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<abstract> Abstract

Summarized description of the content of a standards document.

Usage/Remarks

Although it is a relatively new phenomenon to give abstracts to standards, the online marketplace has been pushing the standards community in that direction.
Length of Abstracts
It is possible to write an abstract that is a very short summary of the major purpose or scope of a standard and limit this abstract to a paragraph or two. It is also possible to produce “long” or “summary” abstracts in which each section of the standard is summarized in a separate abstract section that has the same title as the standards section being summarized. Such abstracts may be extensive, incorporating figures and tables. The model for the element <abstract> has been made flexible enough to allow for both types of abstract.
Multiple Abstracts
A single standards document may contain many abstracts, each aimed at a different use, such as display at the beginning of the standard, ePub promotional abstract, RSS/Atom feed, or pronouncing abstract. Two attributes may be used to describe the type or usage for a particular abstract:
  • The @specific-use attribute may be used to identify a processing purpose, such as RSS feed or pronunciation.
  • The optional @abstract-type attribute may be used to identify special types of abstracts, for example, graphical abstracts, stereochemical abstracts, ASCII abstracts for sending to small devices, and Table-of-Contents abstracts that are so short they are inserted as annotations into a Table of Contents. See the attribute page for @abstract-type for a list of suggested types.
Accessibility
For accessibility purposes, it is useful to provide a very short synopsis abstract (much like a Table of Contents blurb or a dek in some journals) whose purpose is to tell a non-sighted reader what the standard is about. This abstract can be given the @abstract-type such as “meta-description”, “description”, or “dc:description” to indicate that, when making web pages from this XML, the abstract should be used to create the XHTML metadata description.
The <abstract> element should not be used to take the place of the regular accessibility elements <alt-text> or <long-desc>, which are, respectively, shorter and longer descriptions of a component of a document, such as a table or figure.
Attributes
abstract-type
originator
specific-use

Base Attributes

id
xml:base
xml:lang
Models and Context
May be contained in
<app-group>, <fig-group>, <graphic>, <iso-meta>, <media>, <nat-meta>, <reg-meta>, <std-doc-meta>, <std-meta>
Description
The following, in order:
Content Model
<!ELEMENT  abstract     %abstract-model;                             >
Expanded Content Model

((editing-instruction)*, label?, title?, (p | normative-note | non-normative-note | normative-example | non-normative-example | notes-group)*, (sec | term-sec)*)

Tagged Samples
Typical short abstract 
...
<abstract>
 <p>This document describes version 2 of the Internet Key Exchange
  (IKE) protocol. IKE is a component of IPsec used for performing mutual
  authentication and establishing and maintaining Security Associations
  (SAs). This document obsoletes RFC 5996, and includes all of the
  errata for it. It advances IKEv2 to be an Internet Standard.</p>
</abstract>
...
Three abstracts for one document — regular one-paragraph abstract, extended abstract with several sections, and short abstract for use on Twitter 
...
<std-meta>
 <title-wrap xml:lang="en" originator="ISO">
  <full>NISO STS (Standard Tag Suite) NISO Z39.102 201x</full>
 </title-wrap>
 ...
 <abstract>
  <p>The Standards Tag Suite (STS) provides a common XML format that developers, publishers,
   and distributors of standards, including National Standards Bodies, Regional and
   International Standards Bodies, and Standards Development Organizations, can use to
   publish and exchange full-text content and metadata of standards. STS is based on
   ANSI/NISO Z39-96 (JATS). Structures are provided to encode both the normative and
   non-normative content of: standards, adoptions of standards, and standards-like documents
   that are produced by standards organizations.</p>
 </abstract>

 <abstract abstract-type="extended">
  <p>The Standards Tag Suite (STS) provides a common XML format that developers, publishers,
   and distributors of standards, including National Standards Bodies, Regional and
   International Standards Bodies, and Standards Development Organizations, can use to
   publish and exchange full-text content and metadata of standards. STS is based on
   ANSI/NISO Z39-96 (JATS). Structures are provided to encode both the normative and
   non-normative content of: standards, adoptions of standards, and standards-like documents
   that are produced by standards organizations.</p>
  <sec>
   <title>Purpose</title>
   <p>To define a suite of XML elements and attributes that describes the full-text content
    and metadata of standards, including co-produced standards adoptions. A common format
    for publishing and exchanging standards content. To preserve the intellectual content of
    standards independent of the form in which that content was originally delivered ...</p>
  </sec>
  <sec>
   <title>Scope</title>
   <p>The elements and attributes that describe both the metadata and the full content of
    published normative standards documents ...</p>
  </sec>
  <sec>
   <title>Two Tag Sets</title>
   <p>The Interchange Tag Set provides a format in which standards organizations and
    publishers can deliver content to a range of other standards bodies and disseminators.
    The Extended Tag Set allows both the XHTML and CALS table models to account for legacy
    publishing of intensive table information.</p>
  </sec>
 </abstract>

 <abstract abstract-type="twitter">
  <p>NISO STS (Standards Tag Suite) is a standard for tagging and interchanging standards
   documents in XML.</p>
 </abstract>
 ...
</std-meta>
...
Related Resources