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Your abstract should cover the main areas of your dissertation, and highlight novel methods,
interesting results and important implications.
aim/problem
motivation
methods
results
conclusions
2. Under the first heading (Aim/problem) write a sentence about your research question or problem.
What exactly were you investigating? It can be useful to give some background information about the
topic too.
3. Next, under the heading Motivation, write about why your research was important, relevant or
necessary. Why should your readers care?
4. Under the heading Methods, write about the research methods you used. Be sure to highlight any
novel or interesting methods.
5. Under the Results heading, write about what you discovered. Be specific and mention the
significance of your results if appropriate.
6. Finally, under Conclusions, write about the implications of your results, paying special attention to
why your research was important and interesting.
7. These notes will form the basis of your abstract, you just need to link it all together within your word
limit - easy!
Check your abstract with your supervisor to make sure it's written correctly for your subject.
Example
This is an abstract taken from an undergraduate microbiology project report. This student needed to
summarise a ten week research project in 300 words. We've divided the abstract into sections, so you
can see the sort of things you should be writing under each heading.
Aim/problem:
MreB is a bacterial actin homologue that is present in a number of rod-shaped bacteria. It has been
found to localise in a helical manner on the cytoplasmic side of the inner membrane, in a multimeric
complex with MreD and MreC. MreD appears to be essential for the maintenance of cell shape and its
loss causes an extreme alteration in cell morphology from rod-shaped to spherical, often followed by
cell lysis.
Motivation:
To date, the roles of the Mre proteins have only been studied in non-pathogenic bacteria. This study
looks at the effect of deletion of the mreD gene in Salmonella enterica servovar Typhimurium, a Gram-
negative rod-shaped bacterium that is a major cause of gastroenteritis.
Methods:
An insertional disruption of the mreD gene is constructed and a range of phenotypic assays are
undertaken to examine the impact of the deletion on the pathogenicity of S. typhimurium.
Results:
It is found that the disruption mutant has a spherical morphology. There is also evidence of an impact
on several virulence factors, including LPS structure, flagella expression, and oxidative stress
resistance. Fluorescence microscopy is used to demonstrate that MreD localizes around the periphery
of the cell.
Conclusions:
This study provides evidence to suggest a role for the cytoskeleton in the pathogenicity of Salmonella
which could prove useful in the search for an attenuated vaccine strain or a novel antimicrobial agent.