Guide for writing the Abstract and Keywords
Wilfredo Cruz Yarlequé
THE ABSTRACT
- It is a brief and precise summary of the content of the thesis, without interpretation or criticism, which helps the reader decide whether or not to read the full text.
- It reflects the objectives, methodology, results and most important conclusions, using standardized terminology of the subject.
- Theses will include, on a separate page, a summary in Spanish. Its length should not exceed a paragraph of 200 words. On that same page, a maximum of five (05) keywords that define the content of the thesis will be included.
- The same summary will be included on a separate page in a foreign language, preferably English (Abstract), being an exact translation of the summary in Spanish, including the keywords.
- If the thesis is for obtaining the academic degree of doctor, the summary must be included in Spanish and also in two (02) foreign languages, one of them being preferably English.
- Once the theses have been supported, they are deposited in an Institutional Digital Repository, so the correct wording of the keywords will help to:
- A more efficient and precise location of the thesis by academic search engines.
- Place the thesis alongside other academic works with similar keywords.
- Increase the visibility of the thesis and the University in the scientific and academic field.
CHARACTERISTICS
- Brevity: The length must be between 150-200 words.
- Autonomy: It must be a coherent text and must be understood on its own, independently of the thesis.
- Precision: It must include the most important concepts of the research.
- Clarity: It must be understandable, simple and informative.
- Faithfulness: It must reflect the original content, without introducing variations or interpretations.
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Start with the most important idea of the work, but do not repeat the title of the thesis.
- Avoid transcribing or paraphrasing the index of the thesis or some parts of said index.
- Write in the third person, in an impersonal form, using the active voice and the present tense: "It is described, it is reviewed..."
- Take special care with spelling and punctuation marks.
- Use professional terminology, but avoid technical terms, abbreviations and trademarks.
- Write the summary in a single paragraph, using short sentences.
- Do not include subjective evaluations or personal motivations that justify the work, etc.
- Avoid useless phrases and vague expressions.
- Avoid ambiguous words with a meaning that may confuse.
- Avoid superlatives, unnecessary adjectives and obvious clarifications or information.
- Do not make specific references to a graph or image.
- Be careful to write the scientific names of the species correctly, given that this writing is supported by the Nomenclature Codes, both zoological and biological (Collaboration of Dr. Roque Rojas Babilonia, Biologist), according to which, at a minimum, they consist of a generic name, whose first letter is capitalized, and the second name, which is the specific one, with all its letters in lowercase.
For example, Physalis peruviana L., Capsicum frutescens, Vitis vinifera L., Prosopis pallida, Lycalopex culpaeus, Schinus molle.
TIPS
- Write the summary once the thesis is finished, in order to have a more complete view of the work.
- The Spanish and foreign language(s) versions of the summary must have the same content, but respecting the wording of each language, so avoid using automatic translators.
KEYWORDS
- Keywords are terms that reflect the content of the thesis and serve to determine the subject of the document, thus facilitating its location more effectively within any repository whose metadata is harvested by other institutional repositories, such as ALICIA from CONCYTEC.
- They are also known as "descriptors"
- They are used to search and retrieve scientific literature in databases
- They improve the visibility of the thesis (ease of finding the thesis in search engines).
- They are no more than five words or short phrases that represent the essential content of our work.
- They represent the entire work in a few words (the "keywords")
- The author of the thesis is the one who best knows the content of the academic work and is the one who can best define its subject in a maximum of five key words.
IMPORTANCE OF KEY WORDS
- They give a brief idea of the content of the thesis.
- They indicate to the reader under which name to search for more information about the research.
- They are used to index, analyze and classify the thesis in repositories and internationally indexed journals.
- The correct choice of key words allows search engines to efficiently retrieve our thesis, therefore other researchers will read it and it will be cited by other authors.
HOW TO COMPOSE KEY WORDS
- In each paragraph there is a word (key) that condenses the entire content of the paragraph. This idea also applies to the chapter, so we would say that: in each chapter there is a word that condenses the entire chapter.
- Use the skimming and scanning techniques to find the most frequently repeated words. Skimming focuses on the words that begin and end the paragraph. Scanning is practiced by doing a quick review of all the information.
- The most recurrent grammatical categories in the composition of keywords are nouns, verbs and adjectives. Nouns say who is being talked about, verbs say what is being talked about and adjectives say how it is being talked about. These are the categories we should look for when constructing our keywords.
- Natural language, use words and expressions freely taken from natural language.
- When in doubt, use Thesauri, which is a list of controlled words or terms used to represent concepts.
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Avoid copying words and expressions from the title.
- Avoid single words, but also long sentences.
- Keywords should make sense in the context of the research. Choose concepts related to the topic of the work, both in general and specific terms.
- Preferably use nouns or noun phrases. E.g.: Biodiversity.
- Use of compound terms:
- If they can be broken down into several individual terms, it is better to use them separately: Building construction = Construction, Buildings
- If breaking them down means a loss of meaning, it is better to keep the compound term: Television series
- Do not use:
- Adjectives and adverbs on their own, adjectives must qualify a noun: E.g.: Ej: Noise pollution, Documentary film, Cultural tourism.
- Empty words: pronouns, adverbs...
- Words with little meaning, e.g.: analysis, description, research...
- Avoid:
- Use of infinitives and participles, it is better to use noun phrases: Administration, better than Administrate.
- Acronyms or acronyms, unless they are very well known. You can also include a breakdown, e.g.: UN = United Nations Organization
- Repeat the title broken down into simple words or short sentences
Example:
If the title is "Control, analysis and interpretation of the company's financial statements..."
The keywords should not be: control, analysis, financial statements, company, ...
- Grammatical, syntax, or spelling errors.
APA FORMAT OF KEYWORDS
APA keywords follow the following format:
- Recommended fonts: Calibri 11 pt, Arial 11 pt, Lucida Sans Unicode 10 pt, Times New Roman 12 pt, Georgia 11 pt.
- Placement: On the summary page, one line after the summary ends.
- Tag: The heading "Keywords" must be written in italics, not in bold, and with the same indentation as a normal paragraph.
- Text: keywords begin to be written after the "Keywords:" tag, leaving a blank space between the colon character and the first letter of the first keyword.
- In lowercase (only the first character of proper names is in uppercase),
- No italics or bold,
- Each keyword or phrase will be separated by a comma and a space.
- No final punctuation after the last keyword.
- There is no set order, not necessarily alphabetical.
THESAURI
For the selection of terms and/or their translation into English, it is recommended to consult the following thesauri or lists of controlled terms:
- UNESCO Thesauri: controlled and structured list of terms from the fields of education, culture, natural sciences, social and human sciences, communication and information.
- CSIC Thesauri: specialized thesauri of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC): sociology, law, urban planning, aquaculture glossary, etc.
- Eurovoc Thesaurus: multilingual and multidisciplinary thesaurus that includes the terminology of the areas of activity of the European Union.
- ERIC Thesaurus: thesaurus of the Institute of Educational Sciences
- USDA Thesaurus: Conceptual space of the thesaurus of the National Agricultural Library of the United States of America (USDA).
- Art & Architecture Thesaurus® Online: Macrothesaurus for indexing and retrieving information in databases related to the world of art, architecture and materials related to the world of culture.