12 Abstracts
An abstract is a brief summary of a completed research paper that motivate its audience to read the main text of the argument. Your abstract should include a short description of your motivation for a project, methods, findings, and conclusions. An abstract is concise, to the point, and bout 200-250 words long.
The abstract should be in MLA or APA format, as defined by the assignment, and should come before the full essay but after the Title Page. After the abstract paragraph, make sure to list an average of 3 key words and phrases that quickly identify the content and focus of the work.
Example
Below is an example of an abstract of a research paper that examines the impacts of social movements through a multi-layered study of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement from its peak in the early 1960s through the early 1980s.
This report examines the impacts of the social movements through a a multilayered study of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement from its peak in the early 1960s through the early 1908s. By examining this historically important case, I clarify the process by which movements transform social structures and the constraints movements face when they try to do so. The time period studied includes the expansion of voting rights and gains in black political power, the desegregation of public schools and the emergence of white-flight academies, and the rise and fall of federal anti-poverty programs. I use two major research strategies: (1) a quantitative analysis of county-level data and (2) three case studies. Data have been collected from archives, interviews, newspapers, and published reports. This dissertation challenges the argument that movements are inconsequential. Some view federal agencies, courts, political parties, or economic elites as the agents driving institutional change, but typically these groups acted in response to the leverage brought to bear by the civil rights movement. The Mississippi movement attempted to forget independent structures for sustaining challenges to local inequities and injustices. By propelling change in an array of local institutions, movement infrastructures had an enduring legacy in Mississippi.
Keywords
social movements
Civil Rights Movement
Mississippi
voting rights
desegregation
