Although not labeled as separate sections, an abstract includes distinct components that help it summarize the goals, approach, and findings of your work. Every abstract must include the following:
Why did you do this work? What problem did you try to solve, or what issue did you investigate? Did you have a particular hypothesis or viewpoint you wanted to test that your discipline has not adequately investigated? The opening sentences of your abstract should identify the problem, area, or thesis your work probes. If your work is in the sciences, one to three sentences should suffice for this section.
In this section, explain how you explored your work's focus. The content of this section will depend very much on your discipline. Make sure to list and describe the process you followed in your research. For example, explain that you collected bacteria samples from a particular location and investigated them using electron microscopy. If your work is in the area of social sciences or education, describe the focus of your analyses, both quantitative and qualitative. Write two to four sentences to provide this information.
What were the outcomes of your work? What were your findings? Write one to three sentences answering these questions. If the work is not yet complete, summarize preliminary results and indicate your next steps.
The abstract should end with one sentence that emphasizes the importance of the contributions of the work. In other words, why is your work worthy of the reader's interest?
- Abstract must follow APA (6th edition) guidelines
- Times new Roman font
- Font size shall be no smaller than 12 pt.
- A minimum of 1-inch margins
- Submission format: .doc or .docx
Submission deadline for the 2014 Aviation Graduate Research Symposium is FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 2014