The following section is an excerpt from the example laboratory report, titled Proper Inflation of a Basketball. (The entire example report is available in either  Microsoft Word Format for printing, or  HTML format for online viewing.)

Abstract

This paper describes an experiment to determine how to correctly inflate a basketball using a hand pump. A basketball is correctly inflated when it rebounds to approximately 60% of the height from which it is dropped. In this experiment, the basketball's rebound height is measured as a function of the number of strokes of the pump used to inflate it. We find that for the pump used in this experiment, 12 strokes gives the correct pressure in the basketball. We derive a formula to determine the correct number of strokes for different hand pumps. We discuss the effects that the air temperature and the material from which the ball is made have on the accuracy of our results.

Note what's here:

Numbers! An abstract does not have to be vague in order to be concise. If you have a numerical result, state it in the abstract.

The description of the method is specific, even though it is not detailed.

• References. An abstract should be self-contained. Abstracts are designed to go into data bases separate from their accompanying paper.
• Equations. Equations and text-only data bases don't get along. Avoid all but the simplest equations in an abstract.