How to write an abstract?

How to write an abstract?

In earlier lessons we talked about the importance of doing research, what do you mean by research and the research proposal. In this article, I am going to explain to you how to write the abstract of your thesis. After reading this article you will be able to write a perfect abstract for your thesis. Let’s start.

First of all, you should understand what is an abstract and why is it important. Let me explain it. The abstract of your thesis can be taken as the most important part of your thesis. Because the abstract summarizes your full research and highlight the most important facts in your research. By reading this abstract the reader measure the importance of your research.

The reader’s willingness to read the whole document and unwillingness to read the whole document is basically based upon your abstract. There must not be more than three paragraphs in an abstract. It should be limited to a single paper. The highlights of your research should be mentioned very briefly. Before writing an abstract you have to write a draft. In that draft, you want to decide what to include and how to structure the abstract. The most important thing is you should have a very clear idea about your research topic. Otherwise, you are unable to understand what to include and how to structure the abstract.

Keywords are very much important when you write your abstract. These keywords show what words in your research are really important. Normally these keywords are kept under the abstract. And four or five keywords are enough for an abstract. Do not mention unnecessary details in an abstract. Do not mention references. Because you have to write this abstract alone by understanding your research very well.

How do you maximize the quality of your abstract?

First of all, you have to follow the right structure of writing abstracts. Try to cover a simple description of background information, research problems, methodology, findings and conclusion. Write at least four or five keywords. Those keywords should be chosen very carefully. Do not use “I” instead of “the researcher”. Do not use short terms.

I will show you an example below:

Research topic:

Maintenance of the status quo in South Asia: India and China soft power usage.

The abstract:

India is the largest and powerful country in the South Asian region and plays a major role in keeping diplomatic relations within the region because its culture appreciates in its immediate neighbourhood. At the same time China as a major power plays another important role in keeping diplomatic relations within the South Asian region because its foreign policy and national interest is merely focused upon peaceful rise among all regions. Therefore, these two countries use soft power tools rather than hard power tools to maintain the status quo in South Asia. Basically, the researcher is expected to find out the impact of their soft power usage on the maintenance of status quo in the South Asia. Thus, the researcher has focused to identify the national interest and soft power tools used by India and China and to determine the successes, failures and the impact of soft power usage on the maintenance of the status quo in South Asia as the objectives of this research. And the researcher plans to do a qualitative research study by collecting secondary data from books, magazines, journals, newspaper articles, videos, annual reports, surveys and researches conducted by national international institutions and online sources in the web to develop the importance of the whole analysis. Through the content analysis it can be identified that China is at first when implementing soft power tools rather than the India because all the soft power tools implements by China are very strong and attractive. At the same time there are both good and bad impact on South Asian countries. Finally, the researcher can come to a conclusion that India and China have utilized soft power tools to spread their hegemony over the South Asian region.

Keywords: Soft power, national interest, hegemony, foreign policy, status quo, diplomatic relations.

At last, I promise you that you can write an abstract perfectly after reading this article. And you will be able to win the very first step in your thesis well. In the next article, I am going to explain how to write the introduction part of your thesis. It is also very easy and I will explain it very simple step by step.