can i cite from an abstract of a research paper

How do I cite an abstract?

Note: This post relates to content in the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook . For up-to-date guidance, see the ninth edition of the MLA Handbook .

Very few circumstances call for citing an abstract.

Never cite an abstract as a short-cut, a way of avoiding reading and citing the full published work. This is akin to citing the summary of a work that you would find on a book jacket or on a site like CliffsNotes . If you cite an abstract in lieu of the work it summarizes, you are shortchanging both the author and yourself: you are not accurately representing the author’s complete work, which may contain key information that is missing from the abstract, and you lose the experience of reading and engaging with the author’s extended argument and the evidence that supports it.

If you are doing most of your research online, it may be tempting to cite an abstract because many online journals and databases allow you to see an article’s abstract but won’t let you read the full article without a subscription. When you run into this barrier, you’ll have to access the full article some other way—either in hard copy at a library or through a university or other institution’s subscription to an online database that contains the essay in full.

It only makes sense to cite an abstract if you are writing about the abstract as an abstract and not about the work it summarizes: for instance, if you are writing about different styles of writing abstracts used in the sciences and humanities.

If you do need to create a works-cited-list entry for an abstract, follow the MLA format template . List the author of the abstract followed by a description in place of a title. Then list the title of the publication in which the abstract appears as the title of the container. Then list the publication details:

“One abstract effectively piques the reader’s interest with its opening question: ‘What does it mean to be a reader of a novel?'”(Ong). Work Cited Ong, Yi-Ping. Abstract of “Anna Karenina Reads on the Train: Readerly Subjectivity and the Poetics of the Novel.” PMLA , vol. 133, no. 5, Oct. 2018, p. 1302.

You will find an example of a justifiable, and necessary, citation of an abstract in a recent Style Center post that discusses how to write an abstract .

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How to Cite Abstracts

Last Updated: July 1, 2021

This article was reviewed by Gerald Posner and by wikiHow staff writer, Jennifer Mueller, JD . Gerald Posner is an Author & Journalist based in Miami, Florida. With over 35 years of experience, he specializes in investigative journalism, nonfiction books, and editorials. He holds a law degree from UC College of the Law, San Francisco, and a BA in Political Science from the University of California-Berkeley. He’s the author of thirteen books, including several New York Times bestsellers, the winner of the Florida Book Award for General Nonfiction, and has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History. He was also shortlisted for the Best Business Book of 2020 by the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing. This article has been viewed 50,819 times.

Scholarly articles have abstracts available online that provide a summary of the article and conclusions reached in it. Usually, you should try to get the full article to read and use as a source. However, if you decide to use the abstract itself as a source, you need a citation for it. The format of your citation differs depending on whether you're using the Modern Language Association (MLA), American Psychological Association (APA), or Chicago citation style.

• Example: Oziewicz, Marek.

• Example: Oziewicz, Marek. "Restorative Justice Scripts in Ursula K. LeGuin's Voices ."

• Example: Oziewicz, Marek. "Restorative Justice Scripts in Ursula K. LeGuin's Voices ." Children's Literature in Education , vol. 42, no. 1, 2011, pp. 33-43.

• DOI example: Oziewicz, Marek. "Restorative Justice Scripts in Ursula K. LeGuin's Voices ." Children's Literature in Education , vol. 42, no. 1, 2011, pp. 33-43. Academic Search Premier , doi:10.1007/s10583-010- 9118-8, Abstract.
• URL example: Oziewicz, Marek. "Restorative Justice Scripts in Ursula K. LeGuin's Voices ." Children's Literature in Education , vol. 42, no. 1, 2011, pp. 33-43. Springer Link , link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10583-010-9118-8, Abstract.

MLA Works Cited Format

Last Name, First Name. "Title of Article." Title of Journal , vol. x, no. x, Year, pp. xx-xx. Database or Website Name , DOI or URL, Abstract.

• Example: "Children's literature, particularly fantasy and speculative fiction, teaches young readers the values of inclusiveness and equality (Oziewicz)."
• If you incorporate the author's last name in the text of your paper, you don't need any parenthetical citation at all. For example: "Marek Oziewicz finds that works of fantasy teach young readers ideas of social justice that they can apply in the real world."

• Example: Paterson, P. (2008).

• Example: Paterson, P. (2008). How well do young offenders with Asperger Syndrome cope in custody?: Two prison case studies [Abstract].

