I continue to read many theses that do not have a summary written under the heading that says "Summary". Dr. MacIsaac and I both stress this ongoing problem in the Tech Writing course, we both explain what to do and what not to do, yet people are still turning in things that are not summaries. Of the theses I read, 75-85% in any given year have not got a proper summary.

The most common thing is to see a Table of Contents written in paragraph form, something like this:

"This thesis begins with an introduction to the problem. The next section contains the background, etc."

This is manifestly not a summary. The next most common thing is a more detailed explanation of what's in the document. A kind of annotated Table of Contents on steroids. But this is still not a summary. It is a description of the document components and their contents. Include that if you must, but in a different section, with an appropriate name, like Document Description (though this would not do much to enhance your thesis document). Do NOT put it in as the Summary.

Other assorted things are tossed in to the summary from time, none of which belong. Sometimes there is a statement about the thesis being partial fulfillment of degree requirements, sometimes a personal acknowledgement, sometimes a plea for the thesis because not much was accomplished, and other assorted misplaced material. None of it belongs in a summary. If you have an acknowledgement you want to write in the thesis, by all means do so, but be fearless and make an appropriate section with an appropriate heading. The document structure you are given is to offer you guidance, not to totally restrict you.( Sometimes it's okay to deviate from or add to the structure, if there is a good reason to do so.)

A summary should be a page long version of the thesis itself. A page crafted such that anyone having read it would know the essence of your thesis; what the problem was, why you're solving it (and not because it's an academic requirement), how you approached it, how and why you did what you did, what results you got, and a summary comment on the results. That's why it's called a summary. It summarizes the entire document. (Note that an abstract is something similar, but even more terse and with a bit less information. We want a summary, not an abstract.)

But please, please, please, don't hand in a thesis document that has a ToC in prose for a summary.

Sometime in the next week or two I'll put up a library reference to a thesis that has a very well written summary, in case anyone wishes to look it up and read it. It was written by a graduate of this program a few years ago.

W. E. Briggs
GC-114

This page last modified 4:08:02 PM on Thursday, February 10, 2005.