Executive summary/abstract

Abstract writing is an art. The researcher needs to convey a considerable amount of information, to the reader, in a very few words (normally, not more than about 400 but sometimes considerably fewer). As with the title, every word counts in an abstract. Many research paper search-engines on the internet list only a title and an abstract for any given research project. The fellow-researcher looking at the abstract has to decide whether or not this is a report that he or she needs to obtain and read. The abstract, then, is the ‘shop window’ for the study.

Abstracts are also included with papers published in refereed journals. Again, the point of them is to guide the reader in answering the question: ‘do I want to read this paper’. And again, every word must count and the author is given only a very few words in which to summarise his or her paper. Most readers will be particularly interested in the findings of the study and, as a general rule, a summary of the findings should be the largest part of the abstract.

The writing of an abstract is one of the final tasks for the researcher. It cannot be written until the project is complete because, until then, the findings will not be clear. Because the writing of the abstract takes place late in the project (or, in the case of a journal paper, once the paper has been written) there is sometimes a temptation to write it quickly. The competent researcher, though, knowing the importance of the abstract, will spend time in making sure that it exactly meets the requirement of summarising the work that he or she has done.

The abstract or executive summary is the only part of the report that most people (apart from, say, an examiner) will ever read. To get your message over, you need to have all the important information from the report in this section. Cut every needless word in each sentence, even if it makes the results a bit telegraphic, and ensure all important findings are reported here. Some educational institutions and journals allow abstracts to be written in incomplete sentences, in which case, take full advantage of this to save even more words. It is usually best to follow the structure of the full report precisely in the abstract. Finally, stay within the word limit, especially if writing for publication in a journal. If you go over, they will almost certainly send it back. Similarly, all higher education institutions apply penalties to assignments which exceed the word limit, and some specify word limits for particular sections, such as the abstract, again applying penalties to offenders.

Lay summary

There is some debate over the status of the lay summary in research reports. It is sometimes suggested that no such summary is needed, as all our writing (and, in particular, the executive summary) should be simple and accessible in style. Whilst there is merit to this suggestion, there is, equally, little doubt that specialist readers (including policy makers and clinicians as well as researchers) are more interested in technical detail than most members of the public. There is no reason why this latter group should have to wade through such detail to get at the key messages. Also, executive summaries are often written for what is often called an ‘educated readership’ – a term which we take to mean people with a good working knowledge of the English language and good general knowledge. Clearly, not all members of the public will meet these criteria, but we should also be aiming to reach these potential users of the research.

Therefore, in our view, lay summaries are important, even though not all funding bodies, publishers, or academics setting and marking student assignments insist on them. A good lay summary should be easily understandable to all, but avoid talking down to the reader. Most importantly, it should not dilute or simplify the findings and implications of a study to such an extent that the resulting messages are simple but misleading.

Lay summaries (and executive summaries) are also often published in translated form to reflect the main relevant languages other than English. Of course, this is rarely within the resources of a student undertaking a research assignment.

Background/literature review

Remember the structure we described in Chapter 23, where general material receives less coverage in the report than papers which are focal to the research question? In writing a report, this is particularly important, because you will be working within a word limit and will, therefore, have to reach a decision regarding how much space to devote to each study you review. Readers of the review will expect you, at the end of this section, to offer a justification for why you are carrying out your own study, and this is most easily done by pointing to an area of clinical need and to a gap in current research. The literature review is the place to do this. In consequence, save up space to devote to studies which point to the need for your own. Additionally, where studies are weak, this is an opportunity for you to show the examiner your critical appraisal skills and thus gain marks. Accordingly, it is worth picking a couple of weak studies to review in more detail, provided that they are relevant to your own study.

Research questions

Ensure that the reader can clearly see what you intended to investigate. The entire method section should reflect the question, and so this question should be so unambiguous that it is obvious how parts of the method relate to it. Moreover, the question should be capable of being answered, both within the time constraints of the project, and, in principle. Usually, the matter of whether a question can, in principle, be answered relates to the scope of the question. For example, a question which asked ‘what is the impact of guidelines on clinical practice?’ is probably unanswerable in principle both because its scope is so vast (What guidelines? What practice? What practitioners?), but also because we do not have a clear idea from the question of what is meant by impact and it may be difficult, in practice, to arrive at a definition of impact which all would agree on.

Methods

As discussed in Chapter 22, this material should usually be presented under the conventional headings of design/general approach; sample/sampling; setting; measures; procedure; data analysis; ethics and we refer you to that chapter for detailed discussion. As a report writer, you need to demonstrate to the reader that the choices you have made in terms of method are appropriate to the question being asked and will lead to a useful answer being found. You need, therefore, to provide evidence of your awareness of the issues of method examined in particular in Sections 2 and 3 of this book. However, you have a relatively small space in which to do this, so you will often want to use signposts such as references to methodological books or papers which have used similar methods to answer similar questions, in order to demonstrate your awareness of these issues to the reader in as few words as possible.

This constraint applies particularly when writing for publication. In a student assignment, you are likely to have a more generous word limit, particularly if the assignment is a research proposal, rather than a report of an actual study. Here you have a chance to show the examiner your understanding in more depth, possibly by giving a more extended rationale for the methodological choices you have made. This is similar to the process involved when writing a proposal for funding, where the funding body will want to be assured of the rationale behind the applicant’s approach to the research question. If your lecturers have themselves written such proposals, they may be prepared to show them to you, and the way in which they have outlined methodological choices should be a good model for this aspect of the report assignment.

One topic which we suggest you avoid unless it is specifically asked for in the assignment is the prolonged discussion of general issues of methodology. In other words, do not go into a long description of the history, theoretical underpinnings and overall applicability of, say, grounded theory or RCTs. This kind of debate is best left for master’s dissertations or PhD theses. At pre-registration and undergraduate level, you can usually confine yourself to an examination of why grounded theory or RCT is appropriate to answering your research question. As with all other sections of the description of method, this is best achieved by detailed description of what will be done in your study and why.

If your study is a systematic review, exactly the same issues apply, with the proviso that they refer to secondary sources of data (i.e. text materials such as research reports) rather than to primary research. Thus, an exact description of the search and review process should be given. Examples of the structure of systematic review reporting are given on the CRD website at the end of the chapter.

Included/excluded studies

This element of the report applies to systematic reviews only and forms part of the method section of such review studies. It is essential in such reports to give a rationale for why certain studies or categories of study have been excluded from the literature review. Additionally, in large, published reviews, it is common to list all the excluded studies. If your assignment is a report of a systematic review, check whether your institution requires a list of excluded studies. Even if they do not, if it is practical to do so, you may want to consider such a list, as it demonstrates thoroughness of reporting. Lists of excluded papers are definitely not required in reporting the literature review of an empirical research study.

Results

Once again – help the reader. We have outlined a number of important issues regarding reporting of results in the previous chapter. As a report author, you will want to take account of these, and we have provided a synopsis in Figure 23.2.

Figure 23.2 Issues in results reporting.

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