[Grad2021] [Turnbull Zemi] About the Abstract of a Master Thesis (also Graduation Thesis)

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Hi,

I was talking to Mr. Wang and he asked about the abstract.  I realized
that you have been reading many *published* papers, so you will get a
biased idea of how to write the abstract.  Writing an abstract for a
degree thesis is rather different.

In both cases the surface purpose is the same: to attract readers.
However, there are two important differences:

- the journal article abstract has no other purpose, but the thesis
  abstract is also part of the "test" -- do you know how to do and
  report research?

- the journal article has a space constraint:  traditionally 200
  words, but now commonly only 100 words, because printing journals is
  expensive, but the thesis doesn't have such a constraint
  (technically, Shako does not accept a thesis of more than 60 pages
  but none of you will get close to that).

Practically speaking, this means that the thesis abstract can and
should be more precise, and may include whole facts that can't fit
into a journal abstract.  Some examples of single sentences:

Ms. Xu's thesis
journal style: This research measures the relationship between the
               foundation of public-private partnerships in research
               institutes and economic productivity of research, based
               on panel data of institutes and skilled labor
               concentration for Chinese provinces. [32 words]
thesis style:  This research studies the relationship between China's
               policy of encouraging foundation of academic regional
               research institutes and formation of high-technology
               industry clusters.  It uses a panel extending from 2000
               to 2020 for 30 Chinese provincial-level regions, and
               regresses the location quotient as a measure of skilled
               labor concentration on the the count of institutes and
               control variables such as per capita GDP. [61 words]

Ms. Zhou's thesis
journal style: This paper presents a model of a multisided market
               where a platform matches restaurants, diners, and
               delivery drivers to provide efficient service. [22 words]
thesis style:  This paper presents  a model of a multisided market
               where a platform matches restaurants, diners, and
               delivery drivers to provide efficient service.
               It presents the drivers as a supply curve, abstracting
               from the driver matching problem, in order to focus on
               the efficiencies derived from more reliable delivery
               times for the customers, and results-oriented
               compensation for drivers. [57 words]

In both cases I chose to expand to a second sentence, but often the
same effect can be achieved by giving a 4- or 5-word specification of
a variable ("average hours of work per week") rather than a more
generic description ("labor supply").