• Example: Paterson, P. (2008). How well do young offenders with Asperger Syndrome cope in custody?: Two prison case studies [Abstract]. British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 36 (1), 54-58.

• Database example: Paterson, P. (2008). How well do young offenders with Asperger Syndrome cope in custody?: Two prison case studies. British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 36 (1), 54-58. Abstract retrieved from APA PsychNET (doi:10.1111/j.1468-3156.2007.00466.x).
• URL example: Paterson, P. (2008). How well do young offenders with Asperger Syndrome cope in custody?: Two prison case studies. British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 36 (1), 54-58. Abstract retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-3156.2007.00466.x

APA Reference List Format

Full text available: Last Name, First Initial. (Year). Title of article in sentence-case: Subtitle of article [Abstract]. Title of Journal, Volume (Issue#), xx-xx.

Full text unavailable: Last Name, First Initial. (Year). Title of article in sentence-case: Subtitle of article. Title of Journal, Volume (Issue#), xx-xx. Abstract retrieved from Database Name (doi).

Last Name, First Initial. (Year). Title of article in sentence-case: Subtitle of article. Title of Journal, Volume (Issue#), xx-xx. Abstract retrieved from URL.

• Example: "Normal difficulties encountered by people with autistic spectrum disorders are compounded when they are sent to prison (Paterson, 2008)."
• If you include the author's name in the text of your paper, simply place the date of publication in parentheses immediately after their name. For example: "Paterson (2008) concluded limited resources were available for prisoners with autistic spectrum disorders."

• Example: Seth A. Givens,

• Example: Seth A. Givens, "Liberating the Germans: The US Army and Looting in Germany during the Second World War," abstract,

• Example: Seth A. Givens, "Liberating the Germans: The US Army and Looting in Germany during the Second World War," abstract, War in History 21 , no. 1 (January 2014): 33,

• Example: Seth A. Givens, "Liberating the Germans: The US Army and Looting in Germany during the Second World War," abstract, War in History 21 , no. 1 (January 2014): 33, doi:10.1177/0968344513504521.

Chicago Footnote Format

First Name Last Name, "Title of Article: Subtitle of Article," abstract, Title of Journal Volume# , no. x (Month Year): Page#, doi/URL.

Expert Q&A

• Avoid citing an abstract if the full text of the article is available. If you don't have access to the article, talk to your instructor or to a research librarian. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.landmark.edu/uploads/pages/doc/MLA-Citation-Guide-8th-ed.pdf
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_in_text_citations_the_basics.html
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/reference_list_electronic_sources.html
• ↑ https://library.ship.edu/c.php?g=21703&p=127139

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Can you cite articles if you only read the abstract?

Well the question is pretty much self contained :

Can you cite articles if you only read the abstract ?

In a more general case :

1) Do reviewers actually read (or read) articles you cite ?

2) If the abstract is well structured, and you flied through the article content, everything seems reliable, and you do not need to have a thorough understanding of the methods for example, is it ok to cite it ?

EDIT : following O.R Mapper insightful comment

3) What if you cannot access the paper in no way ?

• 3 Can you? Yes. Should you? No. I personally wouldn't feel comfortable citing work for which I haven't read all relevant parts, e.g. Abstract + Introduction + all relevant Methods + Conclusion. –  101010111100 Commented Jun 24, 2016 at 9:25
• 2 @101010111100 I understand your high standards academic POV. But let's take an example. The article is about planting carrot in Birman. Im interested in how much carrots did they get and their size. Do I really need to know and read thoroughly about how did they plant them or how much water did they use for watering ? –  Blue_Elephant Commented Jun 24, 2016 at 9:33
• For 1) it obviously varies, but I have at least had reviewers point out that they were unable to find a result I cited in the given paper (I had accidently given it the wrong number). –  Tobias Kildetoft Commented Jun 24, 2016 at 10:19
• 1 @Blue_Elephant Sort of? Using your example, I don't see why you wouldn't need to know how the authors managed to obtain their results. Plucking pieces of data like that from different sources, without understanding the context of that data, can be really dangerous. And I find it strange that you can't, at the very least, spend a few minutes to read through the conclusions and skim through the methods. –  101010111100 Commented Jun 24, 2016 at 12:26
• 3 @101010111100: Without commenting on whether the abstract should be relied upon for results : In the age of paywalls, having no access and failure to find anyone among one's contacts from other institutions who does have access to the full text means that it "spend[ing] a few minutes" is not necessarily the problem. –  O. R. Mapper Commented Jun 24, 2016 at 13:52

