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How to Write an Abstract (With Examples)

Sarah Oakley

Table of Contents

What is an abstract in a paper, how long should an abstract be, 5 steps for writing an abstract, examples of an abstract, how prowritingaid can help you write an abstract.

If you are writing a scientific research paper or a book proposal, you need to know how to write an abstract, which summarizes the contents of the paper or book.

When researchers are looking for peer-reviewed papers to use in their studies, the first place they will check is the abstract to see if it applies to their work. Therefore, your abstract is one of the most important parts of your entire paper.

In this article, we’ll explain what an abstract is, what it should include, and how to write one.

An abstract is a concise summary of the details within a report. Some abstracts give more details than others, but the main things you’ll be talking about are why you conducted the research, what you did, and what the results show.

When a reader is deciding whether to read your paper completely, they will first look at the abstract. You need to be concise in your abstract and give the reader the most important information so they can determine if they want to read the whole paper.

Remember that an abstract is the last thing you’ll want to write for the research paper because it directly references parts of the report. If you haven’t written the report, you won’t know what to include in your abstract.

If you are writing a paper for a journal or an assignment, the publication or academic institution might have specific formatting rules for how long your abstract should be. However, if they don’t, most abstracts are between 150 and 300 words long.

A short word count means your writing has to be precise and without filler words or phrases. Once you’ve written a first draft, you can always use an editing tool, such as ProWritingAid, to identify areas where you can reduce words and increase readability.

If your abstract is over the word limit, and you’ve edited it but still can’t figure out how to reduce it further, your abstract might include some things that aren’t needed. Here’s a list of three elements you can remove from your abstract:

Discussion : You don’t need to go into detail about the findings of your research because your reader will find your discussion within the paper.

Definition of terms : Your readers are interested the field you are writing about, so they are likely to understand the terms you are using. If not, they can always look them up. Your readers do not expect you to give a definition of terms in your abstract.

References and citations : You can mention there have been studies that support or have inspired your research, but you do not need to give details as the reader will find them in your bibliography.

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If you’ve never written an abstract before, and you’re wondering how to write an abstract, we’ve got some steps for you to follow. It’s best to start with planning your abstract, so we’ve outlined the details you need to include in your plan before you write.

Remember to consider your audience when you’re planning and writing your abstract. They are likely to skim read your abstract, so you want to be sure your abstract delivers all the information they’re expecting to see at key points.

1. What Should an Abstract Include?

Abstracts have a lot of information to cover in a short number of words, so it’s important to know what to include. There are three elements that need to be present in your abstract:

Your context is the background for where your research sits within your field of study. You should briefly mention any previous scientific papers or experiments that have led to your hypothesis and how research develops in those studies.

Your hypothesis is your prediction of what your study will show. As you are writing your abstract after you have conducted your research, you should still include your hypothesis in your abstract because it shows the motivation for your paper.

Throughout your abstract, you also need to include keywords and phrases that will help researchers to find your article in the databases they’re searching. Make sure the keywords are specific to your field of study and the subject you’re reporting on, otherwise your article might not reach the relevant audience.

2. Can You Use First Person in an Abstract?

You might think that first person is too informal for a research paper, but it’s not. Historically, writers of academic reports avoided writing in first person to uphold the formality standards of the time. However, first person is more accepted in research papers in modern times.

If you’re still unsure whether to write in first person for your abstract, refer to any style guide rules imposed by the journal you’re writing for or your teachers if you are writing an assignment.

3. Abstract Structure

Some scientific journals have strict rules on how to structure an abstract, so it’s best to check those first. If you don’t have any style rules to follow, try using the IMRaD structure, which stands for Introduction, Methodology, Results, and Discussion.

Following the IMRaD structure, start with an introduction. The amount of background information you should include depends on your specific research area. Adding a broad overview gives you less room to include other details. Remember to include your hypothesis in this section.

The next part of your abstract should cover your methodology. Try to include the following details if they apply to your study:

What type of research was conducted?

How were the test subjects sampled?

What were the sample sizes?

What was done to each group?

How long was the experiment?

How was data recorded and interpreted?

Following the methodology, include a sentence or two about the results, which is where your reader will determine if your research supports or contradicts their own investigations.

The results are also where most people will want to find out what your outcomes were, even if they are just mildly interested in your research area. You should be specific about all the details but as concise as possible.

The last few sentences are your conclusion. It needs to explain how your findings affect the context and whether your hypothesis was correct. Include the primary take-home message, additional findings of importance, and perspective. Also explain whether there is scope for further research into the subject of your report.

Your conclusion should be honest and give the reader the ultimate message that your research shows. Readers trust the conclusion, so make sure you’re not fabricating the results of your research. Some readers won’t read your entire paper, but this section will tell them if it’s worth them referencing it in their own study.

4. How to Start an Abstract

The first line of your abstract should give your reader the context of your report by providing background information. You can use this sentence to imply the motivation for your research.

You don’t need to use a hook phrase or device in your first sentence to grab the reader’s attention. Your reader will look to establish relevance quickly, so readability and clarity are more important than trying to persuade the reader to read on.

5. How to Format an Abstract

Most abstracts use the same formatting rules, which help the reader identify the abstract so they know where to look for it.

Here’s a list of formatting guidelines for writing an abstract:

Stick to one paragraph

Use block formatting with no indentation at the beginning

Put your abstract straight after the title and acknowledgements pages

Use present or past tense, not future tense

There are two primary types of abstract you could write for your paper—descriptive and informative.

An informative abstract is the most common, and they follow the structure mentioned previously. They are longer than descriptive abstracts because they cover more details.

Descriptive abstracts differ from informative abstracts, as they don’t include as much discussion or detail. The word count for a descriptive abstract is between 50 and 150 words.

Here is an example of an informative abstract:

A growing trend exists for authors to employ a more informal writing style that uses “we” in academic writing to acknowledge one’s stance and engagement. However, few studies have compared the ways in which the first-person pronoun “we” is used in the abstracts and conclusions of empirical papers. To address this lacuna in the literature, this study conducted a systematic corpus analysis of the use of “we” in the abstracts and conclusions of 400 articles collected from eight leading electrical and electronic (EE) engineering journals. The abstracts and conclusions were extracted to form two subcorpora, and an integrated framework was applied to analyze and seek to explain how we-clusters and we-collocations were employed. Results revealed whether authors’ use of first-person pronouns partially depends on a journal policy. The trend of using “we” showed that a yearly increase occurred in the frequency of “we” in EE journal papers, as well as the existence of three “we-use” types in the article conclusions and abstracts: exclusive, inclusive, and ambiguous. Other possible “we-use” alternatives such as “I” and other personal pronouns were used very rarely—if at all—in either section. These findings also suggest that the present tense was used more in article abstracts, but the present perfect tense was the most preferred tense in article conclusions. Both research and pedagogical implications are proffered and critically discussed.

Wang, S., Tseng, W.-T., & Johanson, R. (2021). To We or Not to We: Corpus-Based Research on First-Person Pronoun Use in Abstracts and Conclusions. SAGE Open, 11(2).

Here is an example of a descriptive abstract:

From the 1850s to the present, considerable criminological attention has focused on the development of theoretically-significant systems for classifying crime. This article reviews and attempts to evaluate a number of these efforts, and we conclude that further work on this basic task is needed. The latter part of the article explicates a conceptual foundation for a crime pattern classification system, and offers a preliminary taxonomy of crime.

Farr, K. A., & Gibbons, D. C. (1990). Observations on the Development of Crime Categories. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 34(3), 223–237.

If you want to ensure your abstract is grammatically correct and easy to read, you can use ProWritingAid to edit it. The software integrates with Microsoft Word, Google Docs, and most web browsers, so you can make the most of it wherever you’re writing your paper.

Before you edit with ProWritingAid, make sure the suggestions you are seeing are relevant for your document by changing the document type to “Abstract” within the Academic writing style section.

You can use the Readability report to check your abstract for places to improve the clarity of your writing. Some suggestions might show you where to remove words, which is great if you’re over your word count.

We hope the five steps and examples we’ve provided help you write a great abstract for your research paper.

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• How to Write an Abstract for a Dissertation or Thesis
• Doing a PhD

What is a Thesis or Dissertation Abstract?

The Cambridge English Dictionary defines an abstract in academic writing as being “ a few sentences that give the main ideas in an article or a scientific paper ” and the Collins English Dictionary says “ an abstract of an article, document, or speech is a short piece of writing that gives the main points of it ”.

Whether you’re writing up your Master’s dissertation or PhD thesis, the abstract will be a key element of this document that you’ll want to make sure you give proper attention to.

What is the Purpose of an Abstract?

The aim of a thesis abstract is to give the reader a broad overview of what your research project was about and what you found that was novel, before he or she decides to read the entire thesis. The reality here though is that very few people will read the entire thesis, and not because they’re necessarily disinterested but because practically it’s too large a document for most people to have the time to read. The exception to this is your PhD examiner, however know that even they may not read the entire length of the document.

Some people may still skip to and read specific sections throughout your thesis such as the methodology, but the fact is that the abstract will be all that most read and will therefore be the section they base their opinions about your research on. In short, make sure you write a good, well-structured abstract.

How Long Should an Abstract Be?

If you’re a PhD student, having written your 100,000-word thesis, the abstract will be the 300 word summary included at the start of the thesis that succinctly explains the motivation for your study (i.e. why this research was needed), the main work you did (i.e. the focus of each chapter), what you found (the results) and concluding with how your research study contributed to new knowledge within your field.

Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President of the United States of America, once famously said:

The point here is that it’s easier to talk open-endedly about a subject that you know a lot about than it is to condense the key points into a 10-minute speech; the same applies for an abstract. Three hundred words is not a lot of words which makes it even more difficult to condense three (or more) years of research into a coherent, interesting story.

What Makes a Good PhD Thesis Abstract?

Whilst the abstract is one of the first sections in your PhD thesis, practically it’s probably the last aspect that you’ll ending up writing before sending the document to print. The reason being that you can’t write a summary about what you did, what you found and what it means until you’ve done the work.

A good abstract is one that can clearly explain to the reader in 300 words:

• What your research field actually is,
• What the gap in knowledge was in your field,
• The overarching aim and objectives of your PhD in response to these gaps,
• What methods you employed to achieve these,
• You key results and findings,
• How your work has added to further knowledge in your field of study.

Another way to think of this structure is:

• Introduction,
• Aims and objectives,
• Discussion,
• Conclusion.

Following this ‘formulaic’ approach to writing the abstract should hopefully make it a little easier to write but you can already see here that there’s a lot of information to convey in a very limited number of words.

How Do You Write a Good PhD Thesis Abstract?

The biggest challenge you’ll have is getting all the 6 points mentioned above across in your abstract within the limit of 300 words . Your particular university may give some leeway in going a few words over this but it’s good practice to keep within this; the art of succinctly getting your information across is an important skill for a researcher to have and one that you’ll be called on to use regularly as you write papers for peer review.

Keep It Concise

Every word in the abstract is important so make sure you focus on only the key elements of your research and the main outcomes and significance of your project that you want the reader to know about. You may have come across incidental findings during your research which could be interesting to discuss but this should not happen in the abstract as you simply don’t have enough words. Furthermore, make sure everything you talk about in your thesis is actually described in the main thesis.

Make a Unique Point Each Sentence

Keep the sentences short and to the point. Each sentence should give the reader new, useful information about your research so there’s no need to write out your project title again. Give yourself one or two sentences to introduce your subject area and set the context for your project. Then another sentence or two to explain the gap in the knowledge; there’s no need or expectation for you to include references in the abstract.

Explain Your Research

Some people prefer to write their overarching aim whilst others set out their research questions as they correspond to the structure of their thesis chapters; the approach you use is up to you, as long as the reader can understand what your dissertation or thesis had set out to achieve. Knowing this will help the reader better understand if your results help to answer the research questions or if further work is needed.

Keep It Factual

Keep the content of the abstract factual; that is to say that you should avoid bringing too much or any opinion into it, which inevitably can make the writing seem vague in the points you’re trying to get across and even lacking in structure.

Write, Edit and Then Rewrite

Spend suitable time editing your text, and if necessary, completely re-writing it. Show the abstract to others and ask them to explain what they understand about your research – are they able to explain back to you each of the 6 structure points, including why your project was needed, the research questions and results, and the impact it had on your research field? It’s important that you’re able to convey what new knowledge you contributed to your field but be mindful when writing your abstract that you don’t inadvertently overstate the conclusions, impact and significance of your work.

Thesis and Dissertation Abstract Examples

Perhaps the best way to understand how to write a thesis abstract is to look at examples of what makes a good and bad abstract.

Example of A Bad Abstract

Let’s start with an example of a bad thesis abstract:

In this project on “The Analysis of the Structural Integrity of 3D Printed Polymers for use in Aircraft”, my research looked at how 3D printing of materials can help the aviation industry in the manufacture of planes. Plane parts can be made at a lower cost using 3D printing and made lighter than traditional components. This project investigated the structural integrity of EBM manufactured components, which could revolutionise the aviation industry.

What Makes This a Bad Abstract

Hopefully you’ll have spotted some of the reasons this would be considered a poor abstract, not least because the author used up valuable words by repeating the lengthy title of the project in the abstract.

Working through our checklist of the 6 key points you want to convey to the reader:

• There has been an attempt to introduce the research area , albeit half-way through the abstract but it’s not clear if this is a materials science project about 3D printing or is it about aircraft design.
• There’s no explanation about where the gap in the knowledge is that this project attempted to address.
• We can see that this project was focussed on the topic of structural integrity of materials in aircraft but the actual research aims or objectives haven’t been defined.
• There’s no mention at all of what the author actually did to investigate structural integrity. For example was this an experimental study involving real aircraft, or something in the lab, computer simulations etc.
• The author also doesn’t tell us a single result of his research, let alone the key findings !
• There’s a bold claim in the last sentence of the abstract that this project could revolutionise the aviation industry, and this may well be the case, but based on the abstract alone there is no evidence to support this as it’s not even clear what the author did .

This is an extreme example but is a good way to illustrate just how unhelpful a poorly written abstract can be. At only 71 words long, it definitely hasn’t maximised the amount of information that could be presented and the what they have presented has lacked clarity and structure.

