Writing a Structured Abstract for the Thesis By Hartley, JamesThis article presents the author's suggestions on how to improve thesis abstracts. The author describes two books on writing abstracts: (1) "Creating Effective Conference Abstracts and Posters in Biomedicine: 500 tips for Success" (Fraser, Fuller & Hutber, 2009), a compendium of clear advice--a must book to have in one's hand as one prepares a conference abstract or a poster, and (2) "Abstracts and the Writing of Abstracts" (Swales & Feak, 2009) which contains several research-based exercises on writing abstracts for journal articles in the Arts and Social Sciences. Both books extol the virtues of structured abstracts but both contain few examples. The author presents the format of a structured thesis abstract. (Contains 1 figure.)
