Abstracting across the disciplines : a content analysis of abstracts from the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities with implications for abstracting standards and online information retrieval

Abstract

The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) have published a common standard for abstracting scholarly and scientific writing. Although begun as guidelines for abstracting scientific writing, the most recent edition of the ANSI standard claims applicability for abstracting in the social sciences and humanities as well. this article reports on a comparison of the content categories listed in the ANS/ISO abstracting standards to actual content found in abstracts from the sciences, social sciences, and the humanities. The preliminary findings questions the fundamental concept underlying theses standards, that any one set of standards and generalized instructions can describe and elicit the optimal configuration for abstracts from all subjects areas. Implication for online free-text retrieval using abstracts are also drawn

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