Writing an Abstract¶
Week 6
I suggest writing the abstract after finishing your Project Report, as it should summarise the entire study. An abstract can typically be structured to contain a few sentences on each of the following:
Introduction: Provide essential background to motivate the study, and state the study’s aim. For instance, here’s a suggested template for writing the introduction (i.e. first part) of an abstract: (based on this article, reproduced under CC BY 4.0)
State the big problem, e.g. “Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common irregular heart rhythm associated with a five-fold increase in stroke risk.”
State the smaller problem being tackled in this study,, e.g. “It is often not recognised as it can occur intermittently and without symptoms. A promising approach to detect AF is to use a handheld electrocardiogram (ECG) sensor for screening. However, the ECG recordings must be manually reviewed, which is time-consuming and costly.”
State the aim(s) of the study, e.g. “Our aims were to: (i) evaluate the manual review workload; and (ii) evaluate strategies to reduce the workload.”
Methods: A few sentences summarising the key aspects of the methods, which are essential to understand the study. For instance, it could include “Participants used an ECG recorder four times per day for three weeks. The ECG signals were post-processed to identify heartbeats, calculate inter-beat intervals, and detect AF based on a Poincare analysis” . It would be less likely to state the exact device used to record the ECG signals, or the exact algorithm used to identify individual heartbeats, as these are not likely to be required to give an overall understanding of the study. The reader can always read the full paper if they want to find out specific details.
Results: State the key results which informed the conclusion(s).
Conclusion: State the main conclusion(s) in one or two sentences. Optionally, also state the significance of these conclusions. e.g. “In conclusion, screening for AF using handheld ECG devices requires an average of 35 ECGs to be manually reviewed per AF diagnosis. Our new approach reduces this workload to 20 ECGs per AF diagnosis, with minimal reduction in sensitivity. This approach could be incorporated into existing screening approaches to reduce workload and thereby increase the cost-effectiveness of screening.”