Impress Your Professor With These Easy To Understand Dissertation Abstract Writing Tips

Writing a dissertation is itself a challenging task for students if they are not familiar with the appropriate structure. Understanding the peculiarities of the style, appearance, and structure of this type of writing is essential for the development of an excellent dissertation. Moreover, writing an abstract for a dissertation seems to be even more difficult if you do not know how to proceed with the same. Like most other written tasks, dissertation writing is segregated into different parts – the dissertation proposal, abstraction, introduction, the main body or literature review, and the results. Now, you must be thinking how to proceed with a dissertation abstract so that it creates a good first impression in the mind of the examiner.
The abstract is a significant component of your dissertation writing which is presented at the beginning of the write-up. It provides the reader with a map of the paper so that it can be understood what he is going to read in the main content. It is the first description that your examiner is going to read about your dissertation writing. You should consider this as an opportunity for presenting your opinions in front of the examiner. The primary aim of writing a dissertation abstract is to inform the reader that your college paper is unique and will be useful for further research work. Therefore, you should try to craft an abstract in a clear and concise manner.

Tips on Dissertation Abstract Writing

Below are some tips that can help you successfully write a dissertation abstract and achieve higher grades in your academic curriculum.

i) Define your purpose

Your dissertation abstract should have a clearly defined purpose. It should summarize the content of the dissertation in a systematic and presentable manner. The purpose of your abstract will decide whether it would be worthwhile to proceed with reading the dissertation. Keep the purpose in mind to help you create the perfect plot for a properly crafted dissertation.

ii) Maintain the required length

The abstract of a dissertation should not exceed one page of the entire text. Alongside, it is necessary to check with the specifications provided by your college or University professor. Make sure that your abstract conforms to the requirements of the specified guidelines. Exceeding the given word limit would indicate a failure on the part of the writer and would mean that you have not understood the purpose of writing the abstract.

iii) Avoid irrelevant data

The toughest challenge while writing a dissertation abstract is to maintain focus on the topic and avoid any superfluous language. Keep it clear and unambiguous and stick to the specifications. In order to ensure this, you need to follow some simple steps to help you successfully get over this step. You need to:

• Create an outline for your dissertation.
• Gather the necessary information needed for the abstract.
• Present it in an organized and sequential manner.

iv) Be thorough with your content

Make sure that the abstract you prepare portrays the entire content of the dissertation and not just bits and parts of it. Everything from objectives, methodology, analysis, reviewed literature, and conclusion: should form part of the abstract in a summarized manner. This will help the reader to have a clear understanding of the contents of the dissertation. So, the element of surprise is minimized. You should understand that you are not supposed to create any suspense in the mind of the reader. Your dissertation should convey a clear and concise message of what you understand about the topic.

v) Use relevant terminologies

Do not forget to include key terms relevant to your dissertation topic and subject area, both general and specific. This will provide the reader with a means for browsing academic research work that can be related to the purpose and character of your dissertation writing. While copy and pasting of sentences is a quick and easy way to develop an abstract try to include transitions that will help to establish your thoughts and opinion. Remember that you are not here to present only your individual views but to recreate your argument in a shortened manner in the form of a dissertation abstract.

vi) Be Authoritative

You should set the tone for your dissertation by expressing your content in an authoritative academic tone. Express your comfort with the dissertation topic that will create an impression in the mind of the professor that your work is credible and professional.

vii) Maintain clarity of expression

As you already know that an abstract requires a concise style of writing with a limited word count you should be careful while choosing your words. While summarizing such a lengthy volume of content students often lack clarity with a high possibility of being obscure. Make sure that the content you include is not totally incomprehensive.

viii) Provide information evenly across different sections

Like the dissertation as a whole must contain the proper share of space across various relevant chapters, in a similar manner the abstract should maintain the required balance. Look at the marks allocation criteria to check which sections contain more marks and organize your information accordingly so that you emphasize on the portions containing the maximum marks.

Some Do’s and Don’ts of writing an abstract

Since an abstract is a summary of your dissertation work it carries certain strict guidelines. Combining all the essential aspects of your dissertation into a single paragraph of around 250 words can indeed be a challenging task. Therefore, you need to include certain things and avoid some in order to make your dissertation abstract look appealing.

Do’s

Apart from the above mentioned suggestive measures you need to do the following –

• Prepare the abstract after you have finished writing the dissertation.
• Provide an introductory statement that conforms to your aim of writing the dissertation.
• Describe the methodology in brief.
• Keep your conclusion concise and straightforward.

Don’ts

The followings should not form part of a dissertation abstract -

• Lengthy background information including mention of previous work by other researchers.
• Information about laboratory procedures.
• Citations.
• Detailed information about any software or statistical methods used, unless it should form part of your dissertation.
• Undefined acronyms or abbreviations. Try avoiding the use of acronyms/abbreviations in the abstract.
• Interpretations or results that do not form part of the main body.
• Avoid wordiness and inclusion of ambiguous content.
• Over-exaggerate or over-generalize.

Final Word of Advice

An abstract shall contain answers to the following questions –

• i) What did you aim to convey and why?
• ii) How did you do it?
• iii) What did you find during the course of your research?
• iv) What did you finally conclude and what are your recommendations?

Upon completion of your abstract, you need to evaluate whether it has correctly provided the answers to the above questions. After working for so long, it becomes difficult to judge whether your dissertation abstract conveys the true essence of your dissertation writing. Get it checked by other professionals, proofread it multiple times and make edits wherever necessary and you are sure to create a remarkable impact in the mind of the examiner through your outstanding dissertation abstract.