Hello All,

A quickie ... what comes first - abstract or acknowledgements?

Thanks,

PS I'm social science based (if that makes a difference)

Quick answer: Acknowledgments (usuallystraight after title page). My ackn. (page 2 and 3) were 999 words long, my abstract (on page 4) was 400 words. Following abstract, starting on page 5 table of contents

Cheers o.stoll - that was a speedy response (which I'm glad for, because I'm still working now!).

I find its helpful to get 4 or 5 thesis's in pdf just for format for this sort of question.

It is worth checking with your registry if your university has a prescribed form for the physical arrangement of theses. Mine does not but we have a 'recommended' format: front cover, Title page ; abstract, acknowledgements etc. If we stray from this the sups tend to have a good moan!

Steve is right about checking with your uni - they may have a specified format

mine was:

title page
abstract
acknowledgements
contents
list of tables and figures

There can be a word limit for the abstract or other section too.

I've just been having this dilemma too - I've seen PhDs in my university either before or after the abstract, so I'm going for gut feel at the moment... which is... I haven't decided! Hmmmm. If I get better at procrastinating over this discussion... then maybe I'll run a mini survey and see what the consensus is... though probably not wise since I have to submit in 18 days... tick, tick, tick...

kronkodile is correct.

you should be able to borrow previous theses from your dept./library and see what other successful people have done.