7.10 Abstracts
Abstracts are summaries of articles, books or reports. They
are a useful way for resource centre staff or users to identify
relevant materials. They are also useful for providing more
detailed information about materials held in the collection,
either in current awareness bulletins or on a database.
There are three types of abstract:
- Indicative abstracts are short, simple and objective. They
describe the theme of the article or publication.
- Informative abstracts are longer and more thorough. They
describe the objectives and conclusions of the article or
publication, as well as the contents.
- Evaluative abstracts (also known as critical abstracts)
are subjective. They evaluate the contents of the article
or publication.
Abstracts are often included in bibliographies and bibliographic
databases. They are sometimes included in current awareness bulletins.
Videos and articles in periodicals often carry an author’s
or publisher’s abstract. The abstracts that are published
with the material can be included in a bibliographic database record
or current awareness bulletin, in order to help users decide how
useful the materials might be for their needs.
Only larger resource centres have the capacity to produce abstracts
for all their materials. Abstracting is time-consuming and requires
skills in summarising, analysing and writing. If the resource
centre is considering producing abstracts, abstracting needs
be to compared with allocating keywords (see
Section 5.3: Allocating keywords). Keywords can provide
a similar indication of the content, audience and level of a
material, and make it easy to identify relevant materials, but
cannot provide information about the conclusions of an article,
or evaluate its content.
7.10.1 Examples of abstracts
These abstracts describe an article in the East African Medical
Journal about research into the use of malaria prophylaxis among
pregnant women.
Indicative abstract
Assesses how the knowledge of malaria and the perceived
effectiveness of malaria control methods affect the use of malaria
prophylaxis by pregnant women attending an antenatal clinic
in Tanzania.
Informative abstract
Knowledge, perception and use of malaria prophylaxis was assessed
among 301 pregnant women attending an antenatal clinic in Dar
es Salaam, Tanzania. It was found that women with a high knowledge
of malaria were more likely to use malaria prophylaxis than
those with low knowledge. However, there was no significant
association between knowledge of malaria and perceived effectiveness
of the various methods of malaria control. Occurrence of malaria
episodes was reported to be similar among users and non-users
of malaria prophylaxis, probably owing to inconsistent use of
malaria prophylaxis. It is suggested that in addition to chemophrophylaxis,
pregnant women should be encouraged to use bed nets in combination
with mosquito repellants throughout the course of pregnancy.
Evaluative abstract
The article discusses research undertaken to assess
knowledge, perception and utilisation of malaria prophylaxis
in pregnant women attending an antenatal clinic in Dar es Salaam,
Tanzania. It begins with a review of the current research literature
on the adverse effects of malaria during pregnancy, the benefits
of chemoprophylaxis, and issues relating to non-compliance.
It then details research methodology and results, and possible
factors that might affect the results. As the research showed
no significant associations, and the occurrence of malaria episodes
was reported to be similar among users and non-users of malaria
prophylaxis, suggestions are made concerning methods for the
prevention of malaria during pregnancy.
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