Steve Tippins breaks down what belongs in a research abstract: the problem, why it matters, your methods, results, and your data source. He uses a real example studying sunspots and stock returns from 1940 to 2020, which found a statistically significant relationship (p≈0.025).
So what has to be in your abstract? And this is a pretty long list for thinking about how short this has to be. What's the topic or what was the problem? The problem that was studied here was the impact of sunspots on stock prices. What does it matter? Well, sunspots have been shown to impact many areas. What method did I use? This quantitative longitudinal study— so it's quantitative and it was over time— explored sunspot activity and then returns in the stock market. So I've told the reader, here's what I did. What did I find? It was found that over a time period, 1940 through 2020, it was found that there was a strong relationship, p of 0.025 or something. So I'm telling them a little bit about the results. So who are the participants? Well, in this case, it was the stock market. If it's a qualitative study, I might be looking at teachers. Not with sunspots, but
