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Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2004;158:1086-1088.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Abstracts serve 3 important purposes: (1) they may persuade someone to read the article, (2) they allow busy readers to learn the main results without reading the entire article,¹ and (3) they make it easy to capture the main results in computerized databases, such as MEDLINE, which make the results available worldwide. Given these purposes, it is worth writing an informative abstract.

We suggest a structured abstract format with 8 sections:

1. Objective(s). State an objective, not necessarily a hypothesis. Hypothesis testing does not fit the design of many studies and sometimes leads to simplistic thumbs-up or thumbs-down conclusions.^2-4 One sentence is usually sufficient. We are convinced that the best articles focus on 1 objective; if you have more than 2, reconsider.⁵

Examples: "To estimate the association between dietary intake of kumquats and school performance." "To estimate the prevalence of asthma among school children in Iowa." "To determine whether . . . [Full Text of this Article]

WHAT TO LEAVE OUT


SYSTEMATIC REVIEWS AND META-ANALYSES

WRITE THE ABSTRACT LAST

KEEP IT SHORT AND CLEAR

AUTHOR INFORMATION
Peter Cummings, MD, MPH; Frederick P. Rivara, MD, MPH; Thomas D. Koepsell, MD, MPH

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