respond to these dilemmas. Authors must make their own decisions about what is important to them and then search for journals that will welcome what they want to convey. It’s important to consider pushing the boundaries and writing an article in a way that the researcher thinks will best convey his or her findings.

The importance of quality data, quality analysis, and “grab” are foundational. I began this chapter with a discussion of the balance between description and analysis. I then considered core concepts as organizers of findings, the place of literature reviews, styles of presenting methods and methodologies, and the balance between the voices of informants and researchers. I concluded with the many variations in types of reports that result from the various purposes that qualitative research projects can have. There are many different types of qualitative research and many styles of write-ups. This chapter may sensitize readers to enduring issues in the writing of research reports. Like qualitative research itself, there are multiple points of view on how to write up qualitative research.

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The Dissertation Abstract: 101

How to write a clear & concise abstract (with examples).

By:   Madeline Fink (MSc) Reviewed By: Derek Jansen (MBA)   | June 2020

So, you’ve (finally) finished your thesis or dissertation or thesis. Now it’s time to write up your abstract (sometimes also called the executive summary). If you’re here, chances are you’re not quite sure what you need to cover in this section, or how to go about writing it. Fear not – we’ll explain it all in plain language , step by step , with clear examples .

Overview: The Dissertation/Thesis Abstract

• What exactly is a dissertation (or thesis) abstract
• What’s the purpose and function of the abstract
• Why is the abstract so important
• How to write a high-quality dissertation abstract
• Example/sample of a quality abstract
• Quick tips to write a high-quality dissertation abstract

What is an abstract?

Simply put, the abstract in a dissertation or thesis is a short (but well structured) summary that outlines the most important points of your research (i.e. the key takeaways). The abstract is usually 1 paragraph or about 300-500 words long (about one page), but but this can vary between universities.

A quick note regarding terminology – strictly speaking, an abstract and an executive summary are two different things when it comes to academic publications. Typically, an abstract only states what the research will be about, but doesn’t explore the findings – whereas an executive summary covers both . However, in the context of a dissertation or thesis, the abstract usually covers both, providing a summary of the full project.

In terms of content, a good dissertation abstract usually covers the following points:

• The purpose of the research (what’s it about and why’s that important)
• The methodology (how you carried out the research)
• The key research findings (what answers you found)
• The implications of these findings (what these answers mean)

We’ll explain each of these in more detail a little later in this post. Buckle up.

What’s the purpose of the abstract?

A dissertation abstract has two main functions:

The first purpose is to  inform potential readers  of the main idea of your research without them having to read your entire piece of work. Specifically, it needs to communicate what your research is about (what were you trying to find out) and what your findings were . When readers are deciding whether to read your dissertation or thesis, the abstract is the first part they’ll consider. 

The second purpose of the abstract is to  inform search engines and dissertation databases  as they index your dissertation or thesis. The keywords and phrases in your abstract (as well as your keyword list) will often be used by these search engines to categorize your work and make it accessible to users. 

Simply put, your abstract is your shopfront display window – it’s what passers-by (both human and digital) will look at before deciding to step inside. 

Why’s it so important?

The short answer – because most people don’t have time to read your full dissertation or thesis! Time is money, after all…

If you think back to when you undertook your literature review , you’ll quickly realise just how important abstracts are! Researchers reviewing the literature on any given topic face a mountain of reading, so they need to optimise their approach. A good dissertation abstract gives the reader a “TLDR” version of your work – it helps them decide whether to continue to read it in its entirety. So, your abstract, as your shopfront display window, needs to “sell” your research to time-poor readers.

You might be thinking, “but I don’t plan to publish my dissertation”. Even so, you still need to provide an impactful abstract for your markers. Your ability to concisely summarise your work is one of the things they’re assessing, so it’s vital to invest time and effort into crafting an enticing shop window.  

A good abstract also has an added purpose for grad students . As a freshly minted graduate, your dissertation or thesis is often your most significant professional accomplishment and highlights where your unique expertise lies. Potential employers who want to know about this expertise are likely to only read the abstract (as opposed to reading your entire document) – so it needs to be good!

Think about it this way – if your thesis or dissertation were a book, then the abstract would be the blurb on the back cover. For better or worse, readers will absolutely judge your book by its cover .

