How to Write an Abstract for Your Final Year Project (With Example)

The abstract is the shortest part of your final year project report. It’s also the part most people will actually read: examiners, your panel, and anyone who finds your report later.

So it’s worth getting right. The good news is that most abstracts follow the same pattern.

Write it last

You can’t summarise something that isn’t finished. Write your abstract after your results and conclusion are done. If you write it first, you’ll end up rewriting it anyway.

The 5-sentence formula

Most FYP abstracts are 150 to 300 words. Think of them as five building blocks, each one or two sentences long:

1. Problem. What issue does your project deal with, and why does it matter?
2. Gap. What’s missing in current solutions?
3. Method. What did you build, test or study, and how?
4. Results. What did you find? Use a number if you have one.
5. Impact. Why do the results matter, or what could they be used for?

A full example

Here’s an abstract for an imaginary computer science FYP:

Many small shops in Pakistan still track stock on paper, which leads to frequent shortages and lost sales. Existing inventory apps are designed for large retailers and require constant internet access, making them impractical for small shopkeepers in areas with unreliable connections. This project developed an offline-first Android inventory app with Urdu and English support, barcode scanning, and automatic low-stock alerts that sync when a connection becomes available. The app was tested with 12 shopkeepers in Lahore over four weeks. Participants reported spending less time on stock checks, and recorded stock-outs fell noticeably during the trial period. The results suggest that simple, offline tools can help small retailers adopt digital inventory management, and the design could be extended to pharmacies and wholesale suppliers.

That’s around 130 words. Notice there are no citations, no abbreviations left unexplained, and no vague claims like “the app is very good”.

Mistakes supervisors flag

• Too much background. Two sentences of context is plenty. Your introduction handles the rest.
• No results. “The results are discussed in chapter 5” is not a result. Give the finding.
• Future tense. Your project is done. Use past tense for what you did: “developed”, “tested”, “found”.
• Jargon without context. Examiners from other specialisms may read it.
• Copying sentences from your introduction. The abstract should stand on its own, but in fresh wording.

Keywords

Many universities ask for three to six keywords under the abstract. Pick terms someone would actually search for: “offline inventory app”, “small retail”, “Android”, not “project” or “system”.

Getting a first draft

If you’re struggling to compress 60 pages into 200 words, paste your problem, method and key results into the AI Abstract Writer. It gives you a structured draft in seconds. Then check every claim against your actual results, swap in your real numbers, and adjust the wording so it sounds like you.

And if your department wants a longer extended abstract, the Word Count Booster can help expand points without padding them with filler.

FAQ

Should the abstract include references? Almost never.

Is the abstract the same as the executive summary? Not quite. An executive summary is longer and often includes recommendations. Check your department’s template.