Sometimes, but not always. When I review a paper, I'll generally check a random subset of citations to make sure the right paper is linked. (It's surprisingly common for references to get out of sync, so that citation [12] in the manuscript actually should be citing reference [13] in the bibliography.) I'm often familiar enough with the literature to know if the authors are citing an appropriate paper for common points, so I'll skim over these to make sure everything I already know makes sense. In both cases, I don't actually read the papers, just make sure they pass the sanity check.

If something looks odd (they cite an author supporting something that I didn't think she worked on, or a fact seems reversed, or there's some detail I didn't know about) I will often take a look at the referenced paper. This averages to probably a couple of papers read per paper reviewed, but when I find one oddity I'll often find several, so it's more like some reviews I'll read 4-5 papers, more often I'll just glance at one.

So you shouldn't count on slipping something by reviewers.

As for looking at abstracts only, you can but probably shouldn't. The only time it's relatively safe is when the abstract explicitly states the single point you're using that paper to support ("We found that 72% of Bulgarian tractor repairmen are left-handed"), but even then you may be missing important qualifiers ("We limited our sample to red-haired tractor repairmen with pre-existing arthritis"). As I noted, reviewers may well be familiar enough with the literature to catch these.

• 4 "It's surprisingly common for references to get out of sync, so that citation [12] in the manuscript actually should be citing reference [13] in the bibliography." All hail automatic reference numbering. –  JAB Commented Jan 18, 2018 at 16:53
• What if I'm writing a review article? Would it be alright to read then cite the abstract? The field I am currently writing in is in systems biology; my formal training is in math. (1) I know next to nothing about the methodologies; should I even bother with methodologies? (2) I do read into the molecular interactions and their overall effects in the "discussion" section apart from the abstract. Would this ever suffice? –  TheLast Cipher Commented Mar 25, 2020 at 10:43

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How to Cite an Abstract Source in APA Style

Abstracts are short summaries of longer articles. Although the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA) states that it is preferable to use full-text sources as references, it does provide style guidelines for the citation of abstracts as sources. The exact format of your citation will depend on whether you are citing an abstract that appears in print or one that you accessed online.

List the name of the author by placing the last name first followed by a comma. Include the initial of the author's first name followed by a period. For example: Smith, J.

List the date of publication in parentheses followed by a period. For example: (2010).

List the title of the article. According to APA guidelines, only the first letter of the title should be capitalized. The first letter of proper nouns should also be capitalized. For example: Nursing students in China and available scholarship support.

Note that the source you are citing is an abstract of a longer article. This information should appear in brackets. For example: [Abstract].

List the title of the journal, volume number and pages the article appears in. The title and volume number should be italicized. For example: American Journal of Nursing, 47, 317-347. If you accessed the abstract in print, then your citation is finished. If you accessed the abstract online, continue to Step 6.

List the URL of the website from which you accessed the abstract. Include the text "Abstract retrieved from" followed by the URL. For example: Abstract retrieved from http://jstor.com/search/7638.

Need help with a citation? Try our citation generator .

Generate accurate APA citations for free

• Knowledge Base
• APA Style 7th edition
• How to write and format an APA abstract

APA Abstract (2020) | Formatting, Length, and Keywords

Published on November 6, 2020 by Raimo Streefkerk . Revised on January 17, 2024.

An APA abstract is a comprehensive summary of your paper in which you briefly address the research problem , hypotheses , methods , results , and implications of your research. It’s placed on a separate page right after the title page and is usually no longer than 250 words.

Most professional papers that are submitted for publication require an abstract. Student papers typically don’t need an abstract, unless instructed otherwise.

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Table of contents

How to format the abstract, how to write an apa abstract, which keywords to use, frequently asked questions, apa abstract example.