How to write your abstract

As we touched on earlier, your abstract should cover four important aspects of your research: the purpose , methodology , findings , and implications . Therefore, the structure of your dissertation or thesis abstract needs to reflect these four essentials, in the same order.  Let’s take a closer look at each of them, step by step:

Step 1: Describe the purpose and value of your research

Here you need to concisely explain the purpose and value of your research. In other words, you need to explain what your research set out to discover and why that’s important. When stating the purpose of research, you need to clearly discuss the following:

• What were your research aims and research questions ?
• Why were these aims and questions important?

It’s essential to make this section extremely clear, concise and convincing . As the opening section, this is where you’ll “hook” your reader (marker) in and get them interested in your project. If you don’t put in the effort here, you’ll likely lose their interest.

Step 2: Briefly outline your study’s methodology

In this part of your abstract, you need to very briefly explain how you went about answering your research questions . In other words, what research design and methodology you adopted in your research. Some important questions to address here include:

• Did you take a qualitative or quantitative approach ?
• Who/what did your sample consist of?
• How did you collect your data?
• How did you analyse your data?

Simply put, this section needs to address the “ how ” of your research. It doesn’t need to be lengthy (this is just a summary, after all), but it should clearly address the four questions above.

Need a helping hand?

Step 3: Present your key findings

Next, you need to briefly highlight the key findings . Your research likely produced a wealth of data and findings, so there may be a temptation to ramble here. However, this section is just about the key findings – in other words, the answers to the original questions that you set out to address.

Again, brevity and clarity are important here. You need to concisely present the most important findings for your reader.

Step 4: Describe the implications of your research

Have you ever found yourself reading through a large report, struggling to figure out what all the findings mean in terms of the bigger picture? Well, that’s the purpose of the implications section – to highlight the “so what?” of your research. 

In this part of your abstract, you should address the following questions:

• What is the impact of your research findings on the industry /field investigated? In other words, what’s the impact on the “real world”. 
• What is the impact of your findings on the existing body of knowledge ? For example, do they support the existing research?
• What might your findings mean for future research conducted on your topic?

If you include these four essential ingredients in your dissertation abstract, you’ll be on headed in a good direction.

Example: Dissertation/thesis abstract

Here is an example of an abstract from a master’s thesis, with the purpose , methods , findings , and implications colour coded.

The U.S. citizenship application process is a legal and symbolic journey shaped by many cultural processes. This research project aims to bring to light the experiences of immigrants and citizenship applicants living in Dallas, Texas, to promote a better understanding of Dallas’ increasingly diverse population. Additionally, the purpose of this project is to provide insights to a specific client, the office of Dallas Welcoming Communities and Immigrant Affairs, about Dallas’ lawful permanent residents who are eligible for citizenship and their reasons for pursuing citizenship status . The data for this project was collected through observation at various citizenship workshops and community events, as well as through semi-structured interviews with 14 U.S. citizenship applicants . Reasons for applying for U.S. citizenship discussed in this project include a desire for membership in U.S. society, access to better educational and economic opportunities, improved ease of travel and the desire to vote. Barriers to the citizenship process discussed in this project include the amount of time one must dedicate to the application, lack of clear knowledge about the process and the financial cost of the application. Other themes include the effects of capital on applicant’s experience with the citizenship process, symbolic meanings of citizenship, transnationalism and ideas of deserving and undeserving surrounding the issues of residency and U.S. citizenship. These findings indicate the need for educational resources and mentorship for Dallas-area residents applying for U.S. citizenship, as well as a need for local government programs that foster a sense of community among citizenship applicants and their neighbours.

Practical tips for writing your abstract

When crafting the abstract for your dissertation or thesis, the most powerful technique you can use is to try and put yourself in the shoes of a potential reader. Assume the reader is not an expert in the field, but is interested in the research area. In other words, write for the intelligent layman, not for the seasoned topic expert. 

Start by trying to answer the question “why should I read this dissertation?”

Remember the WWHS.

Make sure you include the  what , why ,  how , and  so what  of your research in your abstract:

• What you studied (who and where are included in this part)
• Why the topic was important
• How you designed your study (i.e. your research methodology)
• So what were the big findings and implications of your research

Keep it simple.

