We determine the elemental abundances for the ejecta of the slow nova PW Vul 1984 .
Our technique uses a minimization of the emission line fits of a photoionization model to available ultraviolet , optical and infrared spectra .
We find the following abundances ( by number ) with respect to solar : He/H = 1.0 \pm 0.4 , C/H = 7.0 ^ { +7 } _ { -4 } , N/H = 85 ^ { +59 } _ { -41 } and O/H = 6 ^ { +7 } _ { -2 } .
In addition , there is weak evidence for solar Ne and Mg and twice solar Fe .
Previous studies ( Saizar et al .
1991 and Andreä et al .
1991 , 1994 ) of PW Vul have yielded considerable differences in their derived elemental abundances for the ejecta .
Our abundances fall in between the previous studies .
To explain the discrepant abundances , we analyze in detail the data and methods used to obtain the previous results .
The abundances of Saizar et al .
( 1991 ) are significantly smaller then our values because of the lower electron temperature used by Saizar et al .
in deriving elemental abundances from ion abundances .
Andreä et al .
( 1991 ) used an ionization correction method to obtain their abundances and verified their results with a photoionization model ( Andreä et al .
1994 ) .
Our analysis of their data shows that the absolute fluxes of the optical emission lines used by Andreä are underestimated by 15 % leading to a factor of 2 increase in their derived abundances .
We also find the photoionization model used by Andreä et al .
( 1994 ) predicts 2 times more carbon than the photoionization code we used even when fitting the same data with similar model parameters .