Yes; although some people can do that and get away with it (i.e. their readers ends up remembering the take-away point).
Writing with power and writing with clarity are two separate skills. You want to develop both, but clarity takes priority. If you write clearly, at least it will be obvious when what you write doesn’t matter.
They won’t “get away with it” with all readers. The abstract allows skimmers to get the gist quickly - and delve deeper if they are still interested. With no abstract, there is only the title as a guide to the contents—and the reader faces an “unfortunate” choice between risking wasting their time by delving in—or skipping the article entirely.
On a related note I actually took more from the abstract of Alicorn’s recent post than I did from the main text. This is something that happens relatively often with posts in general.
Yes; although some people can do that and get away with it (i.e. their readers ends up remembering the take-away point).
Writing with power and writing with clarity are two separate skills. You want to develop both, but clarity takes priority. If you write clearly, at least it will be obvious when what you write doesn’t matter.
They won’t “get away with it” with all readers. The abstract allows skimmers to get the gist quickly - and delve deeper if they are still interested. With no abstract, there is only the title as a guide to the contents—and the reader faces an “unfortunate” choice between risking wasting their time by delving in—or skipping the article entirely.
On a related note I actually took more from the abstract of Alicorn’s recent post than I did from the main text. This is something that happens relatively often with posts in general.