Shorten your dissertation abstract
Short abstracts are often more impactful and engaging. Below are some tips to write a short and effective abstract.
1. Use Active instead of passive sentences
By using passive sentences you might make the abstract lengthy and it will look less impactful. Change those into active sentences and you can easily shorten the length of the sentences.
To change a sentence into active from passive. Identify the subject in the sentence, rewrite the sentence where the subject is doing the action.
For example-
| Passive | Active |
| A Survey was conducted by the students | Students conducted the survey |
| The project was appreciated by the professor | The Professor appreciated the project |
2. Use verb style
Using verb style makes your sentence short and precise. If you use noun style in your sentences it will make them longer and less impactful.
For example-
|
Noun style |
Verb style |
|
People should reduce their use of private transport to commute |
People should use public transportation |
|
This method has led to an improvement of the stray dogs’ situation |
This method has improved stray dogs’ situation |
|
it is the outcome that supported the theories. |
Outcome supported the theories. |
3. Use short sentences
Students often use unneeded and excess words to write a sentence. By avoiding such words you can easily reduce the length of your sentences in an abstract.
For example-
| Unneeded words | Impactful word |
| As an outcome of the fact that | Because |
| Collecting and building all of them | assemble |
| Asking and working simultaneously | Coordinating |
4. Use a noun with a pronoun
Using nouns with pronouns and joining two-sentence can reduce the size of the sentence. Students often repeat words in a sentence without knowing it which makes the sentences longer and less impactful.
For example-
| Less impact and longer | More impact and shorter |
| As an outcome of the study, on the basis of the research, it means that | The study shows that |
| The problem is that many people do not know about the schemes of the government and are not able to take advantage of the schemes | The problem is that people are unaware of the government’s scheme and unable to take advantage |
5. Don’t write a details description
As we discussed in Writing a Shortening dissertation abstract with steps section that abstract is all about a brief and short summary of your dissertation. So, avoid writing all details in the abstracts and be quick and brief.
For example-
| Less effective and longer | More effective and shorter |
| The water gets clogged on the roads during the heavy rainfall. Which disturbs the vehicle moving on the road | The traffic is disturbed due to clogged water in the monsoon season |
| Alex and sons Ltd, a company founded by Mr Alex in the year of 1970 produces sustainable paper bags for the people to carry their grocery and household items | Alex and sons Ltd produces sustainable paper bags to carry items |
6.Include only what’s important
We have written a detailed and simplified article on writing a dissertation abstract which will help you to write better and shorter abstracts.