A final point to note is the use of the EBM acronym, which stands for Electron Beam Melting in the context of 3D printing; this is a niche acronym for the author to assume that the reader would know the meaning of. It’s best to avoid acronyms in your abstract all together even if it’s something that you might expect most people to know about, unless you specifically define the meaning first.

Example of A Good Abstract

Having seen an example of a bad thesis abstract, now lets look at an example of a good PhD thesis abstract written about the same (fictional) project:

Additive manufacturing (AM) of titanium alloys has the potential to enable cheaper and lighter components to be produced with customised designs for use in aircraft engines. Whilst the proof-of-concept of these have been promising, the structural integrity of AM engine parts in response to full thrust and temperature variations is not clear.

The primary aim of this project was to determine the fracture modes and mechanisms of AM components designed for use in Boeing 747 engines. To achieve this an explicit finite element (FE) model was developed to simulate the environment and parameters that the engine is exposed to during flight. The FE model was validated using experimental data replicating the environmental parameters in a laboratory setting using ten AM engine components provided by the industry sponsor. The validated FE model was then used to investigate the extent of crack initiation and propagation as the environment parameters were adjusted.

This project was the first to investigate fracture patterns in AM titanium components used in aircraft engines; the key finding was that the presence of cavities within the structures due to errors in the printing process, significantly increased the risk of fracture. Secondly, the simulations showed that cracks formed within AM parts were more likely to worsen and lead to component failure at subzero temperatures when compared to conventionally manufactured parts. This has demonstrated an important safety concern which needs to be addressed before AM parts can be used in commercial aircraft.

What Makes This a Good Abstract

Having read this ‘good abstract’ you should have a much better understand about what the subject area is about, where the gap in the knowledge was, the aim of the project, the methods that were used, key results and finally the significance of these results. To break these points down further, from this good abstract we now know that:

• The research area is around additive manufacturing (i.e. 3D printing) of materials for use in aircraft.
• The gap in knowledge was how these materials will behave structural when used in aircraft engines.
• The aim was specifically to investigate how the components can fracture.
• The methods used to investigate this were a combination of computational and lab based experimental modelling.
• The key findings were the increased risk of fracture of these components due to the way they are manufactured.
• The significance of these findings were that it showed a potential risk of component failure that could comprise the safety of passengers and crew on the aircraft.

The abstract text has a much clearer flow through these different points in how it’s written and has made much better use of the available word count. Acronyms have even been used twice in this good abstract but they were clearly defined the first time they were introduced in the text so that there was no confusion about their meaning.

The abstract you write for your dissertation or thesis should succinctly explain to the reader why the work of your research was needed, what you did, what you found and what it means. Most people that come across your thesis, including any future employers, are likely to read only your abstract. Even just for this reason alone, it’s so important that you write the best abstract you can; this will not only convey your research effectively but also put you in the best light possible as a researcher.

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• How to Write an Abstract for a Dissertation

Written by Hannah Slack

Every PhD student will have to write an abstract. Whether it’s for a conference paper , journal article or your thesis , the abstract is an important part for many academic activities. Although only a single short paragraph, writing one effectively takes practice.

This page will take you through what a dissertation abstract is, why it’s so important and how to write one.

What is an academic abstract?

An academic abstract is a short and concise summary of research . It should cover the aim or research question of your work, your methodology, results and the wider implications of your conclusions. All this needs to be covered in around 200-300 words .

One of the common mistakes people make when writing abstracts is not understanding their purpose. An abstract is not for the author, it’s for the reader . To summarise your research, as the person who knows it best, may seem easy. But to be able to communicate the complexities and importance of your work to someone else, likely outside of your field, can be difficult.

When will I need to write an academic abstract?

There are many different places that you’ll find abstracts. Some of the most common ones include:

• Grant and funding applications
• Journal articles
• Conference applications
• Conference proceedings

This guide primarily focuses on the dissertation abstract, which is the most common form of this kind of text.

What’s the difference between an abstract and an introduction?

The main differences between a PhD dissertation abstract and an introduction are the purpose and the length. An abstract is a short, paragraph-sized summary of the whole thesis, covering context, your research and results. Whereas an introduction should be much longer and only cover the context of your work. An introduction is designed to explain the background of your work and so will take up at least an entire page.

Why are abstracts important?

Abstracts are important because they are a quick and easy way to communicate your work. In many ways, academic abstracts are a promotional tool and so should be considered carefully.

For your thesis, it’s the first thing your examiners will read, forming their expectations for the rest of the dissertation.

In journal articles, their purpose is to convince the reader that they should read your article. If you’re applying for a conference, the abstract gives the organiser a taster of your paper so they can decide whether it’s suitable.

Effectively, your abstract is the first impression someone gets of your research and so it’s important to put your best foot forward.

How to write a PhD abstract

How you write a dissertation abstract will largely depend on what it’s for. For a PhD dissertation or journal article, you should have already written up the research which the abstract will summarise. You should focus on making sure your summary is an honest representation of the larger written work. However, for a conference application it’s likely you won’t yet have written the paper. In this instance, the abstract might focus more on the broader themes you intend to comment on and your methodology.

Whatever the intended purpose, all abstracts should broadly follow the same structure. To help you, we’ve put together a template to make sure you include all the important points.

PhD abstract format

Because a lot of information needs to be packed into a short paragraph, an abstract is easier to write when you break it down into the key elements. For a first draft, spend a few minutes on each of the six steps, only writing down one or two sentences.

• Rationale – Ask yourself why you are researching the topic and what is the context for your work. Here you should communicate the purpose of your study within the wider field.
• Research question – Now you should specify what the exact goal of this piece of research is. What question are you providing the answer for?
• Evidence and methods – After discussing the broader purpose of your work you now need to let the reader know what you have actually done. Try to summarise your methods and evidence with a few keywords to keep if brief. Some examples include qualitative, quantitative, archival or experimental.
• Results – Here, you should summarise your outcomes and highlight what is new or significant about your findings.
• Conclusion – The conclusion should relate back to your rationale and research question. Ask yourself, ‘what do the results mean?’
• Implications and applications – Lastly, the reader needs to know why your results are important to the field. You need to specify what is significant about this work and how it can be useful.

Once you have your framework it can be edited for a more natural flow. You may find that some points naturally merge into one sentence and others need some elaboration. But remember, the abstract must be short and concise so don’t be tempted to extend areas unnecessarily. Once you have a draft that you are happy with, consider asking for feedback from other PhD students or your supervisor.

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How to write an abstract for a research paper

Read about three elements to include in your research paper abstract and some tips for making yours stand out

Ankitha Shetty

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Writing an abstract might not seem to be at the top of your list of priorities when writing your PhD dissertation , but it’s probably the first thing a reader will see when they encounter your research, so it’s worth putting the effort in to get it right. Here are some ways to make it sing. 

What is an abstract?

An abstract is a concise overview of an extensive piece of research work such as a thesis, dissertation or research paper. Depending on the discipline, it usually contains the purpose of the research, the methodologies employed and the conclusions derived. Abstracts typically range from 500 to 800 words and appear on a separate page after the title page and acknowledgements, but preceding the table of contents. Although it might be tempting to start your thesis by drafting your abstract, I advise postponing until you’ve completed a first draft so that you ensure you cover all topics discussed in your thesis.

What to include in your abstract

Purpose of the study.

Begin your abstract by concisely defining the problems your study addresses or outlining the gaps in knowledge it fills. It should provide the reader with new and useful information regarding your research in the present or past tense. Use verbs such as “test”, “evaluate” and “analyse” to make the research objective specific, measurable, attainable and time-bound. Avoid providing detailed background information and personal opinions at this stage.

In this part of your abstract, explain how you designed and conducted your research and how it addresses your research questions in the past tense. The aim here is to give the reader a prompt insight into your approach, not to evaluate challenges, validity and reliability. Highlight the samples you used and the data collection and analysis tools you employed. 

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Results and conclusion

Summarise and highlight the most significant findings that will allow the reader to understand the conclusions in the present or past tense. At the end of your abstract, the reader ought to have a firm grasp of the main argument. If the motive of the research is to resolve a real-world issue, you can include practical implications and suggestions in the findings. Briefly offer future recommendations for further research, if applicable. 

When writing your abstract, imagine who might read your research; a curious reader, not necessarily an expert in the field, expects the information to be accessible and not overly complex. 

Tips on how to write an abstract for a research paper

• Explain why you chose this area of research and the significance of the study
• Ask yourself “why?” “what?” “how?” and “so what?” and use the abstract to address these questions. 
• Highlight the novelty of your research 
• Explain how your research adds to the existing body of literature on the topic
• Explain your research design, highlighting elements such as approach, demographics, sampling and geographical information
• Explain how your research is relevant and significant
• Address practical implications to potential interested parties – for example, any issues relating to policy 
• Avoid technical jargon, generalised statements and vague claims that make your work difficult to read
• Avoid acronyms and abbreviations at this stage. Add them into the introduction instead 
• Provide concise, consistent and accurate details
• Adhere to the word count limit specified in your instructions
• Include essential keywords for search engine optimisation
• There’s no need to include references at this stage
• Never copy and paste content directly from elsewhere in the thesis; use new vocabulary and phrases to differentiate the abstract from the rest of the text.

These tips will help to make the abstract writing process smoother, allowing you to make a good first impression on whoever comes across your work when you’re ready to send it out into the world.

Ankitha Shetty is an assistant professor (senior scale) at the department of commerce and a coordinator at the Centre for Doctoral Studies at Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India.

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Writing an Abstract: Why and How, with Expert Tips for Researchers

An abstract is a short summary of your research manuscript, typically around 200–250 words, briefly presenting why and how you did your study, and what you found. That’s a simple definition, but the structure and style of an abstract are where there are certain rules to follow.

Even more, you’ll increase your chances of publication and of getting cited when you know what to do and not do. That’s what we’ll get into in this article.

What you’ll learn in this post

• All the basics of what goes into a research abstract for academic and scientific publication.

• What the abstract’s role is, and why it should never be overlooked or a simple repeat of text in your paper.

• The types of abstracts.

• What grammar and tense to use in an abstract.

• Expert tips on the abstract from Edanz’s science director.

• Where to get expert guidance for your abstract.

What is an abstract and why is it important?

Along with the title, the abstract is the first thing most readers will look at. It’s where they should get a clear and factual summary of your paper. This is also where readers usually decide to continue reading or to move on to something else. It’s like an elevator pitch .

The abstract should also be attractive enough to to get readers to read the entire paper. The content of the abstract, along with the title and keywords, is essential for the discoverability of your paper. This means you should prepare it carefully, revise it, and ideally have others read (and maybe edit ) it to be sure it says what you intend.

We’ll also note, right from the start, that it’s best to write our abstract LAST – after you’ve written your full manuscript. Only then can it be a truly accurate description of your work. And take your time with it. We’ll dig into more details in this article.

What does an abstract look like? What’s the structure?

The length of the abstract may vary depending on the type of paper and journal requirements. Most abstracts are around 200–250 words, but they can range from 100 (for a short summary like in mathematical papers) to 300 for certain journals, like PLOS ONE .

Abstracts can be any of the following:

• Unstructured: A single paragraph with no subheadings
• Structured: Divided subsections with headings such as Objective or Background, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. Clinical journals may require additional or alternative sections, such as Patients, Interventions, or Outcomes.

We can’t tell you why. It’s just a matter of journal preference , so check the guidelines carefully.

The good news is it’s pretty easy to turn an unstructured abstract into a structured one – just add subheadings and reword a bit. Or vice versa – just take out the subheadings and make sure it’s still readable. Edit accordingly.

There are also graphical and video abstracts , which give you the chance to visually explain your work, but we’ll cover those separately.

What writing style do you use for an abstract?

First of all, an abstract should not copy-paste text from the body of the manuscript. It should paraphrase your work and then be sharpened to make it easier to read.

Abstracts parts related to the aims, methods, and results are in the past tense. That’s because they tell what already happened – you already did the study.

Present tense

The background and conclusion are often in the present tense. That’s because they’re talking about ongoing things, like research activity and areas the study affects.

Active voice

Many journals also allow, and even encourage, use of the active voice and first-person plural pronoun (we, if there are 2 or more authors) – e.g., “We found…”

Abstracts for research proposals or funding applications, however, use future tense when discussing the study’s specifics. Why? That’s easy – because you haven’t done the work yet.

Journals in some disciplines have different styles. They may use the present tense throughout, especially for chemical synthesis or mathematical/computer modeling studies. They may also use passive voice throughout and not allow “We” even if these are allowed in the text of the main article.

Conference abstracts may have different styles. For example, the conference organizers may allow you to include references and small figures or tables.

References and abbreviations

Basically – no and no for references and abbreviations, but there are (always) exceptions.

Abstracts normally should not include reference citations or references to tables and figures in the main text. There’s simply no need unless your study is centered on a specific work.

Abstracts should “stand alone” – your reader should be able to understand the contents without having to refer to the rest of your paper. So…

Abbreviations should be avoided. They take up space and your readers may not understand them. Remember, an abstract isn’t only written for specialists in your field. For example, HIV is probably OK in abbreviated form. but even though RT-PCR is fine for a journal reporting molecular biology techniques, even there, it would probably need to be spelled out in the abstract.

Jargon and technical language should also be avoided whenever possible. If it’s impractical to avoid such terms, they should be defined clearly.

Descriptive vs. informative abstracts

Based on their content, abstracts can be descriptive or informative.

Abstracts of scientific papers are usually informative: that is, they include specific information related to the objective, methods, and results.

To be sure your abstract includes all the necessary information, try to answer the following questions:

• What’s the reason you did the study? (State what’s known and why the study is needed. Some journals and peer reviewers , even if they don’t overtly state it, may also reject submissions without a clear, testable hypothesis statement. It’s best to include one.)
• What did you do to fulfill the objective/prove the hypotheses?
• What were the main findings? (Make sure these are directly related to the stated objectives)
• What are the meaning, implications, and relevance of the findings?

You may recognize that abstracts follow an IMRaD format similar to the path you follow in a typical manuscript. But in the abstract, you only have space for the key methods and results. There’s no space for a real discussion, so the final section is simply the Conclusion.

Even if the abstract you’re preparing is unstructured (just one paragraph and without subheadings, but check the journal guidelines, because sometimes there’s more than one paragraph), the content should still include the same core elements as a structured abstract.

