Easy Guide on How to Write a Dissertation Abstract
Remember when you were collecting sources for your research? Like many students, you might have relied on the abstract to gauge the relevance of a paper to your research, avoiding time wastage on irrelevant sources.
Similar to the documents you used for your research, your abstract is often used to gauge your entire paper. It is therefore vital that you hone your skills for writing a dissertation abstract to draw a large audience into reading your paper.
What is an abstract for a dissertation?
An abstract in a dissertation is a summary outlining the key points of your research. This chapter ranges between three hundred and five hundred words and covers the information entailed within your paper.
A good abstract should clarify the purpose of your paper, the importance of the research, your methodology, findings, and implications. This section should also carry your main keywords to ensure a higher ranking on search engines, making your paper more accessible to readers.
How to write a dissertation abstract
Considering the length of a dissertation, sifting the words to include in your abstract can prove a challenging task. The number of students that opt to buy dissertation abstracts online is a testament to the dread caused by this section.
Fortunately, mastery of the elements to present in your abstract can help you to overcome this confusion and to prepare a useful abstract for your readers. Some of the steps to help you in writing your dissertation include:
- Describe the importance of your paper
Your methodology should start by introducing your research questions and highlighting why the research questions are worth investigating. For this, you can highlight a problematic area that is yet to be addressed and indicate the importance of resolving this issue.
When doing this, use various tools to pique your reader’s attention, reeling them into reading your paper. Here, refrain from diving into the background of your topic and use simple language to avoid confusion.
This part should be written in the present tense without referring to the future as your study has already been conducted.
e.g., This study analyses the connection between technology integration in teaching learning and student performance.
- Outline your research methodology
Next, indicate whether your research took a qualitative or a quantitative approach, helping the reader determine the credibility of your findings. If you partook in research in your paper, clarify your data sample and highlight the methods that were used for data collection and analysis.
However, be keen to offer a summary of these processes to avoid exhausting the word count without touching on the findings of your paper. Here, avoid giving a justification for your selected methods or discussing the limitations of your approach.
Simply state the approach taken to investigate your thesis, leaving further elaboration for your methodology chapter. It’s also worth noting that this part should be written in the past tense as it outlines
e.g., Structured experiments were conducted with three classes of average performers
- Highlight your key findings
Next, summarize your key results with your focus set to answer your major research questions. Here, limit your discussion to the definitive findings of your paper that help the reader to understand your conclusions.
e.g., our study shows a performance improvement when eclectic study approaches are applied with the aid of various programs.
- Tackle the implications of your work
Finally, show how your work has added further to the knowledge in your field of study. you can also touch on the main limitations of your study, helping the reader gauge the relevance of your paper to their needs.
e.g., this research thus indicates a correlation between tech application in teaching-learning and improved performance. Therefore, tech should be integrated into education to improve the interaction between teachers and learners and also to promote better performance.
Tips for writing dissertation abstracts
- Keep your abstract short by covering relevant information in each sentence you write in the abstract.
- Seek editing assistance to correct the information contained in your paper and to restructure your abstract to carry information that is only relevant to your study.
- Cover a list of all keywords that are relevant to your topic making for easy ranking on search engines.
- Ensure that you read a dissertation abstract example to better familiarize yourself with the tone and structure of an abstract, avoiding confusion in the latter writing stages.
