ABSTRACTS AND EXECUTIVE SUMMARIES

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ABSTRACTS AND EXECUTIVE SUMMARIES

• THE FINAL SECTION OF THE FORMAL REPORT

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OVERVIEW

• Definition
• Abstracts audience, types, content,
  organization
• Executive summary audience, content,
  organization

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Definition

• Abstract technical precis of a research report
• Executive summary nontechnical precis of a
  research report

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Abstracts

• Types
• Descriptive, sometimes called table-of-contents
  abstract because it mainly repeats the main
  headings from the report.
• Informative, the type well be using, contains
  information from the introduction, body, and
  conclusion of the report

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Abstracts 2

• Audience
• Specialist, technical audience. Its all right
  to use technical terms without defining them for
  this audience.
• Be sure to include information in the abstract
  that will interest this audience.

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Content

• Write the abstract last. Content comes from
• introduction topic, audience and scope
• body method of data collection and findings
• conclusion results and recommendations

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Organization

• No more than two paragraphs or 250 words for the
  abstract

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Executive summaries

• Audiencemanagers and executives
• No technical language should appear in the
  summary.
• Tone is formal since youre writing for your
  supervisors

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Content

• Summarize major points, findings, or
  recommendations from report. Be specific. Tell
  what the recommendations are, not just that there
  are some.
• Condense the report this is not the same as the
  introduction.
• Write the summary last.

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Organization

• Same paragraph format as used in abstracts
• Terminology should be used consistently here and
  in the report itself (ex. Dont say aerial here
  and antenna in the report.)