Use terminology appropriate to your field of study, but don’t overload your abstract with big words and jargon that cloud the meaning and make your writing difficult to digest. A good abstract should appeal to all levels of potential readers and should be a (relatively) easy read. Remember, you need to write for the intelligent layman.

Be specific.

When writing your abstract, clearly outline your most important findings and insights and don’t worry about “giving away” too much about your research – there’s no need to withhold information. This is the one way your abstract is not like a blurb on the back of a book – the reader should be able to clearly understand the key takeaways of your thesis or dissertation after reading the abstract. Of course, if they then want more detail, they need to step into the restaurant and try out the menu.

Psst... there’s more!

This post was based on one of our popular Research Bootcamps . If you're working on a research project, you'll definitely want to check this out ...

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19 Comments

This was so very useful, thank you Caroline.

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This was really useful in writing the abstract for my dissertation. Thank you Caroline.

Very clear and helpful information. Thanks so much!

Fabulous information – succinct, simple information which made my life easier after the most stressful and rewarding 21 months of completing this Masters Degree.

Very clear, specific and to the point guidance. Thanks a lot. Keep helping people 🙂

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Thanks for this! Very concise and helpful for my ADHD brain.

I am so grateful for the tips. I am very optimistic in coming up with a winning abstract for my dessertation, thanks to you.

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Writing an abstract - a six point checklist (with samples)

Posted in: abstract , dissertations

The abstract is a vital part of any research paper. It is the shop front for your work, and the first stop for your reader. It should provide a clear and succinct summary of your study, and encourage your readers to read more. An effective abstract, therefore should answer the following questions:

• Why did you do this study or project?
• What did you do and how?
• What did you find?
• What do your findings mean?

So here's our run down of the key elements of a well-written abstract.

• Size - A succinct and well written abstract should be between approximately 100- 250 words.
• Background - An effective abstract usually includes some scene-setting information which might include what is already known about the subject, related to the paper in question (a few short sentences).
• Purpose  - The abstract should also set out the purpose of your research, in other words, what is not known about the subject and hence what the study intended to examine (or what the paper seeks to present).
• Methods - The methods section should contain enough information to enable the reader to understand what was done, and how. It should include brief details of the research design, sample size, duration of study, and so on.
• Results - The results section is the most important part of the abstract. This is because readers who skim an abstract do so to learn about the findings of the study. The results section should therefore contain as much detail about the findings as the journal word count permits.
• Conclusion - This section should contain the most important take-home message of the study, expressed in a few precisely worded sentences. Usually, the finding highlighted here relates to the primary outcomes of the study. However, other important or unexpected findings should also be mentioned. It is also customary, but not essential, to express an opinion about the theoretical or practical implications of the findings, or the importance of their findings for the field. Thus, the conclusions may contain three elements:
• The primary take-home message.
• Any additional findings of importance.
• Implications for future studies.

Example Abstract 2: Engineering Development and validation of a three-dimensional finite element model of the pelvic bone.

Abstract from: Dalstra, M., Huiskes, R. and Van Erning, L., 1995. Development and validation of a three-dimensional finite element model of the pelvic bone. Journal of biomechanical engineering, 117(3), pp.272-278.

And finally...  A word on abstract types and styles

Abstract types can differ according to subject discipline. You need to determine therefore which type of abstract you should include with your paper. Here are two of the most common types with examples.

Informative Abstract

The majority of abstracts are informative. While they still do not critique or evaluate a work, they do more than describe it. A good informative abstract acts as a surrogate for the work itself. That is, the researcher presents and explains all the main arguments and the important results and evidence in the paper. An informative abstract includes the information that can be found in a descriptive abstract [purpose, methods, scope] but it also includes the results and conclusions of the research and the recommendations of the author. The length varies according to discipline, but an informative abstract is usually no more than 300 words in length.

Descriptive Abstract A descriptive abstract indicates the type of information found in the work. It makes no judgements about the work, nor does it provide results or conclusions of the research. It does incorporate key words found in the text and may include the purpose, methods, and scope of the research. Essentially, the descriptive abstract only describes the work being summarised. Some researchers consider it an outline of the work, rather than a summary. Descriptive abstracts are usually very short, 100 words or less.

