Hi Michelle,

Unfortunately, the APA manual doesn’t give specific guidance on this. They state that you should follow the guidance of the journal you’re submitting to. They don’t specifically state what punctuation is used for labels in their own style, but my guess is that you would follow each label with a period, e.g., “Method. To carry out this research, …”

Thanks for this info! I just want to clarify, with labels like Aim, Research Question, Method, do we only bold/italicize or is there a colon after?

Hi Bello,

No, in APA Style the abstract should always be formatted according to the rules explained above, which include double spacing and no italics.

Hi Karlee,

APA Style doesn’t specifically forbid you from doing this, but it’s usually best to avoid it for the most part. Your abstract should be more concise than the rest of your paper, so the sentences, while they can certainly be similar to those used in the text, are usually best modified to make the abstract as direct as possible. That said, there are occasions where the phrasing was already very concise in the main text and reusing the same phrasing is appropriate. Just try to do so only when necessary.

Hi Linnea,

APA recommends writing the whole abstract as a single paragraph, just using the labels Aim, Method, etc. in bold italics to identify the different aspects. They do not recommend starting a new line for each aspect.

When i want to use a structured abstract, am I allowed to start a new line with each aspect (aim, method, results, conclusion), or do I continue in the same line?

Hi Bia,

The order of information may vary depending on your field and the type of research. But in general, a storytelling style isn’t really appropriate for an abstract; you should aim to be as concise and direct as possible. That always means stating the main research problem or objective in the first sentence so that the reader immediately knows what to expect from the paper. The rest of the information should be presented in a logical order, and it should accurately represent the content of your paper. Since an abstract is very short, you need to make sure that every sentence tells the reader something essential.

I hope that answers your question!