Abstracts for scientific papers - the good and the hilarious
By Brian Clegg
If you are familiar with academic papers you will be aware of the existence of abstracts – before the internet, summaries that were published separately, and still a useful guide to exactly what a paper is about. But they are easy to get wrong.
When I used to help students with their academic writing I was often asked about exactly what should go in abstracts. I found this suggestion very useful:
… I think it was from Nature, but I don’t have a reference – do let me know if you know exactly where/who it’s from.
However, I couldn’t resist including another example of an abstract which in its way was a gem. Back in 2011, the OPERA experiment at Gran Sasso in Italy detected neutrino particles emitted from the CERN laboratory, which they claimed were travelling faster than the speed of light. This would have had huge implications for physics had it been true. When it was announced I remember going on a radio programme and suggesting this was very unlikely.
At the time, though, I was not aware of the delightful abstract for a paper on the subject from the University of Bristol:
Headline image from Unsplash by Gilles Gravier (CERN, not Gran Sasso)
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Now Appearing is the blog of science writer Brian Clegg (www.brianclegg.net), author of Inflight Science, Before the Big Bang and The God Effect.
Source: http://brianclegg.blogspot.com/2026/11/abstracts-for-scientific-papers-good.html
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