Adapted from Andrade C. How to write a good abstract for a scientific paper or conference presentation. Indian J Psychiatry. 2011 Apr;53(2):172-5. doi: 10.4103/0019-5545.82558. PMID: 21772657; PMCID: PMC3136027 .

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GUIDANCE ON SUBMISSION OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH ABSTRACTS

General guidance

Authors should refer to the general information and guidelines contained in the Society’s “Guidance for Submission of Abstracts”. The general guidance therein applies to qualitative research abstracts. This includes the maximum permitted limit of 250 words, and the instruction that abstracts should be structured. In keeping with all submissions to the Society, subsequent presentation must reflect and elaborate on the abstract. Research studies or findings not referred to in the abstract should not be presented.

This document contains specific guidance on the content of qualitative research abstracts.

How guidance on content is to be applied by authors and Council.

Council recognises that the nature of qualitative research makes its comprehensive communication within short abstracts a challenge.  Therefore, whilst the key areas to be included within abstracts are set out below, it is recognised that emphasis on each area will vary in different cases, and that not every listed sub-area will be covered.  Certain elements are likely to receive greater attention at the time of presentation than within the abstract.  In particular, presentation of the paper should include sufficient empirical data to allow judgement of the conclusions drawn.

Content of abstracts

• Research question/objective and design: clear statement of the research question/objective and its relevance. Methodological or theoretical perspectives should be clearly outlined.
• Population and sampling: who the subjects were and what sampling strategies were used .
• Methods of data collection: clear exposition of data collection: access, selection, method of collection, type of data, relationship of researcher to subjects/setting (what data were collected, from where/whom, by whom)
• Quality of data and analysis: strategies to enhance quality of data analysis e.g. triangulation, respondent validation; and to enhance validity e.g. attention to negative cases, consideration of alternative explanations, team analysis, peer review panels
• Application of critical thinking to analysis: attention to the influence of the researcher on data collected and on analysis. Critical approach to the status of data collected
• Theoretical and empirical context: evidence that design and analysis take into account and add to previous knowledge
• Conclusions: justified in relation to data collected, sufficient original data presented to substantiate interpretations, reasoned consideration of transferability  to groups/settings beyond those studied

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Vignettes: an innovative qualitative data collection tool in Medical Education research

• Open access
• Published: 05 June 2024

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• Sylvia Joshua Western   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4397-6746 1 ,
• Brian McEllistrem 1 ,
• Jane Hislop 1 ,
• Alan Jaap 1 &
• David Hope 1  

This article describes how to make use of exemplar vignettes in qualitative medial education research. Vignettes are particularly useful in prompting discussion with participants, when using real-life case examples may breach confidentiality. As such, using vignettes allows researchers to gain insight into participants’ thinking in an ethically sensitive way.

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Vignettes are written, visual, or oral stimuli portraying realistic events in a focussed manner, purposefully aligned with the research objectives and paradigms to elicit responses from research participants [ 1 ]. They have been used in qualitative research to explore physical, social, and mental health–related topics. Although clinical vignettes are widely used in teaching and assessment, vignettes are under-utilised as a research tool in medical education. In this article, we outline the ways in which we found vignettes to be helpful in addressing our research aims prompting a conversation on how they might be used in other medical education research contexts, particularly when working with sensitive issues.

We used vignettes within individual semi-structured interviews, to explore how medical educators interpreted different test-wise behaviours (“ skills and strategies that are not related to the construct being measured on the test but that facilitate an increased test score ”[ 2 ]). We opted to use vignettes for the following reasons:

Akin to clinical vignettes, they enable usage of anonymised and fictionalised version of real-life case studies, protecting the identity and confidentiality of the original individuals [ 3 ]. Vignettes retained the essence of the event but potential identifiers or personal information from the original were redacted or anonymized.

Realistic scenarios support the exploration of sensitive topics which can generate authentic ethical dilemmas. Instead of asking “Have you ever tried to trick your examiner into giving you more marks”? - a question which might cause distress or harm to participants, we could posit a vignette and ask our participants for a third-person perspective. Vignettes therefore promote participants’ psychological safety by providing an alternative non-confronting and safer avenue to discuss value-laden constructs [ 1 ].

