 Hi, I'm Salvatore Bobona and today's video is how to write an empirical social science abstract in five easy steps. Abstracts have word limits ranging from 100 to 250 words and often you'll be asked just to write something that summarizes the article in that length. And it can be difficult to decide exactly what to write. This is a traditional abstract where you're just asked free form to write a summary of your article. In order to get a handle on that, I suggest you think of your article in five parts. You know, introduction, theory, methods, results, conclusion. And write one or two sentences for each of those five parts. So write a sentence that motivates the article, write a sentence that locates it in the literature, write a sentence that summarizes the data and methods used, write a sentence that summarizes your findings and write a sentence that draws implications. And you know, here's an example of an article in which I've done just that in social indicators research. So first I motivate the article by saying, you know, poverty is a really important concept. I locate it in the literature on relative deprivation. I then explain that the data we use in the article is from the Swiss household panel. Summarize the finding, which is that, you know, within the relative deprivation universe, k greater than or equal to 2 is actually probably a better parameter than k greater than equal to 3. And then I draw the implications of this, you know, how you can problematize this parameter k in poverty research. Now I didn't write that abstract by literally having one sentence on each of these topics. That's how I drafted my first draft of the abstract. And then after I had one sentence each on each of these five headings, then I try to integrate that into a full paragraph that, you know, flowed meaningfully from sentence to sentence. Now, some journals, mainly in the health or social policy world, will ask you to write an analytical abstract. And if they do, just follow the instructions given by the journal. This is a sample abstract from an article I had in the International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy. And they asked specifically, tell us about the purpose, the design, the findings, the research limitations, social implications and originality. Obviously, when you get an analytical format like that, focus, you know, most of your attention on, you know, the methodology and your findings and pro forma, you know, you have to say something about originality and about, you know, research limitations because you've been asked to address that. Remember, the abstract is the single most important part of your paper. In fact, potential reviewers are usually sent nothing but the title and the abstract and then asked if they are willing to review your article. So especially if this is like a first time journal article for you, you know, making sure it has a high quality title and abstract is really the key to getting people to review your article and take it seriously. I hope you find that useful. My name's Sal Zatorbo-Bonus. You can find out more about me at my website at salzatorbo-bonus.com, where you can also sign up for my monthly global Asia newsletter. The newsletter just summarizes my popular writing on foreign policy and foreign affairs in mostly in the Asia-Pacific region. You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel if you'd like to see news about future videos, including my weekly interview show Midnight in America. And if you think you might like to appear on the show, send me an email and I'd love to have you as a guest. Thanks a lot.