4. Writing an Abstract for the Paper Take the Psychological Science article you used for Exercise 1. Carefully read it. Now without looking at the abstract for the article, write its abstract, acting as though you were the author. Authors typically write their abstract last. This exercise is one that helps you to improve your skills in being both an author and a careful reader. Authors often go to their research articles to select sentences that are critical to the meaning and flow of the work. They then revise those sentences and weave them together into the abstract to capture the essence of the research questions, the method, the chief finding, and the core interpretation. After writing your abstract, compare it with the one the authors wrote to determine similarities and differences.