The Fatal Abstract a Tutorial Farce in One Act

"The Fatal Abstract" is a dramatic exhibit of the superiority of the informative abstract or summary to the conventional descriptive or table of contents variety. It shows how the more effective abstract justifies the far greater effort it requires, and in a digression devoted to the preparation of abstracts for symposia, shows that it is both unethical and self-defeating to offer the same abstract to several meetings at once. A secondary "message" of this drama, which takes place in a biophysics laboratory responsible for the logistic support of a spacecraft that has landed on Venus, is that the effective communication of the essence of a complex body of information depends on careful selection of the level of generalization and the rigorous elimination of redundancy. The play requires four actors but no properties or scenery, and should be read aloud rather than memorized. However, it is designed to be followed by an open panel discussion in which the actors become the panelists, and the actors must therefore be experienced writers or editors if they are to deal effectively with questions raised by the audience.