Try stating the answers to the above questions in a logical order, and you’ll be on your way to writing a complete, effective abstract. It should be possible to clearly identify the abstract’s different parts.

Some clinical journals also require additional standalone sections to highlight a particular aspect of the work. Often, this content should normally be included in any abstract anyway: 

For example:

• Clinical learning point
• What we knew before / What we know now

Finally, make sure the final abstract is consistent with the main text of the manuscript in terms of data, results, and general wording. And, even though we’re repeating ourselves here, be sure it satisfies what the journal guidelines ask for!

This means: check the word count, structure, subheadings, use of abbreviations, rules about active vs. passive tense, and so on. If you need some help, ask a pro editor to proofread it. Then you can be sure you don’t miss anything.

It’s an awful shame for a great study to get rejected just because you didn’t spend a little extra time (and in some cases a little extra money) to be sure your abstract shines.

Dr. McGowan on abstracts

We asked our Chief Science Officer, Daniel McGowan, PhD CMPP , for his thoughts on abstracts.

Most readers will read an article’s Abstract to decide whether the study is relevant to them and whether the full paper should be downloaded (which may need payment).

Some journals send only the abstract of a paper to editorial staff or editorial board members to decide if the paper should be sent for peer review.

Your abstract should therefore reflect the high quality of your study and summarize its most important findings and conclusions.  

Your abstract should:

• be clear, concise, and accurate 
• be easily understood: avoid uncommon abbreviations and jargon; in general, use abbreviations only if the abbreviation appears three times or more after its initial definition 
• be independent (stand-alone), without referring to the main text or any of the illustrations (tables or figures) 
• not contain illustrations, although some journals now ask for an additional “graphical abstract” 
• not contain any citations, but if they are allowed, the references are usually included within the text rather than as a footnote 
• contain some keywords 

You may find it useful to draft your abstract early on (a “working abstract”) as a guide for your paper’s structure and message, and then revise it at the end. Check the guidelines of your target journal for the word count, format, and style of its abstracts.  

There may or may not be a heading, and there may be subheadings (such as Background, Methods, Results, and Conclusions, in a “structured abstract”) or just one or two paragraphs without subheadings (in an “unstructured abstract”). 

Regardless of the format, your abstract should answer the following four questions: 

• Why was this research conducted? 
• What was the specific aim/objective and main approach of the study? 
• What were the main findings? 
• Why are these findings useful and important? 

Check your target journal for special instructions—for example: 

• Do different article types have different styles of abstract? 
• Should non-technical language be used or a non-technical abstract also prepared? 
• Is the style descriptive (topic, aim, and only a preview of the paper’s contents) or informative (including results and conclusion)? 
• Are key data and statistics expected in the results? 
• Should extra information (e.g., limitations or implications) be added? 
• Is only passive voice or a mixture of active and passive allowed, and what tenses are expected?

So let’s look at an example.

Example of a good abstract

This is broken down into three sections that are contain the substance of the abstract.

Depending on the journal, a couple more subheadings, such as Results, may be added. Their content is still included in this example 

1. Background

The placement of medical research news on a newspaper’s front page is intended to gain the public’s attention, so it is important to understand the source of the news in terms of research maturity and evidence level.

Explanation:  Subheadings are used because this journal requires a structured abstract. Note that the authors have mainly used the active voice. The Background provides the reader with the major research question . 

2. Methodology/Principal Findings

We searched LexisNexis to identify medical research reported on front pages of major newspapers published from January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2002. We used MEDLINE and Google Scholar to find journal articles corresponding to the research, and determined their evidence level. 

Of 734 front-page medical research stories identified, 417 (57%) referred to mature research published in peer-reviewed journals. The remaining 317 stories referred to preliminary findings presented at scientific or press meetings; 144 (45%) of those stories mentioned studies that later matured (i.e. were published in journals within 3 years after news coverage). The evidence-level distribution of the 515 journal articles quoted in news stories reporting on mature research (3% level I, 21% level II, 42% level III, 4% level IV, and 31% level V) differed from that of the 170 reports of preliminary research that later matured (1%, 19%, 35%, 12%, and 33%, respectively; chi-square test, P = .0009). No news stories indicated evidence level. Fewer than 1 in 5 news stories reporting preliminary findings acknowledged the preliminary nature of their content.

Explanation: In this combined Methods/Results section, the Methods subsection is quite short and the Results subsection makes up the largest proportion of the Abstract, because the reader is most interested in what you discovered. The order of the results goes from general to specific facts, and key data are included.  The verb tense is the simple past because the study and analyses have finished. However, theoretical and modeling studies often use present tense throughout the abstract.

3. Conclusions/Significance

Only 57% of front-page stories reporting on medical research are based on mature research, which tends to have a higher evidence level than research with preliminary findings. Medical research news should be clearly referenced and state the evidence level and limitations to inform the public of the maturity and quality of the source. 

Explanation: The major conclusion should be the first thing presented in this section. Here, the journal requires that the implications of the findings are also stated.

A final note from Dr. McGowan

If you keep the above tips in mind, you can write an effective abstract that will attract more readers (and journal editors!) to your research. Good luck!

Abstracts are usually followed by a list of keywords (or “key words”) that you, as the author, will choose. These shouldn’t be an afterthought – they serve a valuable function in helping your publication get indexed, especially on Google Scholar and Google itself.

That, in turn, helps potential readers find your work, read it, and maybe even refer to it or cite it.

Keywords supplement the title; they don’t replace it. So choosing them can actually be quite hard.

Always check your target journal’s instructions for authors as often journals will specify that terms used in the title shouldn’t be used as keywords.

Journals’ instructions for authors will state how many keywords are required and may even provide a list of recommended ones. Some clinical journals, for standardization, require you to choose from Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) keywords.

Excellent choices for keywords are:

• The main theme (of course, but in slightly different wording from the title if necessary)
• An odd or quirky area of your field; i.e., a specific niche term
• Regions and/or climactic conditions
• Applications of the research
• Techniques of the research

Another perspective: Four key questions for your abstract

That’s plenty of info already. Here’s a bit more if you want a simple way to look at writing your abstract.

All good abstracts answer four questions.

• Why did you do the study?
• What did you do?
• What did you find? and…
• What did you conclude? What’s the significance of the study?

This video from our publication expert explains this in greater detail:

Graphical abstracts

A graphical abstract is a single visual summary of the main findings of the article. This can be a figure from the article or a new, specially designed figure. 

Some journals request that authors provide a graphical abstract in addition to the traditional written abstract. In most cases, submission of a graphical abstract is optional; But in the future it may become a preferred style for abstracts because readers can understand the important message of the paper quickly. 

The following sites provide some excellent examples of graphical abstracts in different fields of study:

• Elsevier : Biology, medicine, materials science
• Thieme : Chemistry

Have an expert guide your abstract writing

What we call Abstract Development is one of our longest-running and most-popular author guidance services. Within as little as a day, you can hire an Edanz academic expert to write you, an abstract that accurately conveys your work in clear, accessible English. Explore Abstract Development and other services here .

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Writing an abstract - a six point checklist (with samples)

Posted in: abstract , dissertations

The abstract is a vital part of any research paper. It is the shop front for your work, and the first stop for your reader. It should provide a clear and succinct summary of your study, and encourage your readers to read more. An effective abstract, therefore should answer the following questions:

• Why did you do this study or project?
• What did you do and how?
• What did you find?
• What do your findings mean?

So here's our run down of the key elements of a well-written abstract.

• Size - A succinct and well written abstract should be between approximately 100- 250 words.
• Background - An effective abstract usually includes some scene-setting information which might include what is already known about the subject, related to the paper in question (a few short sentences).
• Purpose  - The abstract should also set out the purpose of your research, in other words, what is not known about the subject and hence what the study intended to examine (or what the paper seeks to present).
• Methods - The methods section should contain enough information to enable the reader to understand what was done, and how. It should include brief details of the research design, sample size, duration of study, and so on.
• Results - The results section is the most important part of the abstract. This is because readers who skim an abstract do so to learn about the findings of the study. The results section should therefore contain as much detail about the findings as the journal word count permits.
• Conclusion - This section should contain the most important take-home message of the study, expressed in a few precisely worded sentences. Usually, the finding highlighted here relates to the primary outcomes of the study. However, other important or unexpected findings should also be mentioned. It is also customary, but not essential, to express an opinion about the theoretical or practical implications of the findings, or the importance of their findings for the field. Thus, the conclusions may contain three elements:
• The primary take-home message.
• Any additional findings of importance.
• Implications for future studies.

Example Abstract 2: Engineering Development and validation of a three-dimensional finite element model of the pelvic bone.

Abstract from: Dalstra, M., Huiskes, R. and Van Erning, L., 1995. Development and validation of a three-dimensional finite element model of the pelvic bone. Journal of biomechanical engineering, 117(3), pp.272-278.

And finally...  A word on abstract types and styles

Abstract types can differ according to subject discipline. You need to determine therefore which type of abstract you should include with your paper. Here are two of the most common types with examples.

Informative Abstract

The majority of abstracts are informative. While they still do not critique or evaluate a work, they do more than describe it. A good informative abstract acts as a surrogate for the work itself. That is, the researcher presents and explains all the main arguments and the important results and evidence in the paper. An informative abstract includes the information that can be found in a descriptive abstract [purpose, methods, scope] but it also includes the results and conclusions of the research and the recommendations of the author. The length varies according to discipline, but an informative abstract is usually no more than 300 words in length.

Descriptive Abstract A descriptive abstract indicates the type of information found in the work. It makes no judgements about the work, nor does it provide results or conclusions of the research. It does incorporate key words found in the text and may include the purpose, methods, and scope of the research. Essentially, the descriptive abstract only describes the work being summarised. Some researchers consider it an outline of the work, rather than a summary. Descriptive abstracts are usually very short, 100 words or less.

Adapted from Andrade C. How to write a good abstract for a scientific paper or conference presentation. Indian J Psychiatry. 2011 Apr;53(2):172-5. doi: 10.4103/0019-5545.82558. PMID: 21772657; PMCID: PMC3136027 .

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How to Write an Abstract APA Format

Saul Mcleod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Learn about our Editorial Process

Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

An APA abstract is a brief, comprehensive summary of the contents of an article, research paper, dissertation, or report.

It is written in accordance with the guidelines of the American Psychological Association (APA), which is a widely used format in social and behavioral sciences. 

An APA abstract summarizes, usually in one paragraph of between 150–250 words, the major aspects of a research paper or dissertation in a prescribed sequence that includes:

• The rationale: the overall purpose of the study, providing a clear context for the research undertaken.
• Information regarding the method and participants: including materials/instruments, design, procedure, and data analysis.
• Main findings or trends: effectively highlighting the key outcomes of the hypotheses.
• Interpretations and conclusion(s): solidify the implications of the research.
• Keywords related to the study: assist the paper’s discoverability in academic databases.

The abstract should stand alone, be “self-contained,” and make sense to the reader in isolation from the main article.

The purpose of the abstract is to give the reader a quick overview of the essential information before reading the entire article. The abstract is placed on its own page, directly after the title page and before the main body of the paper.

Although the abstract will appear as the very first part of your paper, it’s good practice to write your abstract after you’ve drafted your full paper, so that you know what you’re summarizing.

Note : This page reflects the latest version of the APA Publication Manual (i.e., APA 7), released in October 2019.

Structure of the Abstract

[NOTE: DO NOT separate the components of the abstract – it should be written as a single paragraph. This section is separated to illustrate the abstract’s structure.]

1) The Rationale

One or two sentences describing the overall purpose of the study and the research problem(s) you investigated. You are basically justifying why this study was conducted.

• What is the importance of the research?
• Why would a reader be interested in the larger work?
• For example, are you filling a gap in previous research or applying new methods to take a fresh look at existing ideas or data?
• Women who are diagnosed with breast cancer can experience an array of psychosocial difficulties; however, social support, particularly from a spouse, has been shown to have a protective function during this time. This study examined the ways in which a woman’s daily mood, pain, and fatigue, and her spouse’s marital satisfaction predict the woman’s report of partner support in the context of breast cancer.
• The current nursing shortage, high hospital nurse job dissatisfaction, and reports of uneven quality of hospital care are not uniquely American phenomena.
• Students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are more likely to exhibit behavioral difficulties than their typically developing peers. The aim of this study was to identify specific risk factors that influence variability in behavior difficulties among individuals with SEND.

2) The Method

Information regarding the participants (number, and population). One or two sentences outlining the method, explaining what was done and how. The method is described in the present tense.

• Pretest data from a larger intervention study and multilevel modeling were used to examine the effects of women’s daily mood, pain, and fatigue and average levels of mood, pain, and fatigue on women’s report of social support received from her partner, as well as how the effects of mood interacted with partners’ marital satisfaction.
• This paper presents reports from 43,000 nurses from more than 700 hospitals in the United States, Canada, England, Scotland, and Germany in 1998–1999.
• The study sample comprised 4,228 students with SEND, aged 5–15, drawn from 305 primary and secondary schools across England. Explanatory variables were measured at the individual and school levels at baseline, along with a teacher-reported measure of behavior difficulties (assessed at baseline and the 18-month follow-up).

3) The Results

One or two sentences indicating the main findings or trends found as a result of your analysis. The results are described in the present or past tense.

• Results show that on days in which women reported higher levels of negative or positive mood, as well as on days they reported more pain and fatigue, they reported receiving more support. Women who, on average, reported higher levels of positive mood tended to report receiving more support than those who, on average, reported lower positive mood. However, average levels of negative mood were not associated with support. Higher average levels of fatigue but not pain were associated with higher support. Finally, women whose husbands reported higher levels of marital satisfaction reported receiving more partner support, but husbands’ marital satisfaction did not moderate the effect of women’s mood on support.
• Nurses in countries with distinctly different healthcare systems report similar shortcomings in their work environments and the quality of hospital care. While the competence of and relation between nurses and physicians appear satisfactory, core problems in work design and workforce management threaten the provision of care.
• Hierarchical linear modeling of data revealed that differences between schools accounted for between 13% (secondary) and 15.4% (primary) of the total variance in the development of students’ behavior difficulties, with the remainder attributable to individual differences. Statistically significant risk markers for these problems across both phases of education were being male, eligibility for free school meals, being identified as a bully, and lower academic achievement. Additional risk markers specific to each phase of education at the individual and school levels are also acknowledged.

