EDITORIAL
By Dr. Miles Shepherd
Executive Editor
Salisbury, England, UK
The purpose of the notes in this series is to offer some basic advice for authors of papers submitted to PMWJ, particularly those who wish their work to be peer reviewed. The notes are aimed at those starting out on their writing career, rather than experienced authors. What I hope to do is make the process easier by explaining what we look for and how this helps ensure that readers actually read your work.
We all want our written work to be read so the important first step is capturing the reader’s attention. I pointed out that it is the title that provides the hook to catch the reader and offered some very limited advice. Having caught the eye of the reader, we need then to make sure their interest is strengthened so that they move on to read your magnum opus.
There are many aspects to preserving the reader’s interest and the very first is to give them a little more detail of what they can expect in the paper – in other words, the Abstract. This is a critical component of your paper, so it is important to understand its purpose and structure. Broadly speaking, there are two types of Abstract, as explained by Andrade (2011):
Informative Abstract
The majority of abstracts are informative. While they do not critique or evaluate a work, they do more than describe it. A good informative abstract acts as a surrogate for the work itself. That is, the researcher presents and explains all the main arguments and the important results and evidence in the paper. An informative abstract includes the information that can be found in a descriptive abstract [purpose, methods, scope] but it also includes the results and conclusions of the research and the recommendations of the author. The length varies according to discipline, but an informative abstract is usually no more than 300 words in length.
Descriptive Abstract
A descriptive abstract indicates the type of information found in the work. It makes no judgements about the work, nor does it provide results or conclusions of the research. It does incorporate key words found in the text and may include the purpose, methods, and scope of the research. Essentially, the descriptive abstract only describes the work being summarised. Some researchers consider it an outline of the work, rather than a summary. Descriptive abstracts are usually very short, 100 words or less
Empirical studies usually have Informative Abstracts while literature based studies usually have Descriptive Abstracts.
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How to cite this work: Shepherd, M. (2026). From the Executive Editor’s Desk; PM World Journal, Vol. XV, Issue IX, September. Available online at https://pmworldjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/pmwj168-Sep2026-Shepherd-From-the-Exec-Editors-Desk.pdf
About the Author
Dr. Miles Shepherd
Executive Editor, PMWJ
Salisbury, UK
Dr. Miles Shepherd is Executive Editor, Advisor and International Correspondent for the PM World Journal in the United Kingdom. He retired from a 30 year career in the British Army in 1994. He is also managing director for MS Projects Ltd, a consulting company supporting various UK and overseas Government agencies, nuclear industry organisations and other businesses. Miles has over 35 years’ experience on a variety of projects in UK, Eastern Europe and Russia. His PM experience includes defence, major IT projects, decommissioning of nuclear reactors, nuclear security, rail and business projects for the UK Government and EU. His consulting work has taken him to Japan, Taiwan, USA and Russia. Past Chair and Fellow of the Association for Project Management (APM), Miles is also past president and chair and a Fellow of the International Project Management Association (IPMA). He was, for seven years, a Director for PMI’s Global Accreditation Centre and is past Chair of the ISO committee developing new international standards for Project Management and for Program/Portfolio Management. He served on British Standards Institute project management committee (2002 – 2026) including 5 years as Chair. He was involved in setting up APM’s team developing guidelines for project management oversight and governance. Miles is based in Salisbury, England and can be contacted at miles.shepherd@msp-ltd.co.uk.
To see other works by Miles Shepherd, visit his author showcase in the PM World Library at https://pmworldlibrary.net/authors/miles-shepherd/
