Abstract Tips
This message is coming from Dave and Shantanu, graders for cs110 in a
previous semester.
Looks like you have abstracts due tomorrow, and we figured we'd send
out this list of tips on writing abstracts. We put this list together
last semester, after grading the first abstract....it is pretty much
the list of common problems we found with the abstracts, and should
be helpful guidance for you.
In any case you should use the tips in this list in conjunction with
the web page which explains the specific requirements (as written by
Prof. Erlinger) for abstracts. Also you will want to take a look at
the sample abstracts. All this useful information can be found on the
main abstracts Web page.
Any quotes below come from that page.
- Length: "Each abstract should be one to two pages". Also they
should be single spaced.
- Formatter: "some sort of text formatter: LaTeX, troff, Frame, html,
etc." Several people did not use formatters: xemacs, pico, MS Word--
these are not text formatters. You should use one of those suggested.
- Information about the article: be sure and include all required details:
course, name, abstract due date, date, article title, journal
reference, and formatter. (You may also want to include the authors
of the article.)
- Type of Article: Several abstracts were based on inappropriate
articles. The articles you choose should be technical documents, not
marketing items, press releases, etc. There are suggestions for
places you can find these documents on the abstract requirements page.
Whitepapers get touchy, as many are just marketing bs.
- Summaries: Some of the summaries were a bit too general (e.g. not
technical enough). Be sure and demonstrate that you understood (or at
least, tried to understand) what you read.
- Commentary: "The abstract should then include YOUR analysis of the
article: information content, presentation approach, etc." Many
people omitted commentary altogether or didn't make comments along
these lines. When reading the abstract we should get a sense of
whether you thought the article was well-written, whether it
explained concepts clearly, whether the article is relevant to the
subject area, whether you thought the article was well-organized,
etc. This should be a paragraph (at least!).
- Prose: Your abstract should not be a list of bullet points about
the article, it should be a series of paragraphs. There are examples
of abstracts on the abstract requirements page.
- "Particular Abstracts": You'll notice on the web page (a link to
which is given above) that there is a little table entitled
"Particular Abstracts". You should pay particular attention to this
because it indicates the general subject area of the article you
should choose each week. Some of them say "Open Abstract", others are
more specific ("Read a Paper on Processes"), but they differ for each
week. Be sure the article you choose falls into the indicated subject
area each week.
- Finally, spell and proof read your abstract!!!!!!
If you have any questions about the grading or writing abstracts,
you're welcome to contact either one of us.
Dave and Shantanu
Last modified January 21, 2002 by geoff@cs.hmc.edu