Formatting instructions

Follow these five steps to format your abstract in APA Style:

• Insert a running head (for a professional paper—not needed for a student paper) and page number.
• Set page margins to 1 inch (2.54 cm).
• Write “Abstract” (bold and centered) at the top of the page.
• Do not indent the first line.
• Double-space the text.
• Use a legible font like Times New Roman (12 pt.).
• Limit the length to 250 words.
• Indent the first line 0.5 inches.
• Write the label “Keywords:” (italicized).
• Write keywords in lowercase letters.
• Separate keywords with commas.
• Do not use a period after the keywords.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

The abstract is a self-contained piece of text that informs the reader what your research is about. It’s best to write the abstract after you’re finished with the rest of your paper.

The questions below may help structure your abstract. Try answering them in one to three sentences each.

• What is the problem? Outline the objective, research questions , and/or hypotheses .
• What has been done? Explain your research methods .
• What did you discover? Summarize the key findings and conclusions .
• What do the findings mean? Summarize the discussion and recommendations .

Check out our guide on how to write an abstract for more guidance and an annotated example.

Guide: writing an abstract

At the end of the abstract, you may include a few keywords that will be used for indexing if your paper is published on a database. Listing your keywords will help other researchers find your work.

Choosing relevant keywords is essential. Try to identify keywords that address your topic, method, or population. APA recommends including three to five keywords.

An abstract is a concise summary of an academic text (such as a journal article or dissertation ). It serves two main purposes:

• To help potential readers determine the relevance of your paper for their own research.
• To communicate your key findings to those who don’t have time to read the whole paper.

Abstracts are often indexed along with keywords on academic databases, so they make your work more easily findable. Since the abstract is the first thing any reader sees, it’s important that it clearly and accurately summarizes the contents of your paper.

An APA abstract is around 150–250 words long. However, always check your target journal’s guidelines and don’t exceed the specified word count.

In an APA Style paper , the abstract is placed on a separate page after the title page (page 2).

Avoid citing sources in your abstract . There are two reasons for this:

• The abstract should focus on your original research, not on the work of others.
• The abstract should be self-contained and fully understandable without reference to other sources.

There are some circumstances where you might need to mention other sources in an abstract: for example, if your research responds directly to another study or focuses on the work of a single theorist. In general, though, don’t include citations unless absolutely necessary.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Streefkerk, R. (2024, January 17). APA Abstract (2020) | Formatting, Length, and Keywords. Scribbr. Retrieved October 10, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/apa-style/apa-abstract/

Is this article helpful?

Raimo Streefkerk

Other students also liked, apa headings and subheadings, apa running head, apa title page (7th edition) | template for students & professionals, scribbr apa citation checker.

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APA Citations (7th ed.)

• General Formatting
• Student Paper Elements - Title Page
• Professional Paper Elements - Title Page
• In-text Citation Basics
• In-text Citation Author Rules
• Citing Multiple Works
• Personal Communications
• Classroom or Intranet Resources
• Secondary Sources
• Periodicals
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Often, abstracts are included in professional papers to provide a short summary of a larger work. Abstracts allow the reader to quickly decide if they want to read the larger work.

For some student papers, you may be asked by your instructor to include an abstract. The page will cover the qualities of a good abstract, how to format an abstract, and an example abstract.

Again, please check with your instructor to know if you need to include an abstract with your paper or research project .

Qualities of a Good Abstract

A good abstract is:

• Accurate : Ensure that the abstract reflects the purpose and content of the paper. If the study extends or replicates previous research, cite the relevant work with an author-date citation.
• Nonevaluative : Report rather than evaluate; do not add to or comment on what is in the body of the paper.
• Coherent and readable : Write in clear and deliberate language. Use active rather than passive voice. Use present tense ro describe conclusions or results. Use past tense to describe variables that were manipulated or outcomes measured.
• Concise : Be brief and begin the abstract with the most important points. Include only the four or five most important concepts, findings, or implications.

Formatting for Abstracts

Follow these rules for correct formatting of your abstract:

• Abstracts should appear on their own page after the title page (i.e., page 2)
• Write the second label "Abstract" in bold title case, centered at the top of the page, and place the abstract below the label
• Abstracts are typically limited to no more than 250 words
• Abstracts may appear in paragraph or structured format. Both are written as a single paragraph without indentation. If you are using structured format, labels are inserted to identify various sections (e.g., Objective, Method, Results, Conclusions).
• Include keywords one line below the abstract if requested. Write the label " Keywords:"  (in italics), indented 0.5 in. like a regular paragraph, followed by the keywords in lowercase (capitalize proper nouns), separated by commas. Second line (if needed) is not indented.

Example Abstract

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