How To Use Abstracts To Narrow Research Focus

Researchers use abstracts to narrow research focus. It is impossible to read every paper thoroughly when searching for the relevant information. Moreover, while conducting the literature review, abstracts help identify the article’s key findings and cite them if they are relevant to the research problem. An abstract is similar to a movie trailer that provides a snapshot of the entire article and provides a general idea. Using abstracts to narrow research focus is a smart strategy that saves time.

Moreover, it also helps researchers include as many studies as possible relevant to the research problem. Additionally, the abstract of your research paper helps other researchers find the relevant material for their research. This article will tell you how to use abstracts to narrow research focus.

What Is An Abstract?

An abstract is a summary of a research paper or a dissertation. It provides a synopsis of the entire article or dissertation. Reading an abstract help understand the aims and objectives of the study and research problem. An abstract also provides information about the study’s key findings and conclusion. Moreover, it contains a brief overview of the study’s limitations, implications of the study and recommendations for future research.

How Can You Use An Abstract To Narrow Research Focus?

Using abstracts to narrow research focus has two important aspects, which are the following:

To help you find the relevant sources for your research paper
To help other researchers and potential readers in knowing about the key findings and outcomes of your research

There are many online dissertation help providers available to assist you in narrowing your research focus. However, you can also do it at your own. Let’s walk you through the steps to use abstracts to narrow research focus based on the aspects mentioned above.

Finding The Relevant Sources

Finding the relevant literature for your research problem during the preliminary stage of research and during the literature review is difficult. There is too much information available on the Internet. Moreover, there are plenty of articles available in the databases. For instance, entering the relevant keywords on Google Scholar results in thousands of articles. Google’s algorithm works on keywords, and if the source has the keywords you entered, it will pop up. But it is unnecessary that if the source contains the keywords, it will be relevant to your research problem. But how will you determine it? Will you read the entire article to ascertain its relevance to your research problem? No, you cannot. It is impossible to read every source to assess its relevance to your research problem.

A smart researcher uses smart techniques to narrow research focus. Reading the abstract of the source is among those techniques that help narrow research focus. Credible research requires reviewing the corpus of literature relevant to your research problem. During the preliminary stage of the research, when you are searching for the relevant sources, you can just read the abstracts to determine the source’s relevance to your research.

How It Is Helpful?

It helps save time and find the most relevant sources to your research problem. First, you will have to enter the relevant keywords on Google Scholar. The search results will pop up with relevant sources and criteria employed by you. Select the article that you want to know about. Open up the article, go to the abstract and look for the following information:

Research problem of the article
Aims and objectives of the study
What methods were used by the researcher to collect results?
Key findings of the research
Conclusion of the study
Limitations of the study
Recommendations provided by the author for future research

Reflect

After you read the study’s abstract and find the key information about the research, the next step is reflection. You will have to assess the study’s relevance to your research problem based on the information extracted from the extract. You will ask the following questions:

What is the relevance of this source to my research problem?
How does it justify or contradict my research problem or key questions?
How can the research methods used by the researcher help me determine the research methods for my research?
What will be the importance and value of including this research in the literature review?

These strategies are useful during the preliminary literature review. They help narrow research focus and find the relevant sources. But if you will have to read the major sources thoroughly to assess and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses.

Increase the Accessibility of Your Research

Abstracts also serve the important purpose of increasing the accessibility of your research. An abstract is a concise summary of your entire research. It includes the keywords and important points of your research that help other researchers determine your research’s relevance to their research problems. A perfectly written abstract helps narrow research focus for others in the following manner:

An abstract helps researchers understand the relevance of your research paper to their research.
Abstract informs readers and other researchers about the key findings of your research without reading the entire paper.

How Can You Write An Abstract That Makes Your Research More Prominent?

You can narrow the research focus and make your research accessible by incorporating the following information in the abstract:

Incorporate such keywords that are relevant to your subject matter
Use keywords smartly to make your research prominent in the databases
Write a clear and concise abstract to help readers understand the general idea of your research
The abstract should be between 250-300 words
Inform the readers about the research problem and key research questions
Inform the readers about the data collection and analysis methodology
Tell the readers about the key findings of your research
Inform the readers about the conclusion of your research
Inform the readers about the limitations of your research
Provide recommendations for future research

Conclusion

Researchers can use abstracts to narrow research focus and find relevant sources. Moreover, it also helps other researchers to access your research paper and determine its relevance. An abstract is a useful way of identifying the key findings of a research. So, it is important to develop an ability to read the abstract with precision. Moreover, researchers must write clear and precise abstracts to help other researchers.