When discussing complex ambiguous topics, they provide a focus to help participants orient to the specific matter at hand [ 3 ]. Vignettes help define and communicate the context, setting, character, and situation succinctly.

Using an established framework of Skilling & Stylianides [ 1 ], we constructed five vignettes portraying a spectrum of test-wise behaviours. We drew on informal conversations with stakeholders, online forums, our professional experience, academic literature, and knowledge of the local context to draft the vignettes. Our aim was to understand how people make meaning, what guided their decisions and reactions to test-wise behaviours. Following feedback from experts and several pilot interviews, we revised the vignettes. As such we found that the process of building vignettes was iterative, collaborative, and continuously evolving.

Using previous case studies employing vignettes for data collection, we reflected on the iterative process of constructing, peer and expert reviewing, piloting, and deploying vignettes to eight participants. Participants were staff and students at Edinburgh Medical School. By contemplating the decision-making pathway that aided vignette construction, studying the reflective notes of the interviewer, thematically analysing interview transcripts, and engaging in an ongoing discussion and feedback loops with our expert and supervisory panel, we identified eight factors making vignettes especially useful:

By controlling the age, sex, and ethnicity of subjects, we could explore how participants interpreted and reacted to different test-wise behaviours of different students.

Following discussion, participants commented on the realism of the vignettes, allowing for iteration of the vignettes over time.

Vignettes facilitated subjective interpretation of complex situations and allowed for intentional reflection on thoughts and actions.

Participants had the agency to discuss their own attitudes in relation to the vignettes and used them to explore their real-life experiences.

We tailored the frequency and type of vignette based on the participant’s role, and selected vignettes to explore issues under-discussed in previous interviews.

Criticising real actions and guidelines can be challenging. Discussing hypothetical vignettes allowed for openness, honesty, and pragmatic answers.

Exposing participants to novel vignettes helped the researchers compare their expectations and beliefs to participant views. Participants found the vignettes plausible, which suggested the researchers had a defensible understanding of the topic.

We can compare the interpretation of the same vignette by different individuals in different roles to understand the underlying rationale for their differing perspectives. Follow-up interviews allow for the exploration of changes over time.

Figure  1 shows an exemplar vignette with excerpts of participant responses. Rather than ask how they would feel if an exam candidate used false empathy to conceal their lack of content knowledge, we used Nat vignette (in Fig.  1 ) as a realistic case study to facilitate discussion. The broader themes in the left side of the infographic (Fig.  1 ) speak to some of the factors identified previously, acting as a teaser facilitating the readers to think through the participant responses. For example, the snippet “I can think of it happening to me at least once” connects to plausibility and realism - the participant thinks that this is a plausible scene in their context, and it seems real to them.

Example vignette with excerpts of participant responses

Firstly, a challenge we faced pertained to participant engagement. While all participants found the example vignette (in Fig.  1 ) both plausible and relatable, the pattern of engagement varied among them. Some used it as a springboard to delve into their own real-life stories, while others found it challenging to reconcile the artificial and hypothetical nature of the vignette. The effectiveness of vignettes hinges on participant engagement. Drawing from our experience and the supporting literature, we found that vignettes must be relatable [ 3 ], plausible [ 3 ], and situated in context [ 1 ]. Participants must be oriented to the vignette method before interview and be given the vignettes at appropriate times during the interview. It is essential when using vignettes to gauge and promote engagement during the interview. Tailored questions and prompts are helpful strategies to promote such engagement. Secondly, we agree that however realistic vignettes are, they are “not real”, therefore participants’ responses to hypothetical vignettes might not perfectly align with their reactions to real-life situations, for instance, considering their underlying motivational relevance to the different contexts - research environment and real-life [ 3 ]. Researchers should remain aware of these challenges and interpret their findings with caution [ 3 ].

In conclusion, our use of vignettes was an innovative alternative to using high-stakes, confidential real-life case examples in qualitative research. Usage of vignette opens new possibilities in medical education research: they can be used within questionnaire surveys, individual and focus group interviews, or as ethnographic field notes. They offer a versatile approach to allow exploration of high-stakes, sensitive, and ethically contentious issues with participants in a safe way. Therefore, researchers can benefit significantly from applying vignettes in their own research.

