We are confronted sometimes with discussions about the meaning of various expressions from within the Paper handling process. We consulted Wikipedia and have selected a representative overview of relevant terms and expressions.

An abstract is a brief summary of a research article, thesis, review, conference proceeding or any in-depth analysis of a particular subject or discipline, and is often used to help the reader quickly ascertain the paper's purpose. When used, an abstract always appears at the beginning of a manuscript, acting as the point-of-entry for any given scientific paper or patent application. There exist, for some academic disciplines, if not for all, one or more organizations, whose mission it is to abstract and index all writing pertaining to that subject.
A paper is an academic work that is usually published in an academic journal. It contains original research results or reviews existing results. Such a paper, also called an article, will only be considered valid if it undergoes a process of peer review by one or more referees (who are academics in the same field) in order to check that the content of the paper is suitable for publication in the journal. A paper may undergo a series of reviews, edits and re-submissions before finally being accepted or rejected for publication. This process should and may take some years, particularly for the most popular journals where the number of acceptable articles outnumbers the space for printing.
In academia, proceedings are the collection of academic papers or abstracts that are published in the context of an academic conference. They are usually distributed as printed books after the conference has closed. Proceedings contain the contributions made by researchers at the conference. They are the written record of the work that is presented to fellow researchers.
A review is an evaluation of a publication or paper. In addition to a critical statement, the review's author may assign the work a rating (for instance, one to five stars) to indicate its relative merit.
Peer review (known as refereeing in some academic fields) is a process of subjecting an author's scholarly work or ideas to the scrutiny of others who are experts in the field. It is used primarily by publishers, to select and to screen submitted manuscripts, and by funding agencies, to decide the awarding of monies for research. The peer review process is aimed at getting authors to meet the standards of their discipline and of science generally. Publications and awards that have not undergone peer review are likely to be regarded with suspicion by scholars and professionals in many fields.

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