4) The Conclusion / Implications

A brief summary of your conclusions and implications of the results, described in the present tense. Explain the results and why the study is important to the reader.

• For example, what changes should be implemented as a result of the findings of the work?
• How does this work add to the body of knowledge on the topic?

Implications of these findings are discussed relative to assisting couples during this difficult time in their lives.

• Resolving these issues, which are amenable to managerial intervention, is essential to preserving patient safety and care of consistently high quality.
• Behavior difficulties are affected by risks across multiple ecological levels. Addressing any one of these potential influences is therefore likely to contribute to the reduction in the problems displayed.

The above examples of abstracts are from the following papers:

Aiken, L. H., Clarke, S. P., Sloane, D. M., Sochalski, J. A., Busse, R., Clarke, H., … & Shamian, J. (2001). Nurses’ reports on hospital care in five countries . Health affairs, 20(3) , 43-53.

Boeding, S. E., Pukay-Martin, N. D., Baucom, D. H., Porter, L. S., Kirby, J. S., Gremore, T. M., & Keefe, F. J. (2014). Couples and breast cancer: Women’s mood and partners’ marital satisfaction predicting support perception . Journal of Family Psychology, 28(5) , 675.

Oldfield, J., Humphrey, N., & Hebron, J. (2017). Risk factors in the development of behavior difficulties among students with special educational needs and disabilities: A multilevel analysis . British journal of educational psychology, 87(2) , 146-169.

5) Keywords

APA style suggests including a list of keywords at the end of the abstract. This is particularly common in academic articles and helps other researchers find your work in databases.

Keywords in an abstract should be selected to help other researchers find your work when searching an online database. These keywords should effectively represent the main topics of your study. Here are some tips for choosing keywords:

Core Concepts: Identify the most important ideas or concepts in your paper. These often include your main research topic, the methods you’ve used, or the theories you’re discussing.

Specificity: Your keywords should be specific to your research. For example, suppose your paper is about the effects of climate change on bird migration patterns in a specific region. In that case, your keywords might include “climate change,” “bird migration,” and the region’s name.

Consistency with Paper: Make sure your keywords are consistent with the terms you’ve used in your paper. For example, if you use the term “adolescent” rather than “teen” in your paper, choose “adolescent” as your keyword, not “teen.”

Jargon and Acronyms: Avoid using too much-specialized jargon or acronyms in your keywords, as these might not be understood or used by all researchers in your field.

Synonyms: Consider including synonyms of your keywords to capture as many relevant searches as possible. For example, if your paper discusses “post-traumatic stress disorder,” you might include “PTSD” as a keyword.

Remember, keywords are a tool for others to find your work, so think about what terms other researchers might use when searching for papers on your topic.

The Abstract SHOULD NOT contain:

Lengthy background or contextual information: The abstract should focus on your research and findings, not general topic background.

Undefined jargon, abbreviations,  or acronyms: The abstract should be accessible to a wide audience, so avoid highly specialized terms without defining them.

Citations: Abstracts typically do not include citations, as they summarize original research.

Incomplete sentences or bulleted lists: The abstract should be a single, coherent paragraph written in complete sentences.

New information not covered in the paper: The abstract should only summarize the paper’s content.

Subjective comments or value judgments: Stick to objective descriptions of your research.

Excessive details on methods or procedures: Keep descriptions of methods brief and focused on main steps.

Speculative or inconclusive statements: The abstract should state the research’s clear findings, not hypotheses or possible interpretations.

• Any illustration, figure, table, or references to them . All visual aids, data, or extensive details should be included in the main body of your paper, not in the abstract. 
• Elliptical or incomplete sentences should be avoided in an abstract . The use of ellipses (…), which could indicate incomplete thoughts or omitted text, is not appropriate in an abstract.

APA Style for Abstracts

An APA abstract must be formatted as follows:

Include the running head aligned to the left at the top of the page (professional papers only) and page number. Note, student papers do not require a running head. On the first line, center the heading “Abstract” and bold (do not underlined or italicize). Do not indent the single abstract paragraph (which begins one line below the section title). Double-space the text. Use Times New Roman font in 12 pt. Set one-inch (or 2.54 cm) margins. If you include a “keywords” section at the end of the abstract, indent the first line and italicize the word “Keywords” while leaving the keywords themselves without any formatting.

Example APA Abstract Page

Download this example as a PDF

Further Information

• APA 7th Edition Abstract and Keywords Guide
• Example APA Abstract
• How to Write a Good Abstract for a Scientific Paper or Conference Presentation
• How to Write a Lab Report
• Writing an APA paper

How long should an APA abstract be?

An APA abstract should typically be between 150 to 250 words long. However, the exact length may vary depending on specific publication or assignment guidelines. It is crucial that it succinctly summarizes the essential elements of the work, including purpose, methods, findings, and conclusions.

Where does the abstract go in an APA paper?

In an APA formatted paper, the abstract is placed on its own page, directly after the title page and before the main body of the paper. It’s typically the second page of the document. It starts with the word “Abstract” (centered and not in bold) at the top of the page, followed by the text of the abstract itself.

What are the 4 C’s of abstract writing?

The 4 C’s of abstract writing are an approach to help you create a well-structured and informative abstract. They are:

Conciseness: An abstract should briefly summarize the key points of your study. Stick to the word limit (typically between 150-250 words for an APA abstract) and avoid unnecessary details.

Clarity: Your abstract should be easy to understand. Avoid jargon and complex sentences. Clearly explain the purpose, methods, results, and conclusions of your study.

Completeness: Even though it’s brief, the abstract should provide a complete overview of your study, including the purpose, methods, key findings, and your interpretation of the results.

Cohesion: The abstract should flow logically from one point to the next, maintaining a coherent narrative about your study. It’s not just a list of disjointed elements; it’s a brief story of your research from start to finish.

What is the abstract of a psychology paper?

An abstract in a psychology paper serves as a snapshot of the paper, allowing readers to quickly understand the purpose, methodology, results, and implications of the research without reading the entire paper. It is generally between 150-250 words long.

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How to Craft a Killer Dissertation Abstract 2023

Learn how you can write a top-rated dissertation abstract thick and fast, with our professional guide.

Special tip – maintain a hawk-eye to the end.

What is an Abstract in a Dissertation?

A dissertation abstract is a summary of the entire thesis. It gives the significant proponents of your paper in a highly condensed form.

An abstract in a dissertation serves the following functions:

• Acts as an introduction to your dissertation article
• Sets the stage for the thesis
• Can substitute the whole thesis

The elements of an abstract include:

• Research problem and objectives
• Major results
• The conclusion

It is an essential component of the thesis that can either earn you a top grade or be the reason for your academic downfall.

How to Write a Dissertation Abstract

It is essential to determine the type of abstract for your dissertation. In writing a dissertation abstract, take note of the following types:

• Descriptive Abstract

It gives the kind of information found in your paper. A descriptive outline is usually concise and can be about 100 words or less.

• Critical Abstract

It describes the main findings and, additionally, a comment on the validity, completeness, or reliability of the study. Due to its interpretive nature, it generally contains 400-500 words in length.

• Informative Abstract

As the name suggests, this type presents and explains the main arguments, essential results, and evidence in the thesis. Although the length varies, it is not more than 300 words in length.

• Highlight Abstract

It serves to attract the reader’s attention to the paper. It uses leading remarks to spark the interest of the audience.

We are now going to see how to write an abstract for a dissertation in ten significant steps:

Ten Top-Notch Steps to Writing an Abstract for a Dissertation

Step 1: Define the purpose of your research

Start by making plain the purpose of your study. State the research question you are going to handle or the practical problem of your paper.

Do not delve into much detailed information here. For starters, you can have a brief context on the social or academic relevance of your topic.

Write the objectives of your research after stating the problem. When indicating the goals, use verbs such as:

To test To investigate, To evaluate To analyze

Use either the present or simple past tense for this section. Do not use the future tense in any case since the research is complete already.

Dissertation abstract example for this section:

Correct: This study evaluates the relationship between COVID-19 and flu. Incorrect: This study will determine the relationship between COVID-19 and influenza.

Step 2: Identify the methods you are going to use for your research

Now in this stage, clearly make mention of the ways you are going to use to answer your research question.

Write it in one to two sentences without making it too long. Ensure that the points are precise and to the end.

It should be in the simple past tense. Why? Because you have already done your research and completed it using these methods.

Do not go into the strengths and weaknesses of the research methods. The reader should be able to read through it fast and still understand the strategy and methodology of your thesis.

Correct: Direct observation was conducted on 40 COVID-19 patients. Correct: Questionnaires were administered to 20 doctors dealing with COVID-19 patients. Incorrect: Laboratory experiments will be done with ten specimens.

Step 3: Make a summary of the results

After collecting data, it is time to give brief but elaborate results in the abstract for the dissertation.

The results section depends on the length and complexity of the research. However, ensure that it doesn’t make the abstract longer than is recommended.

Do not include irrelevant results which may not add any value to your paper. Strive to point out the essential outcomes of the article which support or answer your research question.

Write the results in either the present or simple past tense.

Correct: Our findings show a substantial similarity in the symptoms of both COVID-19 and flu. Correct: Our analysis showed a significant similarity between the symptoms of both COVID-19 and flu. Incorrect: Our study has shown a considerable similarity in the symptoms of both COVID-19 and flu. Incorrect: Our findings will be showing a substantial similarity in the symptoms of both COVID-19 and flu.

Step 4: Finish off with the conclusions from your research

Your abstract should have an answer to the research question, which is in this part. Your reader should get the main point of your thesis at this point. What has your research found or proved? The conclusion should be able to tell this to the reader.

Improve the credibility of your dissertation by adding any relevant limitations in this section of the abstract. From the thesis abstract examples, we are going to see below; it is evident that the conclusion is as brief as possible.

You can also have recommendations or suggestions for further research in your conclusion. Nevertheless, they should be as brief as possible. Do not write a long list that will interfere with the length of the abstract.

Write the conclusion in the present simple tense. Here are examples for your inspiration:

Correct: We conclude that flu is a primary symptom of COVID-19. Incorrect: We found that influenza is a primary symptom of COVID-19.

Bonus Tips for Writing a Dissertation Abstract

Now that we have looked at the essential steps to follow, here are some expert tips to crank up your abstract:

Follow the recommended formatting requirements for the abstract. The format will include; word limit, length, and spacing, style (APA, MLA, etc.)

The standard formatting requires that you do not write more than one double-spaced page.

• Avoid verbosity

Each word in a sentence counts due to the brevity of an abstract. Therefore, use short but communicating sentences.

Do not add unnecessary words or jargon, as this will obscure your abstract. Remember that the reader should be able to understand your abstract in the shortest time possible.

Ensure that you maintain the proper balance between the different elements of the abstract.

Checklist for Writing an Abstract

• The type of abstract identified
• The conformity of the abstract to the conventions of the type chosen
• Is the problem interesting to write on
• What is your approach? (Prototype models, analytical models, etc.)
• What’s the answer (results)
• What is the implication of your solution? (Conclusion)

Writing a successful abstract requires both hard work and determination, but its fruits are worth the struggle. As you plan to write yours, ensure that all the elements discussed above appear in your paper.

For expert writing help , we have professional dissertation writers to get you started. What are you waiting for now?

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How to Write an Abstract for a Dissertation or Thesis: Guide & Examples

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A dissertation abstract is a brief summary of a dissertation, typically between 150-300 words. It is a standalone piece of writing that gives the reader an overview of the main ideas and findings of the dissertation.

Generally, this section should include:

• Research problem and questions
• Research methodology
• Key findings and results
• Original contribution
• Practical or theoretical implications.

You need to write an excellent abstract for a dissertation or thesis, since it's the first thing a comitteee will review. Continue reading through to learn how to write a dissertation abstract. In this article, we will discuss its purpose, length, structure and writing steps. Moreover, for reference purposes, this article will include abstract examples for a dissertation and thesis and offer extra guidance on top of that.

In case you are in a hurry, feel free to buy dissertation from our professional writers. Our experts are qualified and have solid experience in writing Ph.D. academic works.

What Is a Dissertation Abstract?

Dissertation abstracts, by definition, are summaries of a thesis's content, usually between 200 and 300 words, used to inform readers about the contents of the study in a quick way. A thesis or dissertation abstract briefly overviews the entire thesis. Dissertation abstracts are found at the beginning of every study, providing the research recap, results, and conclusions. It usually goes right after your title page and before your dissertation table of contents . An abstract for a dissertation (alternatively called “précis” further in the article) should clearly state the main topic of your paper, its overall purpose, and any important research questions or findings. It should also contain any necessary keywords that direct readers to relevant information. In addition, it addresses any implications for further research that may stem from its field. Writing strong précis requires you to think carefully, as they are the critical components that attract readers to peruse your paper.

Purpose of a Dissertation or Thesis Abstract

The primary purpose of an abstract in a dissertation or thesis is to give readers a basic understanding of the completed work. Also, it should create an interest in the topic to motivate readers to read further. Writing an abstract for a dissertation is essential for many reasons: 

• Offers a summary and gives readers an overview of what they should expect from your study.
• Provides an opportunity to showcase the research done, highlighting its importance and impact.
• Identifies any unexplored research gaps to inform future studies and direct the current state of knowledge on the topic.

In general, an abstract of a thesis or a dissertation is a bridge between the research and potential readers.

What Makes a Good Abstract for a Dissertation?

Making a good dissertation abstract requires excellent organization and clarity of thought. Proper specimens must provide convincing arguments supporting your thesis. Writing an effective dissertation abstract requires students to be concise and write engagingly. Below is a list of things that makes it outstanding:

• Maintains clear and concise summary style
• Includes essential keywords for search engine optimization
• Accurately conveys the scope of the thesis
• Strictly adheres to the word count limit specified in your instructions
• Written from a third-person point of view
• Includes objectives, approach, and findings
• Uses simple language without jargon
• Avoids overgeneralized statements or vague claims.

How Long Should a Dissertation Abstract Be?

