Want a PERFECT Abstract? Watch This Now
Dr. Steve Tippins explains how to write a dissertation abstract that works. Over 90% of readers only see the abstract, so it must clearly state your research problem, methods, findings, and why it matters, all in one page. Common mistakes like vague language, too much detail, or missing relevance statements cause institutional rejections.
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Congratulations, you've finished your dissertation. But now they're saying you got one more little step. You got to write an abstract. This is not an afterthought, okay? Don't treat it that way. Your abstract is what sells your document to a lot of people. Because you've been a scholar, you've looked at a lot of articles and dissertations. What are you looking at? First, it's the abstract. Is there information in there? Over 90% of people are only going to read your abstract. So make sure your abstract is a great marketing piece for what you've done. And a hint. If employers you're going for a job and they're looking at your research, they're going to start with the abstract. And if the abstract is meandering and is four or five pages, you've lost them. I'm Dr. Steve Tippins, and I've been a professor for over 35 years, and I've sat on over 300 dissertation committees from the beginning to the end, even including the abstract. Today, I'm going to show you what needs to be in an abstraction, what doesn't need to be in an abstract, and how to write an abstract that will help you get finished. One of the first things you want to think about when you're writing your abstract is your university may have a page length, typically no more than a page. They may have a word count. And that's going to be important because someone's going to review it and look at the word count. Now, interestingly, I know of an institution that years ago had a word count. Your abstract may not be more than, and I think it was 230 words. And then they provide an example. The really interesting thing was their example was 243 words. So the idea, though, is not so much the word count, it's be concise and get across what's supposed to be gotten across. Your abstract is not your entire dissertation. It sells your research, it sells what you've done and is a hook to allow people a gateway into reading all of what you've done. And that's what your abstract can do for you. Don't think of it as a, you know, mini chapter one. Don't think of it as a mini proposal. It's an overview of what you did. That's what the abstract is. So you're going to look at what you studied, why it mattered, what you found and what it means, all within the confines of one page. So, yes, you're going to have to be concise and efficient with your wording so what has to be in your abstract? And this is a pretty long list for thinking about how short this has to be. What, what's the topic or what was the problem? The problem that was studied here was the impact of sunspots on stock prices. Okay, so I've said that's the topic or that's the problem. What does it matter? Well, sunspots have been shown to impact many areas. What method did you use? This quantitative longitudinal study. So it's quantitative and it was over time explored sunspot activity and then returns in the stock market. I've told the reader, here's what I did. Now, who are the participants? Well, in this case, it was the stock market. If it's a qualitative study, I might be looking at teachers not with sunspots, but, you know, teachers perceptions of changes in methodology of teaching Spanish. So I've said what I was going to study. I looked at 14. I did a qualitative case study with 14 teachers, again telling them who was involved, what I studied. What did I find? Well, I found that sunspots were strongly related to stock prices. Or I found that teachers said that these were the important themes that developed about changing teaching methods. What does it matter? Well, this is important because this can help investors talking about sunspots or administrators who are thinking about changing curriculum. And now I've given a very concise and brief synopsis of what's in there. Now, readers who are interested are going to go deeper to find out a lot more about what and how you did things. Some mistakes that happen in abstracts, it's too long. Your committee may not be that interested in the length of your abstract, but somebody at the university is, and they're going to. When I wrote my dissertation 100 years ago, you turned in your document, hard copy, and it went to somebody on campus, I don't know who it was. And they had a cutout that they put over every single page, including the abstract. And if the cutout, if your text fit within the cutout, it was fine. But if your abstract went too long for the abstract cutout, boom, they sent it back to you. If it went too wide for the cutout, they sent it back to you. So you really want to understand and comply with the rules because they're serious about these rules. Abstracts that are vague, you know, results were discussed in chapter four. Well, that doesn't tell me anything. It doesn't help me. Also, abstracts that go on and on and on about data, results, first of all, use up too much room and you get bogged down in the results there too. It's a hook to get people, a selling tool to get people into your document. And finally make sure you say why this matters. And there are some schools that say in your abstract must provide certain things that go along with their school's mission. So make sure that's in there because if it's not in there again, it gets sent back. And every time things get sent back, you're losing time. And potentially if you get sent back at the end of a term, you may need to go into a new term, which means more money. Now I've given you a long list of what needs to be in an abstract. That means you've got to be really careful with your wording. Yes, put your problem statement in there, but you don't need to list it five times. Don't expand upon it. Be very concise. I've heard people say every word has to earn its way in there. So you want to make sure that the words count. Again, going back to that school that said no more than 230 words, every word is important. So you're going to Wordsmith. Many times I recommend to people write the abstract and then look at it with the requirements more tightly. Oh well, it says I can only have 230 words or it can only be a page. Now I can start compressing. And you can't use tricks like I'm going to change the font or I'm going to change the spacing or things like that. You know, those were tricks that, you know, we all thought were really cool. Tricks that nobody else knew about, but everybody knew about, especially your professor. And the university is going to say, look, it's got to be a 12 point font and it's got to be Times New Roman or whatever it is. They've dictated that for you. So that trick is gone. You can't use it. There's one technique that people say is a good one and that's read out loud. Read this out loud and you know, read it. Or have someone else read it who didn't have anything to do with the study to see if they understand what you did and what you found. Those can be key things. And a family member, you're not going to ask them to read. Well, you may ask them, but they're not going to read your 120 page document. But a one page, you can get them to do that. The more concise things are, the easier it is for people to understand what's going on. This is not a place to impress people or show them how smart you are. It's a place to hook them, to get them interested in what you're doing. And if they're interested, they're going to go further. The formatting of an abstract. This is one of the few places where I see in my most styles that there's no indentation. You just start many times. Also, abstracts are single spaced, even though the rest of the document is required usually to be double spaced. Some schools say it's okay to include a citation, but most say don't include citations. Now, you don't write an abstract at the beginning of your research, even though some people say in your proposal you have to have an abstract. But it's kind of hard because you haven't finished anything. But you have. You're writing your abstract at the end, so your abstract needs to be in past tense. This was found. This is what I did. It's an abstract of what you found and what you've done. If there is a rubric again, rubrics are there for consistency sake, for your institution, and they're there to be followed. I've seen several students over the years who've said, no, that's not right, I'm going to do it this way, because that's better. And in their mind it may be better. In the institution's mind, it's not better. Getting to the abstract stage means you're finished, you've done everything except there's one little thing. And I know you're tired and I know you've put so much into it and you may even be sick of the topic, but it's a difference between crossing the finish line or falling down a foot and a half from the finish line. Get back up, write that abstract, cross the finish line, and wear your doctorate with honor. 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