Assignment #3: Tools to Assist you in Writing an Abstract
Assignment #3 - Write an Abstract, Use NILC Tools
An abstract summarizes the major aspects of a scientific manuscript. Each component of the abstract may match a section in the manuscript
- Introduction/Background
- Problem definition
- Previous approaches
- Critique (“Gap”): what is new?
- Purpose: why you/anyone still needs to work on this?
- Methods and Materials
- Results and Discussion
- Conclusions
- What has been done
- Future work: what hasn’t been done
For this assignment, you will write an abstract for a paper describing your research. Your assignment should include
- The title
- The area of expertise or department, e.g., Molecular Biology
- Your ORIGINAL abstract
- Your abstract with your own annotations for the different components
- Using Scipo-Farmacia to assist you in the writing process
- The abstract with the annotations generated by MAZEA-Web
What to do?
- Create a template to mark each component that make up the abstract. Use the listing above as a guide.
- Write the text for each component.
- Your text must not exceed 200 words.
- Consider the "balance" among the components to make sure your text describes your work to the best of your ability.
- Write a title for your abstract.
- Check your abstract for coherence.
- Annotate the specific expressions for each component in your template, when writing your own text.
Using Scipo-Farmacia
SciPo-Farmacia is a web-based tool developed to assist non-native English speakers (mainly Brazilians) in their scientific writing. The goal is to help them write papers using a top-down approach – starting from an outline and down to paragraphs and sentences.
Link to Scipo-Farmacia: http://www.nilc.icmc.usp.br/scipo-farmacia/
- Open Scipo-Farmacia
- Select Abstract (Resumo)
- Observe the model for the abstract: components and strategies
- Select some strategies, components
- Extract examples from the database
- Repeat this process until you are satisfied with your abstract
- Save your text
Using MAZEA-Web
MAZEA-Web is a tool for identification of the components of an abstract. It uses 6 of them: Background, Gap, Purpose, Methods, Results, Conclusion. MAZEA-Web, is capable of automatically detecting the rhetorical structure of an abstract. In other words, MAZEA-WEB identifies text segments that have a specific rhetorical function, such as “indicating the purpose” or “indicating a gap,”. This process can help the writer improve his/her abstract by eliciting its rhetorical structure in order to expose any missing components.
Link to MAZEA-Web: http://www.nilc.icmc.usp.br/mazea-web/
- Edit your abstract by removing all the components you manually annotated in the text.
- Save a copy of the text in your assignment file.
- Submit your original text (without any component markers) to MAZEA-WEB.
- Make sure you select one of the two areas (Life Sciences vs. Physical and Engineering)
- Copy the results that MAZEA-WEB gives you to your assignment file.
What to submit?
Your assignment must be submitted as a text file.
- Name the file as follows: "assignment_3_yourfirstname.txt" (or ".rtf", or ".doc"/".docx" if you use Word), where yourfirstname is indeed your first name.
- Write the title of the assignment in your file, include your name and date.
Include ALL your work:
- The title
- The area of expertise or department, e.g., Computer Science
- Your ORIGINAL abstract
- Your abstract with your own annotations for the different components
- The abstract with the annotations generated by MAZEA-WEB