Abstracts should be long enough to convey the key points of every thesis, yet brief enough to capture readers' attention. A dissertation abstract length should typically be between 200-300 words, i.e., 1 page. But usually, length is indicated in the requirements. Remember that your primary goal here is to provide an engaging and informative thesis summary. Note that following the instructions and templates set forth by your university will ensure your thesis or dissertation abstract meets the writing criteria and adheres to all relevant standards.

Dissertation Abstract Structure

Dissertation abstracts can be organized in different ways and vary slightly depending on your work requirements. However, each abstract of a dissertation should incorporate elements like keywords, methods, results, and conclusions. The structure of a thesis or a dissertation abstract should account for the components included below:

• Title Accurately reflects the topic of your thesis.
• Introduction Provides an overview of your research, its purpose, and any relevant background information.
• Methods/ Approach Gives an outline of the methods used to conduct your research.
• Results Summarizes your findings.
• Conclusions Provides an overview of your research's accomplishments and implications.
• Keywords Includes keywords that accurately describe your thesis.

Below is an example that shows how a dissertation abstract looks, how to structure it and where each part is located. Use this template to organize your own summary. 

Things to Consider Before Writing a Dissertation Abstract

There are several things you should do beforehand in order to write a good abstract for a dissertation or thesis. They include:

• Reviewing set requirements and making sure you clearly understand the expectations
• Reading other research works to get an idea of what to include in yours
• Writing a few drafts before submitting your final version, which will ensure that it's in the best state possible.

Write an Abstract for a Dissertation Last

Remember, it's advisable to write an abstract for a thesis paper or dissertation last. Even though it’s always located in the beginning of the work, nevertheless, it should be written last. This way, your summary will be more accurate because the main argument and conclusions are already known when the work is mostly finished - it is incomparably easier to write a dissertation abstract after completing your thesis. Additionally, you should write it last because the contents and scope of the thesis may have changed during the writing process. So, create your dissertation abstract as a last step to help ensure that it precisely reflects the content of your project.

Carefully Read Requirements

Writing dissertation abstracts requires careful attention to details and adherence to writing requirements. Refer to the rubric or guidelines that you were presented with to identify aspects to keep in mind and important elements, such as correct length and writing style, and then make sure to comprehensively include them. Careful consideration of these requirements ensures that your writing meets every criterion and standard provided by your supervisor to increase the chances that your master's thesis is accepted and approved.   

Choose the Right Type of Dissertation Abstracts

Before starting to write a dissertation or thesis abstract you should choose the appropriate type. Several options are available, and it is essential to pick one that best suits your dissertation's subject. Depending on their purpose, there exist 3 types of dissertation abstracts: 

• Informative
• Descriptive

Informative one offers readers a concise overview of your research, its purpose, and any relevant background information. Additionally, this type includes brief summaries of all results and dissertation conclusions .  A descriptive abstract in a dissertation or thesis provides a quick overview of the research, but it doesn't incorporate any evaluation or analysis because it only offers a snapshot of the study and makes no claims.

Critical abstract gives readers an in-depth overview of the research and include an evaluative component. This means that this type also summarizes and analyzes research data, discusses implications, and makes claims about the achievements of your study. In addition, it examines the research data and recounts its implications. 

Choose the correct type of dissertation abstract to ensure that it meets your paper’s demands.

How to Write an Abstract for a Dissertation or Thesis?

Writing a good abstract for a dissertation or thesis is essential as it provides a brief overview of the completed research. So, how to write a dissertation abstract? First of all, the right approach is dictated by an institution's specific requirements. However, a basic structure should include the title, an introduction to your topic, research methodology, findings, and conclusions. Composing noteworthy precis allows you to flaunt your capabilities and grants readers a concise glimpse of the research. Doing this can make an immense impact on those reviewing your paper.

1. Identify the Purpose of Your Study

An abstract for thesis paper or dissertation is mainly dependent on the purpose of your study. Students need to identify all goals and objectives of their research before writing their précis - the reason being to ensure that the investigation’s progress and all its consequent findings are described simply and intelligibly. Additionally, one should provide some background information about their study. A short general description helps your reader acknowledge and connect with the research question. But don’t dive too deep into details, since more details are provided when writing a dissertation introduction . Scholars should write every dissertation abstract accurately and in a coherent way to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of the area. This is the first section that potential readers will see, and it should serve as a precise overview of an entire document. Therefore, researchers writing abstracts of a thesis or dissertation should do it with great care and attention to details.

2. Discuss Methodology

A writer needs to elaborate on their methodological approach in an abstract of PhD dissertation since it acts as a brief summary of a whole research and should include an explanation of all methods used there. Dissertation and thesis abstracts discuss the research methodology by providing information sufficient enough to understand the underlying research question, data collection methods, and approach employed. Additionally, they should explain the analysis or interpretation of the data. This will help readers to gain a much better understanding of the research process and allow them to evaluate the data quality. Mention whether your methodology is quantitative or qualitative since this information is essential for readers to grasp your study's context and scope. Additionally, comment on the sources used and any other evidence collected. Furthermore, explain why you chose the method in the first place. All in all, addressing methodology is a crucial part of writing abstracts of a thesis or dissertation, as it will allow people to understand exactly how you arrived at your conclusions.

3. Describe the Key Results

Write your abstract for dissertation in a way that includes an overview of the research problem, your proposed solution, and any limitations or constraints you faced. Students need to briefly and clearly describe all key findings from the research. You must ensure that the results mentioned in an abstract of a thesis or dissertation are supported with evidence from body chapters.  Write about any crucial trends or patterns that emerged from the study. They should be discussed in detail, as this information can often provide valuable insight into your topic. Be sure to include any correlations or relationships found as a result of the study. Correlation, in this context, refers to any association between two or more variables.  Finally, write about any implications or conclusions drawn from your results: this is an essential element when writing an abstract for dissertation since it allows readers to firmly comprehend the study’s significance.

4. Summarize an Abstract for a Dissertation

Knowing how to write an abstract for dissertation is critical in conveying your work to a broad audience. Summarizing can be challenging (since precis is a summary in itself), but it is an essential part of any successful work. So, as a final step, conclude this section with a brief overview of the topic, outline the course of your research and its main results, and answer the paper’s central question.  Summarizing an abstract of your dissertation is done to give readers a succinct impression of the entire paper, making an accurate and concise overview of all its key points and consequent conclusions. In every PhD dissertation abstract , wrap up its summary by addressing any unanswered questions and discussing any potential implications of the research.

How to Format an Abstract in Dissertation

Format depends on the style (APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago), which varies according to your subject's discipline. Style to use is usually mentioned in the instructions, and students should follow them closely to ensure formatting accuracy. These styles have guidelines that inform you about the formatting of titles, headings and subheadings, margins, page numbers, abstracts, and tell what font size and family or line spacing are required. Using a consistent formatting style ensures proper readability and might even influence paper’s overall structure. Another formatting concern to consider when writing dissertation and thesis abstracts is their layout. Most commonly, your paper should have a one-inch margin on all sides with double spacing. Be sure to familiarize yourself with the right guidelines to get the correct information on how to write dissertation abstract in APA format and ensure that it meets formatting standards.

Keywords in a Dissertation Abstract

When writing thesis abstracts, it is essential to include keywords. Keywords are phrases or words that help readers identify main topics of your paper and make it easier for them to find any information they need. Keywords should usually be placed at the end of a dissertation abstract and written in italics. In addition, include keywords that represent your paper's primary research interests and topics. Lastly, use keywords throughout your thesis to ensure that your précis accurately reflect an entire paper's content.

Thesis and Dissertation Abstract Examples

When writing, checking out thesis and dissertation abstracts examples from experts can provide a valuable reference point for structuring and formatting your own précis. When searching for an excellent sample template, engaging the assistance of a professional writer can be highly beneficial. Their expertise and knowledge offer helpful insight into creating an exemplary document that exceeds all expectations. Examples of dissertation abstracts from different topics are commonly available in scholarly journals and websites. We also encourage you to go and search your university or other local library catalogue -  multiple useful samples can surely be found there. From our part, we will attach 2 free examples for inspiration.

Dissertation abstract example

Thesis abstract example

Need a custom summary or a whole work? Contact StudyCrumb and get proficient assistance with PhD writing or dissertation proposal help .

Extra Tips on Writing a Dissertation Abstract

Writing a dissertation or PhD thesis abstract is not an easy task. You must ensure that it accurately reflects your paper's content. In this context, we will provide top-class tips on how to write an abstract in a dissertation or thesis for you to succeed. Combined with an example of a dissertation abstract above, you can rest assured that you'll do everything correctly. Below are extra tips on how to write a thesis abstract:

• Keep it concise, not lengthy - around 300 words.
• Focus on the “what”, “why”, “how”, and “so what” of your research.
• Be specific and concrete: avoid generalization.
• Use simple language: précis should be easy to understand for readers unfamiliar with your topic.
• Provide enough relevant information so your readers can grasp a main idea without necessarily reading your paper in its entirety.
• Write and edit your abstract several times until every sentence is clear and concise.
• Verify accuracy: make sure that précis reflect your content precisely.

Bottom Line on How to Write a Dissertation or Thesis Abstract

The bottom line when it comes to how to write a dissertation abstract is that you basically need to mirror your study's essence on a much lower scale. Specifically, students should keep their précis concise, use simple language, include relevant information, and write several drafts. Don't forget to review your précis and make sure they are precise enough. In addition, make sure to include all keywords so readers can find your paper quickly. You are encouraged to examine several sample dissertation abstracts to understand how to write your own.

Are you still struggling with your abstract? Contact our dissertation writing service and our qualified writers will gladly help you with this uneasy task. They will make sure it is delivered strictly on time and meets all requirements!  

FAQ About Dissertation Abstract Writing

1. why is a dissertation abstract important.

Dissertation abstracts are important because they give readers a brief overview of your research. They succinctly introduce critical information and study’s key points to help readers decide if reading your thesis is worth their time. During indexing, an abstract allows categorizing and filtering papers through keyword searches. Consequently, this helps readers to easily find your paper when searching for information on a specific topic.

2. When should I write an abstract for a dissertation or thesis?

You are supposed to write a dissertation or thesis abstract after completing research and finishing work on your paper. This way, you can write précis that accurately reflects all necessary information without missing any important details. Writing your thesis précis last also lets you provide the right keywords to help readers find your dissertation.

3. What should a dissertation abstract include?

A dissertation abstract should include a research problem, goals and objectives, methods, results, and study implications. Ensure that you incorporate enough information so readers can get an idea of your thesis's content without reading it through. Use relevant keywords to ensure readers can easily find your paper when searching for information on a specific topic.

4. How to write a strong dissertation abstract?

To write a strong abstract for a dissertation, you should state your research problem, write in an active voice, use simple language, and provide relevant information. Additionally, write and edit your précis several times until it is clear and concise, and verify that it accurately mirrors your paper’s content. Reviewing several samples is also helpful for understanding how to write your own.

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Dissertation abstract

Despite being just 150 to 350 words long (in most cases), the Abstract is arguably one of the most important parts of your dissertation. In this short space, the abstract must capture the essence of your dissertation. This includes the problem being tackled (and the motivation behind this), the significance of your research, the research strategy guiding it, as well as the major findings and conclusions. The perfect informative abstract is one where the reader could choose not to read on but would still understand the essence of your dissertation. At the same time, a poorly constructed dissertation abstract can mislead the reader into thinking the study is about something it is not, confusing them from the very start.

In most cases, you will be expected to use an informative , rather than descriptive style , when writing your dissertation abstract. However, since this is not always the case, we briefly explain the difference between the two abstract styles - descriptive and informative - in the section, Choosing between dissertation abstract styles: Descriptive or informative . With the abstract being one of the most important parts of your dissertation, we explain the need for good structure, internal consistency, effective weighting between sections, amongst other factors, in the section, What readers expect from a dissertation abstract . We also highlight what readers are not looking for.

Even though every dissertation is different, there is a fairly common way to effectively structure your dissertation abstract. In the section, How to structure your dissertation abstract , we take you through the important components that the abstract should address, including the problem being addressed, the significance of the study, components of your research strategy, results and conclusions. Finally, knowing what you want to say and how to express that on the page are two different things. In the section, Useful phrases when writing a dissertation abstract , we set out phrases that you can use and build on when writing your dissertation abstract.

• ABSTRACT STYLES: Choosing between dissertation abstract styles: Descriptive or informative
• EXPECTATIONS: What readers expect from a dissertation abstract
• STRUCTURE: How to structure a dissertation abstract
• USEFUL PHRASES: Useful phrases when writing a dissertation abstract

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What Is a Dissertation? | Guide, Examples, & Template

A dissertation is a long-form piece of academic writing based on original research conducted by you. It is usually submitted as the final step in order to finish a PhD program.

Your dissertation is probably the longest piece of writing you’ve ever completed. It requires solid research, writing, and analysis skills, and it can be intimidating to know where to begin.

Your department likely has guidelines related to how your dissertation should be structured. When in doubt, consult with your supervisor.

You can also download our full dissertation template in the format of your choice below. The template includes a ready-made table of contents with notes on what to include in each chapter, easily adaptable to your department’s requirements.

Download Word template Download Google Docs template

• In the US, a dissertation generally refers to the collection of research you conducted to obtain a PhD.
• In other countries (such as the UK), a dissertation often refers to the research you conduct to obtain your bachelor’s or master’s degree.

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Table of contents

Dissertation committee and prospectus process, how to write and structure a dissertation, acknowledgements or preface, list of figures and tables, list of abbreviations, introduction, literature review, methodology, reference list, proofreading and editing, defending your dissertation, free checklist and lecture slides.

When you’ve finished your coursework, as well as any comprehensive exams or other requirements, you advance to “ABD” (All But Dissertation) status. This means you’ve completed everything except your dissertation.

Prior to starting to write, you must form your committee and write your prospectus or proposal . Your committee comprises your adviser and a few other faculty members. They can be from your own department, or, if your work is more interdisciplinary, from other departments. Your committee will guide you through the dissertation process, and ultimately decide whether you pass your dissertation defense and receive your PhD.

Your prospectus is a formal document presented to your committee, usually orally in a defense, outlining your research aims and objectives and showing why your topic is relevant . After passing your prospectus defense, you’re ready to start your research and writing.

