Avalia summaries and keywords of periodical articles published in Social Sciences by Brazilian authors in order to identify the main characteristics of these elements and how this affects the representation and retrieval of information in this area. To this end, an assessment was made of 151 summaries of articles produced by professors at the University of São Paulo in three disciplines, Antropology, Political Science and Sociology, in an attempt to find out how the authors have explored the types of summary (descriptive, informative or descriptive information); in a second topic, the keywords accompanying the summary and its potential were evaluated as a complement to the summary and as a tool for linking disciplines. It was noted that authors prefer descriptive summaries over informative ones, and that, despite the lack of standardisation, keywords provided by authors can be used as a complement to summaries and as an indicator of some interdisciplinary relationships. It is concluded that despite the importance of summaries and keywords as elements of information representation, their functions are poorly exploited in social sciences, which may negatively affect the recovery of the information. Abstract: HIS study obligations to make an evaluation of Abstracts and keywords used in jurisdictions published by Brazilian authors in the area of Social Sciences, in order to identify the main characteristics of these practices and how they can affect the information retrieval and representation. About 151 Abstracts written by teachers of the University of São Paulo were valued, with a view to discovering how the authors use the types of Abstracts; A second topic, we examined keywords, in an Attempt to analogue how these keywords complete the Abstracts, and to see if keywords can be used as tools to represent designs in related disorders. The results achieved that the Brazilian social scientistis perfer descriptive Abstracts, and that, in spite of the lack of standards, the keywords they supply can be used as a supplement to the Abstracts, and the indicators of Interdisciplinary relations. Our conclusion is that, in spite of the importance of Abstracts and keywords as informational tools, they are not used in the Social Sciences, and this fact may have negative effects on information retrieval.