Online Submission

Narrative Abstract Guidelines and Sample

Submitting Your Material to ERIC

Material submitted to ERIC must include an abstract written in English.
Clarity, brevity, and accuracy are key to writing abstracts of maximum value to ERIC users. Please write your abstract using our suggestions for structure and style.

Narrative Abstract Elements
A narrative abstract is a summarization or synopsis of the full report, written in one paragraph, which should include five elements:

• Purpose: presenting the objectives and hypotheses of the research or intervention.
• Methodology: providing the sample size, geographic location, ethnic/racial factors, variables, controls, conditions, tests, description of research design, details of sampling techniques, data gathering procedures.
• Results: describing the experimental or theoretical results obtained, data collected, causal relationships and correlations noted, and effects observed.
• Conclusions: recording the outcomes and findings and their relationship to the purpose of the research.
• Recommendations: stating the implications for policy or practice, applications, and suggestions for follow-up, future studies, or further analysis.
• Additional data: enclosed in parentheses, noting the existence and number of references, tables, graphs, exhibits, test instruments, appendices, or other supplemental materials in your paper.

Writing Style

• Use specific words, phrases, concepts, and keywords from your paper
• Use precise, clear, descriptive language
• Write from an objective, rather than evaluative point of view
• Define unique terms and acronyms the first time used
• Write one paragraph, from 150 to 400 words in length
• Use complete sentences
• Write in the third person; do not use I or we
• Use verbs in the active voice

Slides and Power Point Presentations
The complete manuscript of your material must be submitted to ERIC. Slides in the form of Power Point presentations or Excel spreadsheets will be included only as an appendix to the complete text of your paper.

Sample narrative abstract showing how each element adds to the abstract:
(Purpose) The purpose of this study was to examine the short-term effects of a two-way bilingual education program on the literacy development of students in kindergarten and first grade. (Methodology) Two groups of children were compared in terms of their academic achievement in English language arts. The groups included students with limited English proficiency (LEP) as well as students who were not LEP. One group was instructed in English approximately 70% of the time and in Spanish approximately 30% of the time in a two-way bilingual education (Extended Foreign Language [EFL]) program. The academic performance of these students was compared with that of a group of students who attended the same school but were enrolled in a regular program. Participants were 46 treatment group students in kindergarten, compared with 41 other kindergarten students, and 57 first graders, compared with 71 other first graders. (Results) Results indicate that after one year of the intervention, there were statistically significant differences between the two groups only in sight vocabulary (at kindergarten and grade 1) and in alphabet (kindergarten). In all other areas of language development, there were no statistically significant differences between the achievement scores of the two groups. (Conclusions) Results show that students in the EFL program make adequate academic progress, confirming the usefulness of the two-way bilingual program in reducing the achievement gap between LEP students and others. (Recommendations) Educators need to increase their knowledge of the effects of instructional programs on the language acquisition of LEP students in order to improve the students' academic development. (Additional data) (Contains 3 tables)

Note: The recommended narrative abstract element labels, shown in bold in the sample above, do not appear in the published abstract.