Effective executive summaries: a simple but solid paradigm

The abstract or executive summary is a powerful communication device and a mandatory component of many documents: it allows document selection, informs some readers satisfactorily, and orients the others about the rest of the document. Stilt, engineers, scientists, and other professionals are often unsure about what to include in it: for lack of a suitable model, they write it haphazardly or by imitation, omitting parts that are needed for selection or including unnecessary details. This paper proposes a simple but solid paradigm for constructing effective abstracts, based on fifteen years of training and consulting practice. My recommendation to the participants of my training programs is to structure the abstract or executive summary in two parts. The first part (the before,) motivates both the work done and the document, with the necessary context, the need for the work, the task completed, and the object of the document. The second part (the after) conveys the message by stating the findings, interpreting them in a conclusion, and possibly looking ahead in perspectives. This paradigm was successfully put to the test in technical, scientific, and business documents. Besides helping create better abstracts, it helps authors get over any "writer's block".