There are 4 major component of dissertation structure.
- Study Background and its Significance
- Components of Research Strategy
Study background and its significance
First few sentences of abstract highlight background and significance of study. As soon as you write the abstract, you come to know the significant of your study.
While explaining the significance of study, you also give the context for research, including problem, motive behind choosing that topic. While building background, you need to address these questions;
- What is the purpose of your research?
- Why did you conducted your research?
- How is the study significant?
- Why audience should care about your research or is your study interesting?
Remember to answer in few sentences but just outlining the aspects that you think are important and can catch reader’s attention.
UK Dissertation services Discussion of relative importance of methodological components depend on whether all or any of these method add any significance to the study. It include
- Broader research design such as quantitative, qualitative or mix
- Type of research design like case study, experimental research, ethnography or grounded theory
- Research methods like interviews, survey, observation, focus groups, etc.
- Analytical techniques like statistical analysis, content analysis, etc.
If your answer is YES, word count and greater focus must be dedicated for explaining the components of research strategy in abstract, otherwise you should summarize these components more concisely.
To explain your research strategy you must answer these questions;
- What research design you followed?
- What is the scope of the study?
- What research methods used?
- What were key ideas, variables and/or constructs you measured, examined, controlled and/or ignored?
- What was the unit of analysis?
- What was the sample or population?
- What analysis techniques you used for your findings?
Here words finding is used, not results to emphasize that abstract is not the chapter where you put loads of data and analysis as well. You only need to include the answer to the research hypothesis and questions.
Finally you need to address these questions in your conclusion
- What is learnt?
- What is/are the implication(s) of your findings?
- Is there any potential for generalization of the findings?
- What are the true limitations of research?
Although you need to answer all the above questions in your conclusion, remember to be more concise and answer in few lines.