How (Not) To Write a Software Engineering Abstract
Lutz Prechelt, Lloyd Montgomery, Julian Frattini, Franz Zieris

TL;DR
This study analyzes the structure and quality of abstracts in top software engineering venues, revealing many are incomplete or poorly structured, and offers guidelines to improve abstract informativeness and readability.
Contribution
It provides a detailed characterization of abstract quality in software engineering research and proposes guidelines for writing more complete and effective abstracts.
Findings
Only 29% of abstracts are complete with all key components.
Structured abstracts are generally better than unstructured ones.
Most abstracts lack conclusions that generalize the findings.
Abstract
Background: Abstracts are a particularly valuable element in a software engineering research article. However, not all abstracts are as informative as they could be. Objective: Characterize the structure of abstracts in high-quality software engineering venues. Observe and quantify deficiencies. Suggest guidelines for writing informative abstracts. Methods: Use qualitative open coding to derive concepts that explain relevant properties of abstracts. Identify the archetypical structure of abstracts. Use quantitative content analysis to objectively characterize abstract structure of a sample of 362 abstracts from five presumably high-quality venues. Use exploratory data analysis to find recurring issues in abstracts. Compare the archetypical structure to actual structures. Infer guidelines for producing informative abstracts. Results: Only 29% of the sampled abstracts are complete, i.e.,…
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Taxonomy
TopicsSoftware Engineering Techniques and Practices · Academic Writing and Publishing · Software Engineering Research
