A Study On The Writing Format And Abstract Structure Of Dissertation Written By Ph.D Students Of State Universities In Indonesia.

Abstract

Abstract is the summerized form of writing usually taken from the research result and it is usually put at the beginning of the paper. As one of the most important parts in one article or paper dealing with the research result, an abstract should be written as well as possible to make it easy to be be understandable. Besides, an abstract should also cover all parts and activities that have been conducted by the researcher. Koopman (1997: 1) and Owen D Williamson (2007: 3) said that one of the criteria of good abstract is that it should have the complete abstract structure: introduction, objective or aim, methodology, findings/results & discussion, and Conclusion written within 5 (five) paragraphs. In fact, not all abstracts written by Ph.D students have those 5 (five) aspects and format.

Based on the problem stated above, this research is aimed at finding and describing the writing format and variations of abstract structure written by Ph.D students of State Universities in Surabaya.

Meanwhile, the methodology employed  in this research was descriptive qualitative. The data were taken from 15 dissertation abstracts written by Ph.D Students (8 abstracts from the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Planning/FTSP-ITS and the 7 others were from Medical Science of Airlangga University Surabaya). The data collected were the writing format dealing with the number of paragraphs of each abstract and its abstract structure.

Moreover, having been analyzed and discussed, among those 15 (fifteen) abstract texts, it was found that the writing format and its variations of abstract structure of dissertation was: [a] in accordance with the number of paragraphs: 6 (six) texts (40%) written in 3 paragraphs, 4 (four) texts (26,66%) written in 5 paragraphs, 3 (three) texts (20%) written in 4 paragraphs, 2 (two) texts (13,33%) written in 1 paragraph; [b] Meanwhile in accordance with the number of abstract structures: most of the abstracts: 9 (nine) texts (60%) were not completed with ‘conclusion‘, 5 (five) texts (33,33%) with no ‘objective‘, only 4 (four) texts (26,66%) were completed with the 5 (five) abstract structure, 4 (four) texts (26,66%) were not supported with the 2 (two) abstract structure: ‘objective and conclusion‘ and 1 (one) text (6,66%) did not have an ‘introduction‘. 

Finally, it could be concluded that there were some variations dealing with the writing format of dissertation abstracts both in accordance with the number of paragraphs and and its abstract stucture.