[header] How to summarize a journal article [title] Read the abstract. [step] Abstracts are short paragraphs written by the author to summarize research articles. Abstracts are usually included in most academic journals and are generally no more than 100-200 words. 
The abstract provides a short summary of the content of the journal article, providing you with important highlights of the research study. [substeps] The purpose of an abstract is to allow researchers to quickly scan a journal and see if specific research articles are applicable to the work they are doing.