My supervisor provided me with some handy advice on how to structure an abstract and an introduction for a paper. I’m placing it on here, partly for myself, but also for others who may benefit from it. I find having these sentence headings really helps in the planning stage.
Abstract
1. Why this general topic really matters in the big picture.
2. Why is this study novel?
3. Previous hypothesis – What was known before?
4. Three main conclusions – Your key points.
5. Wrap up conclusion sentence.
Introduction
1. Strong first sentence to capture reader’s attention.
2. Why the topic matters generally (expand on abstract).
3. What specific questions are being addressed here, and why they matter.
4. Why the study is novel (expand a little on abstract).
5. Expand on relevent details of prior knowledge, split into paragraphs.
Background / Experimental Setup
Rest of the paper…
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