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The structure of your dissertation depends on a variety of factors, such as your discipline, topic, and approach. Dissertations in the humanities are often structured more like a long essay , building an overall argument to support a central thesis , with chapters organized around different themes or case studies.

However, hard science and social science dissertations typically include a review of existing works, a methodology section, an analysis of your original research, and a presentation of your results , presented in different chapters.

Dissertation examples

We’ve compiled a list of dissertation examples to help you get started.

• Example dissertation #1: Heat, Wildfire and Energy Demand: An Examination of Residential Buildings and Community Equity (a dissertation by C. A. Antonopoulos about the impact of extreme heat and wildfire on residential buildings and occupant exposure risks).
• Example dissertation #2: Exploring Income Volatility and Financial Health Among Middle-Income Households (a dissertation by M. Addo about income volatility and declining economic security among middle-income households).
• Example dissertation #3: The Use of Mindfulness Meditation to Increase the Efficacy of Mirror Visual Feedback for Reducing Phantom Limb Pain in Amputees (a dissertation by N. S. Mills about the effect of mindfulness-based interventions on the relationship between mirror visual feedback and the pain level in amputees with phantom limb pain).

The very first page of your document contains your dissertation title, your name, department, institution, degree program, and submission date. Sometimes it also includes your student number, your supervisor’s name, and the university’s logo.

Read more about title pages

The acknowledgements section is usually optional and gives space for you to thank everyone who helped you in writing your dissertation. This might include your supervisors, participants in your research, and friends or family who supported you. In some cases, your acknowledgements are part of a preface.

Read more about acknowledgements Read more about prefaces

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The abstract is a short summary of your dissertation, usually about 150 to 300 words long. Though this may seem very short, it’s one of the most important parts of your dissertation, because it introduces your work to your audience.

Your abstract should:

• State your main topic and the aims of your research
• Describe your methods
• Summarize your main results
• State your conclusions

Read more about abstracts

The table of contents lists all of your chapters, along with corresponding subheadings and page numbers. This gives your reader an overview of your structure and helps them easily navigate your document.

Remember to include all main parts of your dissertation in your table of contents, even the appendices. It’s easy to generate a table automatically in Word if you used heading styles. Generally speaking, you only include level 2 and level 3 headings, not every subheading you included in your finished work.

Read more about tables of contents

While not usually mandatory, it’s nice to include a list of figures and tables to help guide your reader if you have used a lot of these in your dissertation. It’s easy to generate one of these in Word using the Insert Caption feature.

Read more about lists of figures and tables

Similarly, if you have used a lot of abbreviations (especially industry-specific ones) in your dissertation, you can include them in an alphabetized list of abbreviations so that the reader can easily look up their meanings.

Read more about lists of abbreviations

In addition to the list of abbreviations, if you find yourself using a lot of highly specialized terms that you worry will not be familiar to your reader, consider including a glossary. Here, alphabetize the terms and include a brief description or definition.

Read more about glossaries

The introduction serves to set up your dissertation’s topic, purpose, and relevance. It tells the reader what to expect in the rest of your dissertation. The introduction should:

• Establish your research topic , giving the background information needed to contextualize your work
• Narrow down the focus and define the scope of your research
• Discuss the state of existing research on the topic, showing your work’s relevance to a broader problem or debate
• Clearly state your research questions and objectives
• Outline the flow of the rest of your work

Everything in the introduction should be clear, engaging, and relevant. By the end, the reader should understand the what, why, and how of your research.

Read more about introductions

A formative part of your research is your literature review . This helps you gain a thorough understanding of the academic work that already exists on your topic.

Literature reviews encompass:

• Finding relevant sources (e.g., books and journal articles)
• Assessing the credibility of your sources
• Critically analyzing and evaluating each source
• Drawing connections between them (e.g., themes, patterns, conflicts, or gaps) to strengthen your overall point

A literature review is not merely a summary of existing sources. Your literature review should have a coherent structure and argument that leads to a clear justification for your own research. It may aim to:

• Address a gap in the literature or build on existing knowledge
• Take a new theoretical or methodological approach to your topic
• Propose a solution to an unresolved problem or advance one side of a theoretical debate

Read more about literature reviews

Theoretical framework

Your literature review can often form the basis for your theoretical framework. Here, you define and analyze the key theories, concepts, and models that frame your research.

Read more about theoretical frameworks

Your methodology chapter describes how you conducted your research, allowing your reader to critically assess its credibility. Your methodology section should accurately report what you did, as well as convince your reader that this was the best way to answer your research question.

A methodology section should generally include:

• The overall research approach ( quantitative vs. qualitative ) and research methods (e.g., a longitudinal study )
• Your data collection methods (e.g., interviews or a controlled experiment )
• Details of where, when, and with whom the research took place
• Any tools and materials you used (e.g., computer programs, lab equipment)
• Your data analysis methods (e.g., statistical analysis , discourse analysis )
• An evaluation or justification of your methods

Read more about methodology sections

Your results section should highlight what your methodology discovered. You can structure this section around sub-questions, hypotheses , or themes, but avoid including any subjective or speculative interpretation here.

Your results section should:

• Concisely state each relevant result together with relevant descriptive statistics (e.g., mean , standard deviation ) and inferential statistics (e.g., test statistics , p values )
• Briefly state how the result relates to the question or whether the hypothesis was supported
• Report all results that are relevant to your research questions , including any that did not meet your expectations.

Additional data (including raw numbers, full questionnaires, or interview transcripts) can be included as an appendix. You can include tables and figures, but only if they help the reader better understand your results. Read more about results sections

Your discussion section is your opportunity to explore the meaning and implications of your results in relation to your research question. Here, interpret your results in detail, discussing whether they met your expectations and how well they fit with the framework that you built in earlier chapters. Refer back to relevant source material to show how your results fit within existing research in your field.

Some guiding questions include:

• What do your results mean?
• Why do your results matter?
• What limitations do the results have?

If any of the results were unexpected, offer explanations for why this might be. It’s a good idea to consider alternative interpretations of your data.

Read more about discussion sections

Your dissertation’s conclusion should concisely answer your main research question, leaving your reader with a clear understanding of your central argument and emphasizing what your research has contributed to the field.

In some disciplines, the conclusion is just a short section preceding the discussion section, but in other contexts, it is the final chapter of your work. Here, you wrap up your dissertation with a final reflection on what you found, with recommendations for future research and concluding remarks.

It’s important to leave the reader with a clear impression of why your research matters. What have you added to what was already known? Why is your research necessary for the future of your field?

Read more about conclusions

It is crucial to include a reference list or list of works cited with the full details of all the sources that you used, in order to avoid plagiarism. Be sure to choose one citation style and follow it consistently throughout your dissertation. Each style has strict and specific formatting requirements.

Common styles include MLA , Chicago , and APA , but which style you use is often set by your department or your field.

Create APA citations Create MLA citations

Your dissertation should contain only essential information that directly contributes to answering your research question. Documents such as interview transcripts or survey questions can be added as appendices, rather than adding them to the main body.

Read more about appendices

Making sure that all of your sections are in the right place is only the first step to a well-written dissertation. Don’t forget to leave plenty of time for editing and proofreading, as grammar mistakes and sloppy spelling errors can really negatively impact your work.

Dissertations can take up to five years to write, so you will definitely want to make sure that everything is perfect before submitting. You may want to consider using a professional dissertation editing service , AI proofreader or grammar checker to make sure your final project is perfect prior to submitting.

After your written dissertation is approved, your committee will schedule a defense. Similarly to defending your prospectus, dissertation defenses are oral presentations of your work. You’ll present your dissertation, and your committee will ask you questions. Many departments allow family members, friends, and other people who are interested to join as well.

After your defense, your committee will meet, and then inform you whether you have passed. Keep in mind that defenses are usually just a formality; most committees will have resolved any serious issues with your work with you far prior to your defense, giving you ample time to fix any problems.

As you write your dissertation, you can use this simple checklist to make sure you’ve included all the essentials.

Checklist: Dissertation

My title page includes all information required by my university.

I have included acknowledgements thanking those who helped me.

My abstract provides a concise summary of the dissertation, giving the reader a clear idea of my key results or arguments.

I have created a table of contents to help the reader navigate my dissertation. It includes all chapter titles, but excludes the title page, acknowledgements, and abstract.

My introduction leads into my topic in an engaging way and shows the relevance of my research.

My introduction clearly defines the focus of my research, stating my research questions and research objectives .

My introduction includes an overview of the dissertation’s structure (reading guide).

I have conducted a literature review in which I (1) critically engage with sources, evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of existing research, (2) discuss patterns, themes, and debates in the literature, and (3) address a gap or show how my research contributes to existing research.

I have clearly outlined the theoretical framework of my research, explaining the theories and models that support my approach.

I have thoroughly described my methodology , explaining how I collected data and analyzed data.

I have concisely and objectively reported all relevant results .

I have (1) evaluated and interpreted the meaning of the results and (2) acknowledged any important limitations of the results in my discussion .

I have clearly stated the answer to my main research question in the conclusion .

I have clearly explained the implications of my conclusion, emphasizing what new insight my research has contributed.

I have provided relevant recommendations for further research or practice.

If relevant, I have included appendices with supplemental information.

I have included an in-text citation every time I use words, ideas, or information from a source.

I have listed every source in a reference list at the end of my dissertation.

I have consistently followed the rules of my chosen citation style .

I have followed all formatting guidelines provided by my university.

Congratulations!

The end is in sight—your dissertation is nearly ready to submit! Make sure it's perfectly polished with the help of a Scribbr editor.

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What this handout is about

This handout provides definitions and examples of the two main types of abstracts: descriptive and informative. It also provides guidelines for constructing an abstract and general tips for you to keep in mind when drafting. Finally, it includes a few examples of abstracts broken down into their component parts.

What is an abstract?

An abstract is a self-contained, short, and powerful statement that describes a larger work. Components vary according to discipline. An abstract of a social science or scientific work may contain the scope, purpose, results, and contents of the work. An abstract of a humanities work may contain the thesis, background, and conclusion of the larger work. An abstract is not a review, nor does it evaluate the work being abstracted. While it contains key words found in the larger work, the abstract is an original document rather than an excerpted passage.

Why write an abstract?

You may write an abstract for various reasons. The two most important are selection and indexing. Abstracts allow readers who may be interested in a longer work to quickly decide whether it is worth their time to read it. Also, many online databases use abstracts to index larger works. Therefore, abstracts should contain keywords and phrases that allow for easy searching.

Say you are beginning a research project on how Brazilian newspapers helped Brazil’s ultra-liberal president Luiz Ignácio da Silva wrest power from the traditional, conservative power base. A good first place to start your research is to search Dissertation Abstracts International for all dissertations that deal with the interaction between newspapers and politics. “Newspapers and politics” returned 569 hits. A more selective search of “newspapers and Brazil” returned 22 hits. That is still a fair number of dissertations. Titles can sometimes help winnow the field, but many titles are not very descriptive. For example, one dissertation is titled “Rhetoric and Riot in Rio de Janeiro.” It is unclear from the title what this dissertation has to do with newspapers in Brazil. One option would be to download or order the entire dissertation on the chance that it might speak specifically to the topic. A better option is to read the abstract. In this case, the abstract reveals the main focus of the dissertation:

This dissertation examines the role of newspaper editors in the political turmoil and strife that characterized late First Empire Rio de Janeiro (1827-1831). Newspaper editors and their journals helped change the political culture of late First Empire Rio de Janeiro by involving the people in the discussion of state. This change in political culture is apparent in Emperor Pedro I’s gradual loss of control over the mechanisms of power. As the newspapers became more numerous and powerful, the Emperor lost his legitimacy in the eyes of the people. To explore the role of the newspapers in the political events of the late First Empire, this dissertation analyzes all available newspapers published in Rio de Janeiro from 1827 to 1831. Newspapers and their editors were leading forces in the effort to remove power from the hands of the ruling elite and place it under the control of the people. In the process, newspapers helped change how politics operated in the constitutional monarchy of Brazil.

From this abstract you now know that although the dissertation has nothing to do with modern Brazilian politics, it does cover the role of newspapers in changing traditional mechanisms of power. After reading the abstract, you can make an informed judgment about whether the dissertation would be worthwhile to read.

Besides selection, the other main purpose of the abstract is for indexing. Most article databases in the online catalog of the library enable you to search abstracts. This allows for quick retrieval by users and limits the extraneous items recalled by a “full-text” search. However, for an abstract to be useful in an online retrieval system, it must incorporate the key terms that a potential researcher would use to search. For example, if you search Dissertation Abstracts International using the keywords “France” “revolution” and “politics,” the search engine would search through all the abstracts in the database that included those three words. Without an abstract, the search engine would be forced to search titles, which, as we have seen, may not be fruitful, or else search the full text. It’s likely that a lot more than 60 dissertations have been written with those three words somewhere in the body of the entire work. By incorporating keywords into the abstract, the author emphasizes the central topics of the work and gives prospective readers enough information to make an informed judgment about the applicability of the work.

When do people write abstracts?

• when submitting articles to journals, especially online journals
• when applying for research grants
• when writing a book proposal
• when completing the Ph.D. dissertation or M.A. thesis
• when writing a proposal for a conference paper
• when writing a proposal for a book chapter

Most often, the author of the entire work (or prospective work) writes the abstract. However, there are professional abstracting services that hire writers to draft abstracts of other people’s work. In a work with multiple authors, the first author usually writes the abstract. Undergraduates are sometimes asked to draft abstracts of books/articles for classmates who have not read the larger work.

Types of abstracts

There are two types of abstracts: descriptive and informative. They have different aims, so as a consequence they have different components and styles. There is also a third type called critical, but it is rarely used. If you want to find out more about writing a critique or a review of a work, see the UNC Writing Center handout on writing a literature review . If you are unsure which type of abstract you should write, ask your instructor (if the abstract is for a class) or read other abstracts in your field or in the journal where you are submitting your article.

Descriptive abstracts

A descriptive abstract indicates the type of information found in the work. It makes no judgments about the work, nor does it provide results or conclusions of the research. It does incorporate key words found in the text and may include the purpose, methods, and scope of the research. Essentially, the descriptive abstract describes the work being abstracted. Some people consider it an outline of the work, rather than a summary. Descriptive abstracts are usually very short—100 words or less.

