Despite their changing role, abstracts remain useful in the digital world. Highly beneficial to information professionals and researchers who work and publish in different fields, this book summarizes the most important and up-to-date theory of abstracting, as well as giving advice and examples for the practice of writing different kinds of abstracts. The book discusses the length, the functions and basic structure of abstracts, outlining a new approach to informative and indicative abstracts. The abstractors’ personality, their linguistic and non-linguistic knowledge and skills are also discussed with special attention.