Abstracts are important. Recently my co-authors and I submitted a paper which we were all pleased with from a technical point of view. However, one of my co-authors was adamant (and rightly so) that we need to polish the abstract and introduction as much as possible. The abstract is useful in highlighting the key results and getting the reader interested in the paper. The abstract should also give a consise outline of the results of the paper.
Normally, abstracts should have the same logical flow which one would expect for an article. The abstract starts with the motivation behind the paper, which could discuss the open problem that the paper solves, progress towards the research community’s goals and the difficulties of the research problem. The abstract should also briefly mention the approach/proof technique/methodology etc. A precise statement about the results in the paper is the most important part of the abstract. An abstract should then conclude with possible implications and utilizations of the paper.
Editors also expect the abstract to obey the word limit. It is not good practice to use formulas or terms which are not defined. Although most papers have a separate section for keywords, it is useful to use most of the key words within the abstract. Many keywords are standard categories so it is good practice to be consistent and use similar keywords to previously published related papers. Moreover, the keywords should be precise as they are often the basis on which the paper is assigned to a specific reviewer with the same interest.
If all this was not that helpful, then one could always use the following tongue in cheek template proposed by phdcomics.com for writing a suitable abstract!
