As a Dissertation Assistant or DMS, you will be tasked to draft and write the dissertation proposal. In essence, a dissertation abstract is simply a brief, but detailed, an overview of your entire work.
Remember that your reviewers will not have any idea what your study is all about, yet. You will give them specific presentation aids, such as your dissertation abstract, to help them understand the paper.
1. General Understanding Of The Topic
Before you begin writing your own dissertation abstracts, you should already have a general understanding of the topic. This will save you time when you are starting to write.
For example, if you are writing a review of an entire dissertation, it would be appropriate to have an understanding of what the topic of your dissertation is.
Reviewing such material is very common, so if you are not familiar with the topic, it will not take long for you to either research or get educated on the topic.
In most cases, your advisor will provide you with some literature to read. Then, you can incorporate this literature into your dissertation abstract.
2. Good Understanding Of The Literature
Once you have chosen your topic, you need to have a good understanding of the literature that is out there regarding that topic. Many times, students are required to read multiple works on their topic, and they must organize these works in a manner that makes sense. T
o help you get started, you should look at some dissertation abstract examples. There are many online sites that offer samples. Once you have a general understanding of the methodology behind your chosen research method, you are ready to create your own descriptive summary.
3. Organize Your Sentences
One way you can organize your sentences is to turn them into an educational game. When you are reviewing different works, you should attempt to come up with different game ideas. A few of these ideas include: Describing the procedure, describing the results, analyzing the data, etc.
Your summary should also include a list of all the specific studies that are related to your topic. You can do the following to make sure you are including all the relevant studies: Write a sentence that asks the reader to “Compare and contrast.” This question forces the reader to compare and contrast your different paragraphs, forcing them to evaluate the results of their own research.
4. Using Useful Phrases
Another way you can format your dissertation abstract is to use useful phrases that explain the main points.
For example, instead of using an explanation of the procedure, you can describe how the procedure was done. Likewise, instead of just writing down the results, you can include details about the statistical methods that were used to arrive at the results.
Using useful phrases such as “an empirical study” and “a descriptive analysis” will help make your abstract much more readable.
5. Breaking Text Into Two Sentences Or More
Another tip for formatting your dissertation abstract includes breaking it up into two sentences or more. The most common mistake students make when they are trying to format their abstract is including everything in one big paragraph. In general, a five-paragraph essay is too long for a student to read. When you break it up into two sentences, you make the paper much more readable.
6. 3 Word Limit
Besides using useful phrases in your abstract, you should also take some time to determine your word count. Usually, professors will not grade your paper unless you have at least a 3-word limit, so you need to ensure that you do not go over this word count limit.
If you know your word count, you will be able to determine how many sentences you need to write to reach your word count goal. Formatting a dissertation abstract to fit word count requirements is actually quite simple.
More Info –
If you need more help with how to format a dissertation abstract, there are plenty of websites and sources available on the web.
Even if you feel like you are a bit lost, you can still find tutorials that can help you with this. You should remember, however, that most tutorials are for new students.
As such, you should consider taking a tutor if you feel that you need extra help with your writing. It is much too late to fix mistakes once they have been made!
