Every undergraduate or graduate student will have to write an abstract before they reach their graduation date, if not for that final research paper then for the Masters Thesis. I spent a large share of my time in graduate school writing research papers, and learned along the way that a good abstract is an immensely helpful way to organize the paper.
To help you understand what an abstract looks like and entails, I have provided you with an example. The following is an abstract that I wrote in one of my graduate level communication classes for an essay I was considering using as a source in a research paper. I hope this will be helpful!
Abstract Example
Tan, A., Fujioka, Y. and Tan G. (2000). Television use, stereotypes of African Americans and opinions on Affirmative Action: An affective model of policy reasoning. Communication Monographs, 67 (4) 362-371.
Policy reasoning has been a source of research for many years, because the political arena is such a strong determinant of the way our society functions. Many works have emerged on why people take the sides they do when deciding on political issues. However, Tan, Fujioka & Tan believed political reasoning has not been explored as effectively as possible because of the heuristic models utilized to analyze this behavior. They believed that the most heuristic models don’t incorporate media as a variable in affecting policy reasoning. In order to explore this further, they looked at “the power of the model to explain how citizens make up their minds regarding government policies on affirmative action, with stereotypes of African Americans as the second stage, affective variable” (p. 362). This abstract outlines the findings of their research by analyzing, section by section, the process they used to conduct their research and results.
Literature Review
The researchers’ review of literature covered six areas: heuristic models of policy reasoning, mass media use, social cognitive theory, cultivation theory, media use and gratifications theories, and news media and racial policy reasoning. Heuristic models of policy reasoning covered varying viewpoints on affective versus cognitive heuristic models. They found that affective heuristic models (based on feelings) were considered to be the less sophisticated of the two models when considering non-race specific issues. Scholars believed that affective models were used for “less educated individuals who have less information on the issue” of politics (p. 363). The researchers believed, however, that the affective model could be used by both “poorly educated and well educated citizens” when issues are race coded and intended to do so in their study (p. 363).
Policy reasoning and mass media use briefly illustrated their belief that mass media “can add significantly to the power of cognitive and affective heuristic models to explain racial policy reasoning” (p. 363). Social cognitive theory explained that people learn by observation, and behaviors are learned through repetition and reinforcement, all of which are fulfilled through watching portrayals on television. Cultivation theory discussed television’s influences on its viewers to believe portrayals of characters as real. They concluded that negative portrayals in television lead to negative feelings towards minority groups and disagreements with government policies promote the welfare of minorities (p. 364).
The final two categories were media use and gratifications theories, and news media and racial policy reasoning. The former explained that the media provided viewers the opportunities for ” ‘parasocial’ interactions [feelings of intimacy or friendship] with people they don’t ordinarily come in direct contact with” (p. 364). News media and racial policy reasoning explained that the use of information media would strengthen the effect of racial attitudes on policy references (p. 365).
Research Method & Hypothesis
The researchers’ four hypotheses were as follows: 1) perceptions of positive African American television portrayals lead to positive African American stereotypes, 2) perceptions of negative African American television portrayals lead to negative African American stereotypes, 3) Positive African American stereotypes lead to agreement with affirmative action policies, and 4) Negative stereotypes lead to disagreement. In order to conduct the study, they administered a questionnaire to 166 white college students in a general education public speaking course at a public university consisting of 43 percent males and 57 percent females.
Variables and Operationalization
Tan, Yujioka & Tan created three variables to operationalize their research. They were television use, stereotypes, and opinions. Television use measured what their participants remembered about television portrayals. Participants were asked to think of how many African Americans were portrayed in television moves and programs they had recently seen. They used positive (POS) and negative (NEG) portrayals as indicators of the affective evaluations from respondents based on the information they remembered. For stereotypes, they used a seven-point semantic differential scale to ask participants to rate whether members of specific racial groups were closer to one of two bipolar adjectives. For opinions, the researchers measured government policies regarding civil rights and affirmative action in universities.
Results
Of the four hypotheses tested, only hypotheses two and four could be supported. “Perception of negative TV portrayals significantly predicted some negative stereotypes, which in turn significantly predicted opposition to affirmation action policies” (p. 369). According to the researchers, perception of positive TV portrayals did not lead to positive stereotypes and they also did not influence opinions. However, they did provide evidence of validity of an affective model of race policy reasoning.
Future Research and Limitations
For future research, they suggested exploring the affective model in relation to unsophisticated (less educated or less knowledgeable) citizens, as opposed to their college participants who were considered sophisticated. Their one limitation noted was that their research was simply a test of the statistical validity of causal assumptions they made, thus not actually showing an actual causal relationship of real circumstances.