Informative abstracts

The majority of abstracts are informative. While they still do not critique or evaluate a work, they do more than describe it. A good informative abstract acts as a surrogate for the work itself. That is, the writer presents and explains all the main arguments and the important results and evidence in the complete article/paper/book. An informative abstract includes the information that can be found in a descriptive abstract (purpose, methods, scope) but also includes the results and conclusions of the research and the recommendations of the author. The length varies according to discipline, but an informative abstract is rarely more than 10% of the length of the entire work. In the case of a longer work, it may be much less.

Here are examples of a descriptive and an informative abstract of this handout on abstracts . Descriptive abstract:

The two most common abstract types—descriptive and informative—are described and examples of each are provided.

Informative abstract:

Abstracts present the essential elements of a longer work in a short and powerful statement. The purpose of an abstract is to provide prospective readers the opportunity to judge the relevance of the longer work to their projects. Abstracts also include the key terms found in the longer work and the purpose and methods of the research. Authors abstract various longer works, including book proposals, dissertations, and online journal articles. There are two main types of abstracts: descriptive and informative. A descriptive abstract briefly describes the longer work, while an informative abstract presents all the main arguments and important results. This handout provides examples of various types of abstracts and instructions on how to construct one.

Which type should I use?

Your best bet in this case is to ask your instructor or refer to the instructions provided by the publisher. You can also make a guess based on the length allowed; i.e., 100-120 words = descriptive; 250+ words = informative.

How do I write an abstract?

The format of your abstract will depend on the work being abstracted. An abstract of a scientific research paper will contain elements not found in an abstract of a literature article, and vice versa. However, all abstracts share several mandatory components, and there are also some optional parts that you can decide to include or not. When preparing to draft your abstract, keep the following key process elements in mind:

• Reason for writing: What is the importance of the research? Why would a reader be interested in the larger work?
• Problem: What problem does this work attempt to solve? What is the scope of the project? What is the main argument/thesis/claim?
• Methodology: An abstract of a scientific work may include specific models or approaches used in the larger study. Other abstracts may describe the types of evidence used in the research.
• Results: Again, an abstract of a scientific work may include specific data that indicates the results of the project. Other abstracts may discuss the findings in a more general way.
• Implications: What changes should be implemented as a result of the findings of the work? How does this work add to the body of knowledge on the topic?

(This list of elements is adapted with permission from Philip Koopman, “How to Write an Abstract.” )

All abstracts include:

• A full citation of the source, preceding the abstract.
• The most important information first.
• The same type and style of language found in the original, including technical language.
• Key words and phrases that quickly identify the content and focus of the work.
• Clear, concise, and powerful language.

Abstracts may include:

• The thesis of the work, usually in the first sentence.
• Background information that places the work in the larger body of literature.
• The same chronological structure as the original work.

How not to write an abstract:

• Do not refer extensively to other works.
• Do not add information not contained in the original work.
• Do not define terms.

If you are abstracting your own writing

When abstracting your own work, it may be difficult to condense a piece of writing that you have agonized over for weeks (or months, or even years) into a 250-word statement. There are some tricks that you could use to make it easier, however.

Reverse outlining:

This technique is commonly used when you are having trouble organizing your own writing. The process involves writing down the main idea of each paragraph on a separate piece of paper– see our short video . For the purposes of writing an abstract, try grouping the main ideas of each section of the paper into a single sentence. Practice grouping ideas using webbing or color coding .

For a scientific paper, you may have sections titled Purpose, Methods, Results, and Discussion. Each one of these sections will be longer than one paragraph, but each is grouped around a central idea. Use reverse outlining to discover the central idea in each section and then distill these ideas into one statement.

Cut and paste:

To create a first draft of an abstract of your own work, you can read through the entire paper and cut and paste sentences that capture key passages. This technique is useful for social science research with findings that cannot be encapsulated by neat numbers or concrete results. A well-written humanities draft will have a clear and direct thesis statement and informative topic sentences for paragraphs or sections. Isolate these sentences in a separate document and work on revising them into a unified paragraph.

If you are abstracting someone else’s writing

When abstracting something you have not written, you cannot summarize key ideas just by cutting and pasting. Instead, you must determine what a prospective reader would want to know about the work. There are a few techniques that will help you in this process:

Identify key terms:

Search through the entire document for key terms that identify the purpose, scope, and methods of the work. Pay close attention to the Introduction (or Purpose) and the Conclusion (or Discussion). These sections should contain all the main ideas and key terms in the paper. When writing the abstract, be sure to incorporate the key terms.

Highlight key phrases and sentences:

Instead of cutting and pasting the actual words, try highlighting sentences or phrases that appear to be central to the work. Then, in a separate document, rewrite the sentences and phrases in your own words.

Don’t look back:

After reading the entire work, put it aside and write a paragraph about the work without referring to it. In the first draft, you may not remember all the key terms or the results, but you will remember what the main point of the work was. Remember not to include any information you did not get from the work being abstracted.

Revise, revise, revise

No matter what type of abstract you are writing, or whether you are abstracting your own work or someone else’s, the most important step in writing an abstract is to revise early and often. When revising, delete all extraneous words and incorporate meaningful and powerful words. The idea is to be as clear and complete as possible in the shortest possible amount of space. The Word Count feature of Microsoft Word can help you keep track of how long your abstract is and help you hit your target length.

Example 1: Humanities abstract

Kenneth Tait Andrews, “‘Freedom is a constant struggle’: The dynamics and consequences of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement, 1960-1984” Ph.D. State University of New York at Stony Brook, 1997 DAI-A 59/02, p. 620, Aug 1998

This dissertation examines the impacts of social movements through a multi-layered study of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement from its peak in the early 1960s through the early 1980s. By examining this historically important case, I clarify the process by which movements transform social structures and the constraints movements face when they try to do so. The time period studied includes the expansion of voting rights and gains in black political power, the desegregation of public schools and the emergence of white-flight academies, and the rise and fall of federal anti-poverty programs. I use two major research strategies: (1) a quantitative analysis of county-level data and (2) three case studies. Data have been collected from archives, interviews, newspapers, and published reports. This dissertation challenges the argument that movements are inconsequential. Some view federal agencies, courts, political parties, or economic elites as the agents driving institutional change, but typically these groups acted in response to the leverage brought to bear by the civil rights movement. The Mississippi movement attempted to forge independent structures for sustaining challenges to local inequities and injustices. By propelling change in an array of local institutions, movement infrastructures had an enduring legacy in Mississippi.

Now let’s break down this abstract into its component parts to see how the author has distilled his entire dissertation into a ~200 word abstract.

What the dissertation does This dissertation examines the impacts of social movements through a multi-layered study of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement from its peak in the early 1960s through the early 1980s. By examining this historically important case, I clarify the process by which movements transform social structures and the constraints movements face when they try to do so.

How the dissertation does it The time period studied in this dissertation includes the expansion of voting rights and gains in black political power, the desegregation of public schools and the emergence of white-flight academies, and the rise and fall of federal anti-poverty programs. I use two major research strategies: (1) a quantitative analysis of county-level data and (2) three case studies.

What materials are used Data have been collected from archives, interviews, newspapers, and published reports.

Conclusion This dissertation challenges the argument that movements are inconsequential. Some view federal agencies, courts, political parties, or economic elites as the agents driving institutional change, but typically these groups acted in response to movement demands and the leverage brought to bear by the civil rights movement. The Mississippi movement attempted to forge independent structures for sustaining challenges to local inequities and injustices. By propelling change in an array of local institutions, movement infrastructures had an enduring legacy in Mississippi.

Keywords social movements Civil Rights Movement Mississippi voting rights desegregation

Example 2: Science Abstract

Luis Lehner, “Gravitational radiation from black hole spacetimes” Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh, 1998 DAI-B 59/06, p. 2797, Dec 1998

The problem of detecting gravitational radiation is receiving considerable attention with the construction of new detectors in the United States, Europe, and Japan. The theoretical modeling of the wave forms that would be produced in particular systems will expedite the search for and analysis of detected signals. The characteristic formulation of GR is implemented to obtain an algorithm capable of evolving black holes in 3D asymptotically flat spacetimes. Using compactification techniques, future null infinity is included in the evolved region, which enables the unambiguous calculation of the radiation produced by some compact source. A module to calculate the waveforms is constructed and included in the evolution algorithm. This code is shown to be second-order convergent and to handle highly non-linear spacetimes. In particular, we have shown that the code can handle spacetimes whose radiation is equivalent to a galaxy converting its whole mass into gravitational radiation in one second. We further use the characteristic formulation to treat the region close to the singularity in black hole spacetimes. The code carefully excises a region surrounding the singularity and accurately evolves generic black hole spacetimes with apparently unlimited stability.

This science abstract covers much of the same ground as the humanities one, but it asks slightly different questions.

Why do this study The problem of detecting gravitational radiation is receiving considerable attention with the construction of new detectors in the United States, Europe, and Japan. The theoretical modeling of the wave forms that would be produced in particular systems will expedite the search and analysis of the detected signals.

What the study does The characteristic formulation of GR is implemented to obtain an algorithm capable of evolving black holes in 3D asymptotically flat spacetimes. Using compactification techniques, future null infinity is included in the evolved region, which enables the unambiguous calculation of the radiation produced by some compact source. A module to calculate the waveforms is constructed and included in the evolution algorithm.

Results This code is shown to be second-order convergent and to handle highly non-linear spacetimes. In particular, we have shown that the code can handle spacetimes whose radiation is equivalent to a galaxy converting its whole mass into gravitational radiation in one second. We further use the characteristic formulation to treat the region close to the singularity in black hole spacetimes. The code carefully excises a region surrounding the singularity and accurately evolves generic black hole spacetimes with apparently unlimited stability.

Keywords gravitational radiation (GR) spacetimes black holes

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Belcher, Wendy Laura. 2009. Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Press.

Koopman, Philip. 1997. “How to Write an Abstract.” Carnegie Mellon University. October 1997. http://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/essays/abstract.html .

Lancaster, F.W. 2003. Indexing And Abstracting in Theory and Practice , 3rd ed. London: Facet Publishing.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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How to Write a Dissertation Abstract

Last Updated: March 6, 2020 References

wikiHow is a “wiki,” similar to Wikipedia, which means that many of our articles are co-written by multiple authors. To create this article, volunteer authors worked to edit and improve it over time. This article has been viewed 23,146 times.

An abstract is a small summary of a larger paper. A dissertation is a long research paper with an original argument that you must write to graduate with a Master’s degree or doctorate. An abstract helps give your reader a map of your paper before he or she reads it. It also helps researchers to know if your paper will be helpful to them before they expend time reading it. Therefore, you should try to write as clear an abstract as possible, in simple and concise language.

Including the Necessary Information

• Start with your main thesis at the top.
• Next, read each section of your paper. As you read, write a one-sentence summary of each major chapter or section. Keep them in order on your paper. Regardless of your discipline, take time to point out the key theorists in the discipline you’ll be exploring in your paper.
• Include a summary of your conclusions, as well.
• If you’re writing an abstract for a scientific dissertation, it’s not necessary to include all of your literature review; however, you might include a sentence on how your paper fits into the larger academic discussion.

• Discuss how your research fits into the larger academic discussion.
• Talk about your methodology.
• Include your conclusions.
• Take time to discuss how it could lead to further research.

• Include any major works you’re analyzing. In other words, provide a short discussion of the source material, whether it’s the diaries of a famous historical figure for a history dissertation, a work of literature, a piece of music, or a great work of art.
• Discuss the major theories you’re applying to make your argument.
• Cover your main argument.
• Talk about your conclusions.

• Include any methodology you used to conduct research.
• Provide an overview of any studies you conducted, including participants and the purpose of the study.
• Discuss major theories that you are using for analyzing your work, as well as how your research fits into the larger discussion. Remember to keep it brief.
• Don’t forget to discuss your conclusions, as well as how your research could lead to further research.

• Include major theories you are using to analyze your research.
• Talk about your research methods, especially if you are collecting data.
• Provide specifics if you are looking at a particular company or analyzing a particular model.
• Discuss your overall conclusions.

Writing Your Abstract

• The name of the article you have written.
• Publication information, if there is any.

• Remember, you’re just trying to give your reader an overview of your dissertation, not every detail.

• You should also include the sentence about your conclusion.

• Remember, you are not just summarizing your individual thoughts in your abstract, you are recreating the argument you make in your paper in a shortened form.

• For instance, if you’re an archaeologist, you need to reference your primary materials.
• If you’re a librarian, you should talk about the methods you’ve used to collect your research.
• If you’re a psychologist, talk about the way you conducted your study.

• Only include information that is in the paper; do not bring new ideas into the abstract.

• The way you implement your research in science includes methodology (how you carried out your experiment), but in a humanities paper, you’ll likely be talking about the theories you applied in your research (such as applying Foucault’s theories to a book like Wuthering Heights).

Expert Q&A

• If you wrote a scientific, sociological, or psychological dissertation (or any other type of dissertation requiring field research), be sure to include information on your methodology. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• If you’re writing an abstract on a literature paper, be sure to include the major works you’re reviewing. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• You can use some technical language if it is a technical paper. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_abstract.shtml
• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/abstracts/
• ↑ http://libguides.usc.edu/content.php?pid=83009&sid=621164
• ↑ http://librarybissell.act.edu/content.php?pid=136789&sid=1171531
• ↑ http://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/essays/abstract.html
• ↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/656/01/

About this article

To write a dissertation abstract, start with a condensed version of your thesis that's no more than 1 sentence long. Then, include sentences about the methodology you used for your research and any major points or theories you analyzed. You should also include a sentence about the conclusions you drew based on your research. In general, try to keep your dissertation abstract between 100 and 200 words. To learn how to use an outline of your dissertation to write your abstract, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Writing A Dissertation Or Thesis Abstract

5 Common (& Costly) Mistakes To Avoid

By: David Phair (PhD) & Peter Quella (PhD) | February 2022

Writing a quality abstract is important as the abstract tells the reader what to expect in your thesis or dissertation, and it helps them to decide whether they should read the rest of your document. Over the years, we’ve reviewed thousands of abstracts . In this post, we’ll unpack five common mistakes we see and explain how you can avoid them when crafting your dissertation or thesis abstract.