Data Availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Western, S.J., McEllistrem, B., Hislop, J. et al. Vignettes: an innovative qualitative data collection tool in Medical Education research. Med.Sci.Educ. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40670-024-02074-0

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How to Write an Abstract for a Research Paper

A professional writer with ten years of experience and a Ph.D. in Modern History, Catharine Tawil writes engaging and insightful papers for academic exchange. With deep insight into the impact of historical events on the present, she provides a unique perspective in giving students a feel for the past. Her writing educates and stimulates critical thinking, making her a treasure to those wading through the complexities of history.

Do you want to know how to write an abstract like a pro? Composing an abstract for a research paper is a very important stage of your research work. It is a compact and precise description of the main body of your paper, which is intended to help the readers understand the paper quickly. An abstract should be concise, well-organized, and contain all the important issues of your research paper. It enables readers to filter out and choose the rest of the document according to their interests. So, let us explain the details.

What Is an Abstract for a Research Paper?

An abstract is a short, concise summary of a research paper that provides a clear understanding of the paper. It is placed at the beginning of the paper and ranges from 150 to 300 words. It gives a synopsis of the major findings of your study, comprising the research aim, methods used, the most important findings, and the main conclusions.

The abstract gives readers a brief understanding of your paper, and they do not need to read the entire document. It is a complete text that shows why your work is important and summarizes your study's main findings. The quality of the abstract is important because it allows your paper to be picked out in academic databases and, thus, other researchers to read your full paper.

When to Write an Abstract

You should write the abstract and the remaining paper after you have completed your research. This is because the summary is essentially a collation of all the key points of your research, such as the results and conclusions, which are not known until you have conducted the research. An abstract should be written at the end to ensure that it adequately reflects your paper and that no important points are missed.

According to the University of Southern California, your abstract should reflect your research, be clear and concise, and show the main goal of your study and its outcome. Through the final stage of your writing cycle, you can be confident that your abstract has covered all aspects of your article and is consistent with its content.

Types of Abstract

Abstracts can be generally divided into two types, each distinct by purpose. Recognizing the gap in these categories from a researcher's perspective enables the design of an abstract that fits the study's aim and the reader's anticipations. Here is what you need to know about the main abstract types as a student.

Descriptive Abstract

Such an abstract introduces the research's information without giving a detailed account. It explains what the methods and the scope of the research are but won't include the results and conclusions. A descriptive abstract, which is usually very short, less than 100 words, and is often used for short papers or articles, is commonly used for brief papers or articles. Here is its purpose:

• Provides the research's purpose and scope.
• Highlights the methods used.
• Does not include results or conclusions.

Following a descriptive abstract, the reader should have a decent comprehension of the research's purpose and a general idea of the topics covered. However, they should read the full paper to discover the findings and conclusions. It's often not used as much as its informative counterpart, but it can be useful for complex studies that don't require a detailed explanation in the abstract.

Informative Abstract

An informative abstract is a mini-version of the paper. It is a synopsis. It contains not only the study goals and research methods but also the results and conclusions. This type of abstract is more detailed and longer than a descriptive abstract, often going up to 200 to 300 words. The author presents an outline of the study's findings or proofs, the thesis or main arguments, and a brief argument of the implications. Besides, you can always say, "Write my paper." Do not hesitate to ask us for help!

An informative abstract provides enough detail about the content to help the reader decide whether to read the whole paper. We mostly use this type, which is especially convenient for technical or research-intensive documents where the reader does not necessarily need to read the whole paper to get the idea.

Descriptive & Informative Abstracts: Common Differences

The structure of the abstract: step-by-step instructions.

A well-organized abstract provides a concise and summarized overview of your research paper. Each component should be correctly written to provide the key points of your research. The structure typically follows the natural order of the research flow to present the motivation, problem, methods, results, and conclusion in an integrated and consistent manner.

Purpose and Motivation

In your abstract's introduction and purpose section, you explain why you commenced the research and your goals. This part should clearly and unambiguously explain the fact that the research question is crucial and justify the rationale for the study. It should start with giving the context by discussing the wider research field or a particular issue that is the focus of your paper.

