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ENGT 4903 Engineering Technology Capstone

GIF of man sitting on a pile of books. Heading is how to write a research paper abstractAn abstract is a short summary of a research project and serves many purposes include: 

  1. allowing readers to learn the main point of a paper or presentation quickly

  2. providing a roadmap for readers so they can follow the detailed information, analyses, and arguments in a paper or presentation

helping readers remember key points from a paper or presentation

Image source: https://typeset.io/resources/how-to-write-a-research-paper-abstract/

Parts of an abstract

Despite the fact that an abstract is  brief, it must highlight major elements of your project The following components should be included in your abstract. Each should be 1-2 sentences. 

  • Provide Context: Frame your project and provide background information for your research.
  • Problem statement (Research Question or Topic)  What problem are you trying to solve? What is the scope of your work?
  • Approach (Methods): How did you go about solving or making progress on the problem?
  • Results: What's the answer? What was the results of your project?  
  • Conclusions (Relevance): What are the implications of your answer? Does your research project confirm, negate, build upon or advance existing knowledge?  How does it do so?

Adapted from How to write an abstract by Phillip Koopman which is licensed under a l a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Best practices when writing an abstract

4CsThe abstract should be one paragraph. Incorporate the Four C's of abstract writing:

  • Complete:  it covers the major parts of the project.
  • Concise:  it contains no excess wordiness or unnecessary information.
  • Clear:  it is readable, well organized, and avoids jargon
  • Cohesive:  it flows smoothly between the parts.
    Adapted from https://urc.ucdavis.edu/how-write-abstract

Example of an abstract

Lee, J. D., Jheng, E. S., Kuo, C. C., Chen, H. M., & Hung, Y. H. (2023). Novel robotic arm working-area AI protection system. Sensors, 23(5), 2765. ​​​​​​​

Abstract:

From traditionally handmade items to the ability of people to use machines to process and even to human-robot collaboration, there are many risks. Traditional manual lathes and milling machines, sophisticated robotic arms, and computer numerical control (CNC) operations are quite dangerous. To ensure the safety of workers in automated factories, a novel and efficient warning-range algorithm is proposed to determine whether a person is in the warning range, introducing YOLOv4 tiny-object detection algorithms to improve the accuracy of determining objects. The results are displayed on a stack light and sent through an M-JPEG streaming server so that the detected image can be displayed through the browser. According to the experimental results of this system installed on a robotic arm workstation, it is proved that it can ensure recognition reaches 97%. When a person enters the dangerous range of the working robotic arm, the arm can be stopped within about 50 ms, which will effectively improve the safety of its use.

KEY:

  • Context - provides context for project
  • Research Statement/Question
  • Approach/Methods
  • Results
  • Conclusions/Relevance