Writing your Abstract
The purpose of the abstract is to introduce your topic, guide the reader and summarize the overall direction of the work.
Not everyone will read your whole senior thesis project binder. The abstract is written to summarize the highlights of your thesis. If the reader decides to read the entire thesis project binder from cover to cover, the “abstract” functions as a guide that lists the specific important points you have written about.
Your assignment is to flesh out the ‘what?’ part of your ‘what, why and how’ into a well-written abstract, where anyone who reads it will quickly be able to get the main idea of your thesis.
Method:
A research abstract would usually contain the following information:
1. Introduction: a simply worded summary that states what the project is, whom it is intended to benefit and any important details such as the location, size, etc. Keep things factual and evidence-based. The more evidence you can present that supports your goal, the stronger the abstract will be.
2. Results (unnecessary if work has yet to be carried out): Summary of findings.
3. Conclusion: (unnecessary if work has yet to be carried out) A simple sentence or paragraph that sums up what can be concluded from the findings. These relate to the results outlined in 2.
Note:
Because you are yet to carry out your work and your document is more of a proposal at this stage, lets concentrate on stage 1. Simply write out a simple explanation of what your idea is – you might touch on how you might address it and why it is important (the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ but remember that the next two assignments go into those parts in more detail. Use your previous assignment as a starting point and elaborate on the points you made there.