It is an original work, not an excerpted passage. An abstract must be fully self-contained and sense by itself, without further reference to outside sources or to the actual paper. It highlights key areas, your research purpose, the relevance or importance of your work, and the main outcomes. It is a well-developed single paragraph of approximately 250 words length, which is indented and single spaced. The function of the abstract is to outline briefly all parts of the paper. Although at the beginning of your paper, immediately following the title page, the abstract should be the last thing that you write, you are sure of the conclusions you will reach.