What are the format requirements and word count standards for paper abstracts?

Key points of this article

Common requirements for Chinese abstracts are between 300 and 500 words, and doctoral thesis may be longer. The specific requirements are subject to school regulations. Please find the school template before writing.
The abstract usually includes a Chinese abstract, Chinese keywords, English abstract and English keywords. The position, font and order of the four parts must be unified according to the school template.
Use "Style" in Word to unify the summary title and body text, which is less error-prone than manually adjusting the font size paragraph by paragraph, and also facilitates subsequent batch modifications.
The abstract page is usually divided into separate sections, and the page number format may be different from the main text. Please confirm the section and page number settings before modifying to avoid confusing page numbers throughout the article.
The abstract content is written by the students themselves. The typesetting tool is only responsible for the format. The word count and format check must be used in accordance with the school's regulations.

The abstract of a paper is usually the first part of the full text that is read. Reviewers and peers often read it first and decide whether to continue reading. Many students are stuck on the format after writing the content: they don’t know how many words should be written in the abstract, how to correspond the Chinese and English abstracts, how many keywords should be listed, and they are not sure how to arrange it in a standardized manner in Word.

This article is written for students who are preparing for graduation thesis, course paper or dissertation. It does not teach you how to write the content of the abstract, but it explains clearly what parts the abstract usually includes, how to roughly determine the number of words, what are the key points in typesetting, and how to use styles and sections to neatly organize the abstract page in Word. After reading, you can check each item against the school template, and you will also know which questions you need to ask your instructor or the academic affairs department.

How to determine the format and word count of the abstract? One sentence conclusion

Let me give the conclusion first: the word count and format of the abstract are subject to the school's regulations, and there is no unified national standard. If the school does not give specific requirements, you can refer to the discipline conventions and confirm with the instructor before making the first draft.

your situation	Recommended practices	reason
The school has a formal essay template or format specification	Type layout directly according to the word count, font, font size and order in the template	Thesis format is usually within the scope of review, and the template is more authoritative than any experience
Only a notice from the college, no detailed word count requirements	Ask your instructor or the college office first to confirm the approximate word count range of the Chinese abstract.	The college's requirements may be slightly different from the school's general regulations. Confirming them in advance can reduce rework.
Writing a course paper or journal submission	Refer to the requirements of the target journal or course. If there are no requirements, keep the abstract short and structurally complete.	Journals tend to have more specific word limits on abstracts, while course papers place more emphasis on a clear structure.
English abstracts must be used for international submissions or overseas applications	Write a Chinese abstract first, and then rewrite it according to the English expression, rather than word-for-word mechanical translation	Direct translation is prone to awkward sentence patterns or inconsistent terminology, so manual verification is more reliable.
Not sure how many keywords to list	List according to school requirements, the common practice is 3 to 5 keywords, keep the same number in Chinese and English	Keywords are used for retrieval, and the number and format are unified to make it easier for the system and reviewers to identify

What parts does the abstract consist of?

A complete abstract of a paper usually includes four parts: Chinese abstract text, Chinese keywords, English abstract text and English keywords. Some schools also require that the title, author information or degree category be placed before and after the abstract, whichever is more specific is based on the template.

Chinese abstract and English abstract

The Chinese abstract is a condensed version of the paper. It generally needs to explain the research background, research questions, methods, main results and conclusions. It should be readable on its own without relying on figure numbers or references in the text. The English abstract is not a word-for-word translation, but corresponds to the Chinese abstract in content. The sentence structure and expression habits must comply with English writing standards.

The Chinese abstract paragraph is usually one paragraph. Some schools allow it to be divided into two or three paragraphs, but it must be executed according to the template.
The number of paragraphs in the English abstract should be consistent with that in Chinese to avoid having one paragraph in Chinese and three paragraphs in English.
For abbreviations in the abstract, write the full name the first time it appears, such as "Natural Language Processing (NLP)"
Generally, references are not cited in abstracts, and formulas and charts are not included.

Keywords

Keywords are words that are easy to search, usually nouns or noun phrases. Common mistakes include keywords that are too long, repeated too much in the question, or keywords in Chinese and English that do not correspond one to one. Keywords are generally separated by semicolons, and the first letters of English keywords are usually capitalized.

