Abstracts of Papers Without Headings

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When abstracting a paper that doesn't have headings and sub-headings, you must depend on your sense of major "chunks" in the text. As you'll see in the following example, this writer followed his concise statement of the main point with two sentences that focus on the two main arguments presented in the paper.

Note: The numbers in this abstract are for illustration purposes only. Number 1 designates a concise statement of the main point. Number 2 designates a summary statement of the first major argument and its support (five pages in the original article). Number 3 corresponds to a summary of the second major argument (two pages in the original), and Number 4 corresponds to the second argument's support (two pages).

(1) This paper argues that the "saving democracy" rhetoric surrounding the Gulf War was merely a mask for the U.S.'s interest in keeping oil prices down.(2) Such an argument is made by first describing the ways in which OPEC controlled oil prices by limiting sales, pointing specifically to how Kuwait was producing more oil than allowed by current OPEC agreements. (3) Second, the paper examines why the U.S. was invested in keeping good relations with the only two OPEC nations--Kuwait and Saudi Arabia--which frequently made trade agreements that benefited the U.S. (4) Finally, the paper does a close reading of the newspaper coverage of the Gulf War, examining how an early recognition of the monetary incentive changed to a democratic one when Bush ordered trOops to Saudi Arabia.

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