Writing an abstract

Abstracts are the most important part of a manuscript as they are the most widely read. In general, unstructured abstracts must be differentiated from structured abstracts. While the latter follow a clear and obvious structure (e.g., background, aim, methods, results, conclusion), unstructured abstracts are basically written the same way but without this obvious structure. Abstracts are generally written in past tense and the third person, and must follow the instructions provided by each journal or conference. Importantly, the key message of the abstract should align to the main manuscript and should not contain any other or irrelevant information. In this manuscript, for each section of an abstract, tips and tricks are provided for preparing an abstract.