Word count standard

Many schools require Chinese abstracts of about 300 to 500 words for undergraduate and master's thesis, and doctoral thesis may be longer. There is no uniform fixed number of words for English abstracts. They usually correspond to the content of Chinese abstracts and are roughly the same length. When counting words, Chinese is generally counted by characters, and English is counted by words. The processing rules for punctuation and spaces should also be based on the template instructions.

If there are too few words, the abstract may not be able to convey the core information of the research; if there are too many words, the abstract will deviate from the simplicity it should have. After you finish writing, you can check it against the template without having to cram in the word count.

📊 Core comparison: summary of the main points of each part

Part	Common requirements	An error-prone place
Chinese abstract	Independently readable, explaining the background, methods, results and conclusions	Write only the purpose of the study, lack of results and conclusions
Chinese key words	The quantity is required by the school, usually 3 to 5, with words separated by semicolons	The keywords are completely repeated with the topic, or words that are too broad are used.
English abstract	Corresponding to the Chinese content, the English expression conforms to the habit of academic writing.	Sentences are not smooth and terms are inconsistent after direct machine translation.
English key words	One-to-one correspondence with Chinese keywords, with uppercase initials	The quantity of Chinese and English is not the same, or the spelling of English keywords is not standard.

# how to use it in practice: arrange the summary page in Word

The content of the summary should be completed by yourself. The following steps are only for typesetting and are used to make the summary page conform to the school regulations.

find the school paper template first. Open the summary page in the template and write down the font, font size, spacing before and after the paragraph, as well as the line spacing and indentation of the text.
style the title and body. * find the style option in the functional area of Word, set the title of the Chinese summary to a title style, set the text to a text style, and then apply it directly without manually adjusting each paragraph.
separate sections of the summary page. insert "section break (next page)" before and after the summary page so that the page number format of the summary can be set separately from the text, and many schools require the abstract to use Roman numerals.
check the page number and header. after the section, make sure that the header and footer are disconnected from the previous section, so as to avoid affecting the text when changing the summary page number.
count the word count. * check the number of words in the word count function of Word. The number of words in the Chinese abstract should refer to the statistical method prescribed by the school.
Do an overall check after typesetting. if you do not have a desktop version of Word at hand, you can open the document with the UniDoc Page Editor (app.unidoc.top) and check the title level, paragraph spacing, and page number location. For scanned pieces or PDF versions of templates, you can first use OmniDoc's PDF editor to do OCR, and then check whether the text recognition is accurate.

The results of machine translation or OCR need to be checked manually, especially technical terms and numbers.

# which method is suitable for you?

If your school has a formal template, write directly in the template to minimize formatting problems. If you are writing in a blank document, first follow the above steps to set up the style and section, and then fill in the content, so that later adjustment will be much easier. If you are not sure about the content of the summary itself, try to take the first draft to see the tutor, the format problem can be solved by yourself, and the content judgment requires professional advice.

# frequently asked questions (FAQ)

1. Must the number of words of the abstract strictly meet the requirements?

Most schools will give a rough range, which may need to be revised when there is more or less. A small number of deviations generally do not affect the review, but try to follow the template description and check it uniformly before submission.

2. Must English abstracts have the same number of words as Chinese abstracts?

Not necessarily. English abstracts usually correspond to Chinese abstracts, with roughly the same length. Do not add content that is not available in Chinese in order to put together the number of words, and do not delete key conclusions.

3. Why is the summary page divided into separate sections?

After the section, the summary page can use a different page number format from the text, such as Roman numerals, and the text is re-counted from the first page. This is a common requirement for most dissertations, which is set up according to the school template.

4. Can abbreviations be used for keywords?

Yes, but when it appears for the first time, you should write the full name and indicate the abbreviation in parentheses. The keywords themselves try to use standardized and general terms to facilitate retrieval.

5. Can the typesetting tool help me write a summary?

Typesetting tools are only responsible for formatting, such as style, section, page number, and layout checking. The research contents, conclusions and expressions of the abstract should be written by you and confirmed with your mentor.

# Summary

The format and number of words of the abstract are subject to the regulations of the school. The common requirement is that the Chinese abstract is about 300 to 500 words, including Chinese and English abstracts and key words. When typesetting, first find the template, then use the style uniform format, separate sections of the summary page, and finally check the number of words and page numbers. The content still needs to be done by yourself, and the format can be done step by step according to the specification.

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