How to write an English abstract? What to write and what to avoid

Abstract

The Faculty of Public Health and the Graduate School requires that master and doctorate theses
submitted in Thai should have besides an abstract in Thai also such one in English. Through the home page of
the Khon Kaen University a ‘Graduate Thesis Manual’ published by the Graduate School in 2008 is available
and can be loaded down as a pdf file-(http://inter.gs.kku.ac.th). On page 18 to 19 of the manual
recommendations how to write an abstract are given, and later in the text examples of abstracts from a number
of different academic fields are provided. The recommendations of how an abstract should be composed are
clearly stated in the manual. It is said that ‘the abstract is a short, concise and clear summary of the thesis that
allows readers to quickly and easily understand the context of the theses’. It is further explained, among other
formalities, that the text of the abstract should ‘includes the summary of research objectives, research
methodology, research findings, and potential application of the research’. Criteria of an appropriate abstract,
according to the manual of the Graduate School are that the text is accurate, comprehensive, precise,
informative, and readable.
In addition, it is mentioned that the abstract should allow ‘readers to easily understand research
findings throughout the thesis’. Unfortunately the text of quite a number of abstracts from students of the
master courses of the Faculty of Public Health don’t fulfill the criteria as stipulated by the manual of the
graduate school. Theses, being it master or doctorate theses reflect the academic standing of a faculty. It is
absolutely justified to study in and finally write academic texts in the national language. However if it is the
claim of an academic institution to be recognized as being of high standard also in the international context, a
short summary of the essentials of the outcome of the studies of master and doctorate students must be at
least available through the language globally used to communicate scientific issues - and this is English. The
topics of the theses of master and doctorate students of the Faculty of Public Health cover an wide range of
very interesting public health issues and the majority of those work deal with elemental environmental and
health problems especially important for the well being of the population in the Northeast of Thailand and come
up with valuable insight views and findings. Informed laymen interested in public health or public health experts
not mastering the Thai language should be able to judge by reading the English abstract about the most
important points of the investigation.
This guideline aims to give some recommendations not only how to improve the design and contend of
an abstract but also how to avoid writing an English text which is incomprehensible to such an extent that it is
only possible to grasp the meaning of the content of what was intended to express after a lengthy discussions
in Thai with the author of the abstract.