Writing an abstract for your study is one of the most procrastinated tasks out of all the steps of building a top-notch dissertation. What’s more problematic is the fact that an abstract is written after the completion of all the chapters in a dissertation. This means that it takes place at the end of the study thus, students who have suffered so much during the writing process feel completely saturated when the time of writing an abstract comes. However, to write a good abstract is not a big deal since there have to be certain strategies followed those if put together, could unfold riveting pieces. Do you also feel empty-minded at the time of penning a clear structured abstract? Well, if so, then just go through at the ways that are discussed in this article to gain in-depth insights into composing a perfect abstract for a dissertation.
What is an abstract and what is the need of writing it?
Writing abstracts simply means abridging the essence of your study into a concise, meaningful, and complete write-up. It has to be penned skillfully since it is the foremost text that defines the core themes of the dissertation. Abstract is the initial part of the study that is explored by the readers to extract the idea of what the whole study is about. Therefore, it should convey relevant and explicit information to the readers.
To curtail the objectives, methods, and findings of the study is the primary purpose of an abstract. The important parts that it carries are, the research question, a short description of the topic, the research methodologies employed, the findings, and the conclusion. Additionally, it showcases succinct information on the research area that you have worked on along with delivering a vibrant and understandable perspective of the entire dissertation. Moreover, since it has to be brief, the word limit usually confined for it falls under 200 to 300 words. It comes right after the acknowledgement section and before the table of contents.
How to frame pro abstracts?
The students who aim to go for sound and professional studies should take great care of composing good abstracts. Suppose it as the first impression that always leaves an unforgettable imprint in the mind of the readers and whenever they think of your topic, the whole abstract triggers their memory instantly. This way, they would never be able to forget your efforts and intellect that you have immersed in the study. However, some students still find it hard to begin with their writing process and this way they end up with poor quality abstracts. Do you want to escape weak abstracts and produce the effective ones? Certainly, you need it! Therefore, let’s drive straight to the precise ways of constructing it flawlessly.
Examine the study with keen eyes
Remember that your abstract should not contain similar content from your study. It should be 100% unique and genuine. Before writing it down, take a deep breath and dive into your study a little deeper than earlier. We know that you are the author of your study and you have all the knowledge about it, still, there is a need for reading the whole study again. One might wonder, why is that so? The purpose behind this act is to derive useful information and fresh ideas that might have not popped up in your mind before. Maybe you could come across to some innovative ways of expressing the summary of the dissertation. Along with this, when you would review your study, you would highlight the aims, research question, and conclusions more vividly. In this manner, you would gain a better understanding of how to structure the abstract.
Gather the necessary ingredients
Now that you have eyed the entire study, now you have to assemble all the important points that need to be included in the study. The points comprise the aims and research question first. Moreover, you could start the abstract with phrases like ‘The study aims to probe into...’ or ‘The study evaluates...’, etc. You could use verbs like discover, explore, investigate, analyse, etc. Apart from this, make sure that the tense you are using should be either simple present tense or past tense. The other elements include research designs, tools, and the findings that you have taken out. After that, you would insert the conclusion that you have drawn out. On the whole, research topic, aims, research methodologies, findings, and conclusion are the main parts that constitute the abstract.
Start sketching the abstract
Here the writing process comes. There are certain questions that need to be answered in the abstract and they are why, how, and what. The first purpose states why you are conducting the research, you are required to mention the problem statement here. The second one says that how you have carried out the research, you are required to tell what research methodologies you have devised here. and the last one asks what outcomes you have got after doing the research in which you are supposed to define the findings and the aftermath of the study. To sum it all up,
following are the major components that you are going to write in the abstract:
- Background (research topic, aims, brief introduction)
- Research Design (tools, paradigm, population, sample size)
- Findings (data analysis tools, results)
- Conclusion (limitations, recommendations, scope)
Certain rules to note:
- Avoid repetition and wordy ideas that sound cluttered to ears.
- Make more use of keywords that revolve around the entire study.
- Divide the text into paragraphs. Relate each para to particular theme.
- Do not include citations, graphs, tables, pictures, or abbreviations.
- Keep your text transparent, coherent, and complete.
- Revise the abstract multiple times to refine its excellence.
- Edit the writing piece and get helped by online dissertation UK for the best outcomes.