gistfile1.py

import re, string
pattern=re.compile('[\W_]+')
f = open("C:\Users\graingec\spillovers\\abstracts\\abstracts.csv","rb")
abstracts = []
for line in f:
	y = line.split(',',1)
	if len(y)==2:
		c = pattern.sub('',y[1].lower())
		abstracts.append(c)
f.close()