The Problem of Research

The purpose statement of the abstract defines the specific problem or gap in understanding your research studies. To be effective, you have to be concise but make sure your message gets the idea across and is clear enough to convey the problem or question you are handling. Here is what you should do:

• Clearly state the research problem.
• Identify the gap in the literature.
• Mention the implications of the problem.

After explaining the problem, you should identify the benefit of solving it for your discipline or the intended group. This defines the importance of your research and shows how your work relates to the ongoing academic debate in the field. By thoroughly identifying the problem, you help your readers comprehend the context and magnitude of the problem being investigated. So, check our research paper abstract guidelines to master your writing.

Researching Approach

The methodology section of your abstract elaborates on the techniques you applied to resolve the research question. A description of the research design, data collection techniques, and analysis methods should be carried out. It is important to summarize why these methods are appropriate for your analysis and how, by using them, you can accomplish your research goals.

Research Results

In the research results section of your abstract, highlight the main conclusions of your investigation. This section is supposed to be straight and concise, indicating major results without getting into an in-depth discussion of the analysis. State whether the results confirm or disprove your hypothesis or answer the research question.

Highlight any commonly occurring trends, relationships, or patterns you have discovered are a must. However, including concrete numbers to clarify the results and impact is important. This brief part should help the reader understand what your research unveiled and how these findings boost the scientific community. Besides, check our latest article on how to polish your reasearch paper format!

The final part of your abstract should stress the practical implications and importance of the findings. The second section of the report summarizes the research findings and describes the broader significance of the results obtained. Outline the study you intend to address, the gap you found in the research question, and what it means for the field. Besides, you need a research paper abstract example.

Tips for Writing an Abstract

A well-written abstract is imperative to stimulate interest in your research and explain it lucidly to readers. It will be your paper's window; it provides the reader with all the necessary information in an easy-to-understand way. Below are some simple tricks to guide you through writing a short abstract that will convey your research and be interesting to read.

Read Other Abstracts

Do you know all the components of a research paper abstract? If not, remember them ASAP! There's nothing wrong with reading abstracts written by other students. Think of it as an opportunity to analyze their thinking processes and approaches to crafting this section of the research paper. Here's what you should pay attention to:

• Observe the language and terminology used.
• Note the balance between conciseness and detail.
• Identify common structures that seem effective.

After familiarizing yourself with each abstract example, write as clearly and concisely as possible. This will help you understand the abstract's nature and how to organize the information.

Reverse Outline

Here is how to craft a research paper abstract like a pro. Try reverse outlining. This technique involves outlining your completed paper and noting the key points from each section: introduction, methods, results, and conclusion. This makes it easier to detect if anything is missing from your abstract and if the content of your abstract accurately reflects the content of your paper.

Cech research paper abstract examples. Begin with the main goal and what you'll be studying, then continue with the methodology, the main findings, and the importance of these findings. The paper is broken down into essential sections so that you can rebuild them into a concise and informative abstract.

Write Clearly and Concisely

Clarity and shortness are vital when writing an abstract. It is the opener, the only part readers will read, so it must briefly tell your research story. Use simple sentences and don't use complex sentence structures to make reading easy for people, especially those outside of English-speaking countries.

Every sentence must accomplish a task, be it articulating the study, summarizing the methods, exhibiting the results, or discussing implications. Avoid telling details and concentrate on what is only important to study your research's range, importance, and consequences. This rigid but essential writing technique will make the abstract for research paper assignments clean and informative.

Check Your Formatting

Writing an abstract for a research paper may seem daunting. Finalizing correctly and adhering to your professor's key instructions is crucial. Ensure that you follow all formatting guidelines and avoid making any careless mistakes. Here's a typical checklist for students:

• Confirm word count limits.
• Check for specific structural requirements.
• Verify if certain sections require bolding or subheadings.

Before submission, cross-check your abstract for consistency in style, like font and spacing, and make sure it meets all submission requirements. Proper formatting not only gives an excellent impression but also makes your work fit into the expected norms of your audience. And check at least one abstract example beforehand!

