Abridgement

From a summary is when a scientific work, a factual text or a literary text, there is a shorter version. In general, abstracts created by subsequent reductions in the long version. The extent of reduction can vary greatly depending on their purpose. It ranges from the omission of individual sites (eg edits ad usum delphini ) to reduce to a fraction of the circumference.

Summaries of literary works

Even in novels, in some films and occasionally in musical pieces, there are long and short versions, but differ in the length less than that of knowledge and factual texts. In the narrative literature of the Middle Ages individually manufactured abstracts were not rare, usually offer a reduction to the summary facti ( " main line of action " ) and remove commenting as amplified passages (descriptions, digressions ).

Summaries of factual texts

Abstracts, there can be a wide variety of publications: articles in scientific journals and in newspapers, dissertations and theses, reports, resumes and glosses, speeches, radio features, weather reports, and others.

Abstracts of scientific or factual texts can perform the following functions:

• Make the reader curious about the topic;
• Him facilitate the decision, whether the reading of the whole text can be rewarding for him;
• Familiarize the reader with the main theses familiar, without it having to deal with the details;
• Links to other topics show;
• With summaries in other languages ​​also those readers present the basic ideas that do not speak the language of publication.

Special requirements for scientific works ( abstracts)

The guidelines for abstracts will depend on the scope of the work:

• For scientific articles mostly an abridged version is preferred as an abstract of a few lines. Only for long articles allow some magazines offer a range of up to ¼ page. International English is the default language for abstracts;
• Since about 1990 are in German and Romance languages ​​additional (or sole ) English Summaries common.