Read the article and note the most important ideas and terms. Read the introduction and conclusion especially closely to make sure you understand the methodology, purpose and findings of the study.
Begin your abstract by stating the reason for the study. Explain who would be interested in the material and why the authors of the article thought it was important to write. For example, if the article is about a study on different learning modalities, you might write: "Educators in the public school system often have too many students in their classrooms to focus on each one individually, so reaching as many students as possible by using different modalities is becoming more and more important."
Define the researcher's main focus or thesis. For example, write "Researchers in New York City performed a series of behavioral tests to determine whether there are three main learning modalities -- visual, auditory and kinesthetic, or four -- visual, auditory, kinesthetic and read-write."
Explain the author's methodology for his research, without giving specific details. For example, write "The researchers administered two different learning modality tests to students across several grade levels, one including read-write and one omitting it. They then monitored the students who tested as read-write learners on the first test to see if they fit equally well into their categories from the second test."
Describe the results of the study. For example, write "The students who tested read-write on one test and visual on the other learned better from reading than they did from pictures, but the students who tested read-write and auditory learned equally well from listening as they did from reading."
Summarize the author's conclusions or the implications of his findings. For example, "The researchers concluded that read-write learners are a separate category from visual learners but that many of them can learn easily through auditory methods. Therefore, public school teachers should focus their teaching methods on the classic three learning modalities and only incorporate the read-write modality when convenient."