Things to Avoid in Your Abstract

The abstract is where you need to be as clear and to the point as possible. Do not bother adding unnecessary information or intricate details that will be included in the main body of the paper. So, here is how to write an abstract for a research paper without making mistakes.

Using Jargon

So, research paper abstract writing is not an easy task. Inserting jargon and super technical vocabulary in your abstract will prevent you from reaching readers who are not specialists in your specific area of research. Abstractions should be understandable to a wider audience, including laypersons who may not be literate. Clarify the meaning of the words that are not commonly known and replace the complicated words with those that are easier to understand whenever necessary.

Just check one abstract example! If ambiguous terminology should be avoided, define it as shortly and precisely as possible. Recollect that the main role of an abstract is to convey the main idea of the research briefly and understandably; wordiness can be an obstacle in this way and prevent readers from understanding the significance of your work.

Providing Too Much Detail

When writing an abstract, you should not lose sight of the fact that it is not the main body of the paper but introduces the research. As a summary, the abstract should state the main points and findings without being so detailed as to list all the data or the analysis. The main purpose of the abstract is to give the reader a brief and clear overview of your research and its main points.

Therefore, the abstract should not contain details that confuse readers and prevent them from understanding what you are trying to say. Your research paper abstract structure should be solid. Emphasize concisely addressing the research question, design, key findings, and conclusion. The way of writing this proposal is intended to help the reader keep their interest and motivate them to read the paper.

Introducing New Concepts

Writing an abstract is not an easy task. Here's another red flag you should avoid: introducing new concepts that may not yield the desired results or align with the typical approach to creating research papers. Here is your list of actions as a student:

• Avoid mentioning studies or data not discussed in the paper.
• Do not introduce new frameworks or theories.
• Refrain from including references to literature not cited in the main body.

Ensuring the abstract contains details from the paper will keep it coherent and prevent confusing readers. An abstract summarizes your research, highlighting the major points and providing short and precise information about the research. Now, you know how to write an abstract for a research paper correctly.

Vague or Ambiguous Language

Do you need tips for writing a research paper abstract? Here you go. Being imprecise or ambiguous in an abstract can cause your research to be misinterpreted regarding its relevance and focus. It is significant to utilize accurate and understandable language to specifically convey your research's purpose, methodology, results, and implications. It is advisable not to use general statements that do not provide concrete information.

So, what is an abstract? It is a part of your paper where every sentence should effectively show the importance of your research. Having a clear and concise abstract not only improves readability but also ensures that the audience understands the aim and conclusion of your study without confusion.

Making Unsupported Claims

The argument or claim in an abstract should be supported by evidence presented in the abstract research paper. The lack of evidence backing unsupported claims may lead to the credibility loss of your research and the creation of false perceptions about its validity. It is essential to ensure that all the major paragraphs of the abstract are based on the data you obtained and the findings of your study.

This includes corroborating the results and only drawing conclusions related to them. Don't stretch the implications of your research or suggest a broader application unbacked by evidence. A trustworthy research paper abstract summarizes the research and its outcomes and is integral to the whole assignment and the research process.

Exceeding the Recommended Word Count

So, what is an abstract in a research paper? It is a crucial paper assignment! Sticking to the recommended word count for an abstract is significant. On the other hand, if the text is beyond this limit, it may be overly detailed and too much for your reader to handle. Also, being accepted for print or at conferences can be problematic since most of them have set word count requirements.

Writing an effective research paper abstract can be a game changer. A boxed summary compresses your research into its most important aspects, focusing on the problem, methodology, results, and implications without unnecessary details. Limiting the number of words ensures that your abstract remains clear and concise.

What should be included in a research paper abstract?

The research paper abstract should include a short introduction, the main research question, the methodology applied, the main findings, and finally, the concluding remarks.

How long should a research paper abstract take?

In most cases, a research paper abstract should be 150 words or more and up to 300 words.

What is the difference between a descriptive and informative abstract?

A descriptive abstract describes the paper's topic, providing only general information. On the contrary, an informative abstract describes the research topic in detail, including the purpose, methodology, and other aspects.

How can I make my abstract stand out to readers?

Your abstract should be clear, concise, and direct, focusing on the importance and uniqueness of your research.

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