What is an Abstract?
An abstract is a brief summary that is generally used for the large papers or research surveys like dissertation or thesis. The dissertation or theses are lengthy, so an abstract is prepared to provide a complete yet concise summary of entire writing. An abstract is very important as it provides a short representation of entire thesis or findings.
An abstract is generally considered to determine whether the overall writing material is useful to them or not. The abstract is normally considered as plus point so as to sell your entire written work and hence you need to prepare in an interesting manner. For more tips for writing an abstract, you can check this website.
Helpful Tips to Write the Abstract
To make your abstract more interesting and helpful you can refer to the following tips
- Identifying problem
Your abstract need to address a particular subject matter and how the research you have already done would provide an effective solution. You should try to clear this point within one or two sentences so that people may know what dissertation is all about. It would definitely catch the readers’ attention.
- Stick to the word count
Generally, the abstract should be of not more than 250 words. You need to keep the word count in mind while writing the abstract. If you would be already aware that you have only 250 words to summarize, it would prevent you from being overly descriptive. The structure of your abstract should be same as that of your thesis. It should reflect all the major elements. For example, if you have five chapters in your thesis, then it is important that you summarize each chapter at least by one or more sentences.
- More information on Methods and results
You need to include some methods and the results of your topic in your abstract. The methods should include the type of research that you did and the results are what you have created or learned from those methods.
- Clarify the research questions
The research questions from the skeleton of your entire thesis. These questions reflect that your abstract too is logically structured and coherent. You can include them in the beginning of your abstract. However, you should include only one to three questions. You can restructure the fourth question by reducing it to the subsidiary status, so as to make sure that your thesis is not descriptive.
- Reviewing the abstract
After completing the entire dissertation, you need to review and update your abstract. As your views change while writing your dissertation, it is important that you update your abstract too, so as to reflect the view point shift in your thesis.
- Mention the results
The common error while preparing an abstract is the failure to present the results. It is important that you tell your readers what you actually discovered after completing your abstract. The last half of the abstract should summarize and interpret the actual results.
Conclusion
There are a lot of academic disciplines that need abstracts. You need to review your particular discipline before presenting it to your readers.