Overview: 5 Abstract Mistakes

• Not understanding exactly what an abstract is (and does)
• Failing to cover the key aspects of your study
• Using body content verbatim instead of paraphrasing
• Having formatting and language -related issues
• Failing to include relevant keywords

1. Not understanding what an abstract is

A recurring issue we see is that students often don’t have a clear understanding of what an abstract is and the purpose it serves . This naturally has a major knock-on effect. Simply put, an abstract is a concise summary of your research project , and it should include a bit of everything from your thesis or dissertation. The purpose of the abstract is to tell the reader what to expect in your document and entice them to read the full document (or at least the parts that are relevant to them).

A good abstract should summarize the key components of your study, which means that it should include a brief introduction to your study, a summary of the key insights from your literature review, a high-level overview of your methodology , and a summary of the key findings . Importantly, your abstract should summarise the body content, not present new information . Never present any information in your abstract that is not presented in your main document.

When writing up your abstract, aim to do so as concisely as possible. You can think of your abstract as an elevator pitch – you want it to be short, sweet and representative of everything you want to get across. Less is more. Also, much like an elevator pitch, your abstract needs to tell a clear story on its own. So, it’s vital to create a clear narrative within your abstract that paints a vivid picture in the reader’s mind.

2. Not covering the key aspects of your study

Another common mistake we see students making is not covering the key aspects of their studies in the abstract. While you don’t have much space to work with, an abstract still needs to cover the main details of your study. So, when you’re crafting this section, try to allocate 2-3 sentences toward each of your chapters.

Importantly, your abstract needs to explain what your study focuses on (i.e., your research aims and questions ) and how that is unique and important . In other words, it needs to justify your research . To do this, you can mention how your research connects to prior studies, and what differences justify the existence of your project. This should be rooted in the content presented in your introduction and literature review chapters.

The abstract should also provide insight regarding the methodological approach . Remember, the abstract is a summary, so while it’s important to outline your research methodology, don’t try to detail the entire design here. You just need to cover the high-level details , such as the methodological approach (e.g., qualitative), sampling strategy , data collection and data analysis methods.

Finally, your abstract needs to discuss your key findings and the implications thereof . It should address questions such as:

• What did you find?
• Why is it important?
• What implications (and applications) are there for your findings?

The word “key” is vital here – you don’t have to discuss every finding , just the ones that are central to your research aims and research questions.

Need a helping hand?

3. Using body content verbatim

Since the abstract is a summary of your work, you’ll generally write it last (although you can of course create an outline earlier in the dissertation writing process). Because of this, there is a tendency amongst students to copy and paste content from their body chapters (e.g., the literature review chapter, methodology chapter, etc.) to create an abstract. This is problematic, as the abstract needs to be an original piece of writing , not a hodgepodge of the existing body content.

A good abstract should present a be a smooth, clear narrative of what you set out to discover (i.e., the research topic and justification), how you approached it (i.e., the methodology), and what the results were. Importantly, you need to tell an engaging story with your abstract, as that is what will attract them to read the rest of your thesis or dissertation. To achieve this, you cannot simply copy-paste content from the body section of your document. You need to craft a unique piece of content that can stand alone and engage potential readers with an enticing narrative.

All that said, when crafting your abstract, a good starting point can be to copy-paste some key insights from each chapter so that you have everything in one place. You could, for example, have a few bullet points for each chapter. However, that is purely a starting point . From there, you need to craft an original piece of writing that will form a smooth, engaging narrative.

4. Formatting and language-related issues

Another common issue we encounter is that of formatting and language -related issues in abstracts. Understandably, students are generally quite worn out by this stage of the dissertation and may slip up on the finer details. However, the abstract is your “shop window” – the first thing a new reader will encounter – so it needs to be very well polished . If you write a brilliant abstract but it’s riddled with spelling and grammar issues, you’re going to lose the reader’s interest (and, of course, marks).

So, what sort of issues do you need to avoid?

First – typically, an abstract doesn’t make use of citations , as these are reserved for the body content of the dissertation or thesis. However, you can use author names when referring to seminal work. For example, if your study is a response to prior research, you can name the researchers (but you don’t need to include a full citation). Of course, it’s worth noting that some institutions may have a different preference, so be sure to look at past dissertations and theses from your university program to gauge what the norms are.

Second – when writing up your abstract, try to avoid using excessive jargon , complex terminology and abbreviations. Always assume that you are writing for the intelligent layman . In other words, an intellectually curious outsider to your field of research. Ultimately, your abstract needs to be understandable to your audience and using excessive jargon or complex terminology may lose the reader . If you must use jargon or abbreviations to accurately represent a concept, be sure to explain each piece of terminology first.

Third – since your abstract needs to be concise, it can be tempting to write using bullet points and numbered lists. Typically, however, an abstract shouldn’t have bullet points , numbered lists, figures, or tables as it is a textual summary. So, avoid these at all costs.

Lastly – it may sound obvious, but your abstract needs to be “perfect” in terms of language use. All too often, we see spelling, punctuation, grammar and tense errors in the abstract. Since it is your “shop window”, these types of issues are inexcusable. So, be sure to carefully edit and proofread your abstract before submission.

5. Not including relevant keywords

Another common mistake that we see students make is not including relevant keywords at the end of the abstract. Sometimes the keywords aren’t relevant, and sometimes they’re just altogether absent.

But what exactly are keywords?

Keywords are what make your research discoverable in search engines and academic databases – they’re like academic hashtags that connect research and make it possible to navigate through similar studies. An example of a keyword would be something like, “cognition” or “addiction”.

Typically, keywords can be quite vague or broad , so you’ll likely need to make use of key phrases to more accurately represent your research. Key phrases consist of multiple keywords, for example, “temporal cognition” or “Dutch sentence negation”. While key phrases provide more specificity than individual keywords, never use whole sentences as key phrases, these just look bad and make your research very hard to find. Ideally, you should try to stick to key phrases of 2-3 words.

In general, you should aim for 5-6 keywords/key phrases for your research project. However, it’s always a good idea to check with your institution to find out how many keywords/phrases they prefer. While it may be tempting to go full Instagram and use every keyword you can come up with, this is not advised as this can make your research look like it lacks credibility and specificity . It can also appear that you’re trying to game the system.

To identify relevant keywords, think about the research process and the kinds of search terms you used when performing your literature review, as these terms are a good start. Further, have a look at the keywords used in previous studies (i.e., the journal articles you read as part of your literature review) to identify relevant keywords.

Recap: Abstract Mistakes

In this post, we’ve discussed 5 common mistakes to avoid when writing the abstract for your thesis or dissertation. To recap, these include:

If you have any questions about these mistakes, drop a comment below. Alternatively, if you’re interested in getting 1-on-1 help with your thesis or dissertation , be sure to check out our dissertation coaching service or book a free initial consultation with one of our friendly Grad Coaches.

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• FindAMasters
• Researching and Writing a Masters Dissertation

Written by Mark Bennett

All Masters programmes include some form of extended individual project. Research-focussed programmes, such as an MRes , may include multiple independent research components. Taught courses usually culminate with a substantial research task, referred to as the Masters dissertation or thesis.

This article talks about how long a Masters dissertation is and the structure it follows.Before you get started on your dissertation, you'll usually need to write a proposal. Read our full guide to Masters dissertation proposals for more information on what this should include!

What’s the difference between a Masters dissertation and an undergraduate dissertation?

The Masters thesis is a bridge between undergraduate study and higher level postgraduate degrees such as the PhD .

A postgraduate dissertation may not look that different to its undergraduate equivalent. You’ll likely have to produce a longer piece of work but the foundations remain the same.

After all, one of the purposes of an undergraduate dissertation or final year project is to prepare you for more in-depth research work as a postgraduate. That said, there are some important differences between the two levels.

So, how long is a Masters dissertation? A Masters dissertation will be longer than the undergraduate equivalent – usually it’ll be somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 words, but this can vary widely between courses, institutions and countries.

To answer your overall research question comprehensively, you’ll be expected to identify and examine specific areas of your topic. This can be like producing a series of shorter pieces of work, similar to those required by individual modules. However, there’s the additional requirement that they collectively support a broader set of conclusions.

This more involved Masters dissertation structure will:

• Give you the scope to investigate your subject in greater detail than is possible at undergraduate level
• Challenge you to be effective at organising your work so that its individual components function as stages in a coherent and persuasive overall argument
• Allow you to develop and hone a suitable research methodology (for example, choosing between qualitative and quantitative methods)

If the individual topics within your overall project require you to access separate sources or datasets, this may also have an impact on your research process.

As a postgraduate, you’ll be expected to establish and assert your own critical voice as a member of the academic community associated with your field .

During your Masters thesis you’ll need to show that you are not just capable of analysing and critiquing original data or primary source material. You should also demonstrate awareness of the existing body of scholarship relating to your topic .

So, if you’ll excuse the pun, a ‘Masters’ degree really is about achieving ‘mastery’ of your particular specialism and the dissertation is where you’ll demonstrate this: showing off the scholarly expertise and research skills that you’ve developed across your programme.

What’s the difference between a dissertation and a thesis?

A dissertation is a long piece of (usually) written work on the same topic. A thesis is a little more specific: it usually means something that presents an original argument based on the interpretation of data, statistics or content.

So, a thesis is almost always presented as a dissertation, but not all dissertations present a thesis.

Masters dissertation structure

As you can probably imagine, no two dissertations follow the exact same structure, especially given the differences found between Masters programmes from university to university and country to country .

That said, there are several key components that make up the structure of a typical Masters dissertation

How long is a Masters dissertation?

Most dissertations will typically be between 15,000 and 20,000 words long, although this can vary significantly depending on the nature of the programme.

You should also check with your university exactly which sections of the dissertation count towards the final word count (the abstract, bibliography and appendices won’t usually be included in the total).

Usually around 300 words long, the abstract is meant to be a concise summary of your dissertation. It should briefly cover the question(s) you aim to answer, your primary argument and your conclusion.

Introduction

The purpose of the introduction is to provide context for the rest of the dissertation, setting out your aims and the scope of what you want to achieve with your research. The introduction should give a clear overview of the dissertation’s chapters and will usually be around 1,000 words long.

Literature review

This part of the dissertation should examine the scholarship that has already been published in your field, presenting various arguments and counter-arguments while situating your own research within this wider body of work.

You should analyse and evaluate other publications and explain how your dissertation will contribute to the existing literature in your subject area. The literature review sometimes forms part of the introduction or follows immediately on from it. Most literature reviews are up to 1,000 words long.

Research methodology

Not all dissertations will require a section covering research methodology (Arts and Humanities dissertations won’t normally undertake the kind of research that involves a set methodology). However, if you are using a particular method to collect information for your dissertation, you should make sure to explain the rationale behind your choice of methodology. The word count for this part of the dissertation is usually around the 1,500 mark.

Those in the Arts and Humanities will usually outline their theoretical perspectives and approaches as part of the introduction, rather than requiring a detailed explanation of the methodology for their data collection and analysis.

Results / findings

If your research involves some form of survey or experiment, this is where you’ll present the results of your work. Depending on the nature of the study, this might be in the form of graphs, tables or charts – or even just a written description of what the research entailed and what the findings were.

This section forms the bulk of your dissertation and should be carefully structured using a series of related chapters (and sub-chapters). There should be a logical progression from one chapter to the next, with each part building on the arguments of its predecessor.

It can be helpful to think of your Masters dissertation as a series of closely interlinked essays, rather than one overwhelming paper. The size of this section will depend on the overall word count for your dissertation. However, to give you a rough idea for a 15,000-word dissertation, the discussion part will generally be about 12,000 words long.

Here you should draw together the threads of the previous discussion chapters and make your final concluding statements, drawing on evidence and arguments that you’ve already explored over the course of the dissertation. Explain the significance of your findings and point towards directions that future research could follow. This section of the Masters thesis will be around 1,500 words long.

References / bibliography

While planning and writing your dissertation, you should keep an extensive, organised record of any papers, sources or books you’ve quoted (or referred to). This will be a lot easier than leaving all of it until the end and struggling to work out where a particular quotation is from!

Appendices won’t be necessary in many dissertations, but you may need to include supplementary material to support your argument. This could be interview transcripts or questionnaires. If including such content within the body of the dissertation won’t be feasible – i.e. there wouldn’t be enough space or it would break the flow of your writing – you should consult with your supervisor and consider attaching it in an appendix.

It’s worth bearing in mind that these sections won’t always be discretely labelled in every dissertation. For example, everything up to ‘discussion’ might be covered in introductory chapter (rather than as distinct sections). If you’re unsure about the structure of your Masters dissertation, your supervisor will be able to help you map it out.

How does supervision work for a Masters dissertation?

As a Masters student at the dissertation stage you’ll usually be matched with an academic within your institution who will be tasked with guiding your work. This might be someone who has already taught you, or it may be another scholar whose research interests and expertise align well with what you want to do. You may be able to request a particular supervisor, but taught postgraduates are more likely to be assigned them by their department.

Specific arrangements with your supervisor will vary depending on your institution and subject area. They will usually meet with you at the beginning of the dissertation period to discuss your project and agree a suitable schedule for its undertaking. This timetable will probably set dates for:

• Subsequent discussions and progress checks
• The submission of draft chapters or sections
• Feedback appointments

Though your supervisor is there to help and advise you, it is important to remember that your dissertation is a personal research project with associated expectations of you as an independent scholar.

As a rule of thumb, you can expect your supervisor to read each part of your dissertation once at the draft stage and to offer feedback. Most will not have time to look at lots of subsequent revisions, but may respond favourably to polite requests for exceptions (provided their own workload permits it).

Inundating your supervisor with emails or multiple iterations of draft material is best avoided; they will have their own research to manage (as well as other supervision assignments) and will be able to offer better quality feedback if you stick to an agreed schedule.

How is a Masters dissertation assessed and examined?

On most courses your dissertation will be assessed by an external examiner (as well as additional members of faculty within your university who haven’t been responsible for supervising you), but these will read and critique the work you submit without personally questioning and testing you on it.

Though this examination process is not as challenging as the oral defence or ‘ viva voce ’ required for a PhD thesis, the grading of your Masters dissertation is still a fundamental component of your degree.

On some programmes the result awarded to a student’s dissertation may determine the upper grade-band that can be awarded to their degree.

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