PhD Dissertation Abstract

An abstract is the brief summary of your PhD dissertation and it should ascertain the purpose of your dissertation to the readers. An abstract is usually written at the beginning of your dissertation. One can use it as an overview of the dissertation. An abstract provides a clear idea to the readers that what you have presented in your PhD dissertation. It is helpful for the readers to get an idea about the purpose of a dissertation. After reading an abstract, the readers can also get an idea either this dissertation is worthy to read for them or not.

Some essential tips to write a PhD dissertation abstract are given below;

1) Start by writing the full citation for the dissertation

The full citation of your dissertation should be placed before the abstract. In the full citation, there comes your name, full name of the dissertation title and complete information about the publication. The main aim of providing full citation is that the readers can get an idea about yourself, your dissertation problem and authentication of your dissertation.

2) Write the condensed version of your thesis at the beginning of the abstract

To write a dissertation, you will have to formulate a thesis statement. A thesis statement consists of two or three arguments relevant to the main problem of your dissertation. As we have discussed earlier that a dissertation provides an overview of your dissertation, therefore, you should begin your abstract by writing the condensed version of your thesis.

3) Write in the sentences from your outline

As we know that a dissertation is a lengthy piece of writing and it is divided into different sections. While writing the abstract of a dissertation, you just need to collect at least one main sentence from each section of your dissertation. After collecting these sentences, you should shape these sentences in the form of a paragraph. These sentences should be placed in order, so that, the readers find it easy to read the abstract of a dissertation fluently. You should also make sure that you have also added a sentence from the concluding paragraph of your dissertation.

4) Add transitions

Most of the students just try to copy these sentences from different sections of the dissertation and they try to paste these sentences in the abstract. These stand-alone sentences are not helpful for us to make sense of the abstract. In other words, the readers are not able to understand the main theme of the dissertation. In order to make sense of the abstract, it is necessary for the students to join these sentences by adding some transitions. While writing an abstract, you should make sure that you are summarizing the main arguments of your dissertation rather than your own thoughts.

5) Make sure to include specific information

There is also some specific information about each discipline. This specific information of your discipline should also be included in the dissertation. For example, if you are writing an abstract of a library science dissertation, you will have to provide necessary information about the research methods that you have adapted to gather the data for your dissertation. On the other hand, if you are writing an abstract of a psychology dissertation, you will have to explain the way that you have adopted to conduct your study.

6) Edit your abstract

After writing the abstract, it is also necessary for you to cut it down and try to make it short and concise. An abstract should not exceed from 100 to 300 words. If your abstract is longer, you should try to cut all the unnecessary sentences. If you feel that these sentences are necessary to write in the abstract, you should try to make these sentences as concise as possible. In the abstract of your dissertation, you just need to add such information in a concise way that is already added in the dissertation. There is no need to add any new idea in the abstract of your dissertation.

7) Keep the readers in mind

No doubt, the main aim to write an abstract is to provide an idea about the key points and key ideas of your dissertation. Therefore, you should try to add these key ideas and key points in such a way that your abstract should be interesting rather than overwhelming for the readers.

Conclusion

An abstract is a brief summary of your dissertation. In the abstract of your dissertation, you should write all the key points and key ideas of your dissertation. These key points and key ideas should be written in a concise way and you should make sure that an abstract of a dissertation should be in between 100 to 300 words. There is no need to add any new idea in the abstract of a dissertation.