Thesis Abstract Word Limits at Canadian Universities

The abstract is the shortest part of your thesis and the most likely to be sent back. Graduate offices check it because it is mechanically verifiable: a reviewer counts the words, looks for a table that should not be there, and confirms the second-language version exists. This page collects the published abstract limits at 53 Canadian universities, verified against official documents, with a link to the source for every row.

Short answer

Most Canadian universities converge on 150 words for a master’s abstract and 350 words for a doctoral one. That pair is the reference point everyone quotes, and it is real: it comes from the deposit requirements of Library and Archives Canada, which every Canadian thesis eventually reaches.

But “most” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Of the 53 institutions in the table below, 10 apply exactly 150 / 350: University of Toronto, Western, Toronto Metropolitan, Carleton, Guelph, York, Ontario Tech, Laurentian, Trent and Simon Fraser. All but Simon Fraser are in Ontario.

Everyone else diverges. Some use a single cap at both levels (Queen’s, Brock, Bishop’s at 350; McMaster at 300). Some count pages instead of words (Windsor, OCAD U, Nipissing, Polytechnique). Quebec universities generally allow longer abstracts and set a range rather than a ceiling, often 150 to 250 words for a mémoire and 350 to 500 for a thèse. And 13 institutions publish no length at all, usually because the rule is delegated to the faculty or the program.

The practical consequence: do not reuse a number you heard from a colleague at another university.

Master table

Limits are per abstract. “Not published” means the official documents we verified state no university-wide length.

Counts: 53 institutions, 13 with no published abstract length, 10 on the exact 150 / 350 pattern.

Notable exceptions

uOttawa is 150 / 300, not 150 / 350. The doctoral cap is 50 words lower than the Ontario norm, and both abstracts (English and French) are mandatory whatever the language of the thesis. The only exemptions are English Literature and Lettres françaises.

McMaster runs two abstracts. A 300-word abstract at both levels, plus a mandatory lay abstract of 150 words maximum on its own page. A COVID-impact statement of 300 words and a three-minute multimedia abstract are optional.

Queen’s uses one cap for everyone. 350 words for a master’s thesis and for a doctoral one, plus an optional lay abstract of 350 words.

Windsor counts pages. One page for a master’s thesis or major paper, two pages for a doctoral dissertation. There is no word count to hit, which changes how you edit: font, spacing and margins now affect whether you comply.

McGill counts characters. 4,000 characters per abstract, text only, and both an English and a French abstract in every thesis regardless of the language it is written in. Students who count words here will overshoot or undershoot badly.

UdeM, Polytechnique and INRS require a second-language abstract. At Université de Montréal the English abstract and English keywords are a separate line on the verification checklist. At Polytechnique the English abstract is mandatory for a mémoire and a thèse. At INRS you owe a French résumé, an English abstract, and, if you wrote in English, a substantial French recap summary that is not the résumé.

What counts and what does not

Two universities say explicitly what is outside the count. The University of Toronto excludes the required heading block (title, name, degree, year, department, university), and Toronto Metropolitan excludes the same heading information. Everywhere else, assume the cap applies to the body text of the abstract and nothing else.

Keywords are the usual grey zone. Western, Ontario Tech, Laurentian, Brock and Trent all require a keyword list at the end of the abstract, and none of them says whether it counts. Treat it as outside the cap but keep a margin. Bishop’s is the opposite case and forbids keywords in the abstract entirely.

What is almost universally banned: graphs, charts, tables, illustrations, chemical formulae and mathematical expressions. Brock, Ontario Tech, Laurentian, OCAD U, RMC, INRS and McGill all say so in writing. OCAD U goes further and bans references and citations too.

Lay abstracts and second-language abstracts

A lay abstract is a plain-language summary aimed at a reader outside your field. Only four institutions in this table address one: McMaster requires it (150 words maximum, page iii), UBC requires a lay summary of 150 words maximum, Queen’s allows it as an option (350 words), and Université de Montréal allows an optional plain-language summary of 500 words at the doctoral level.

Second-language abstracts are far more common, and they are the single most missed requirement in Canadian thesis deposits. Ten institutions here require one: McGill, uOttawa, Saint Paul (civil theses), RMC, Université de Montréal, Polytechnique, HEC Montréal (thesis), INRS, ENAP and Université Laval (doctoral). Note that requiring one is not the same as requiring both directions. Laurentian, for instance, uses a French résumé for a French thesis and an English abstract for an English one, with no dual requirement.

Abstract layout constraints

Length is not the only rule attached to the abstract. Line spacing is frequently specified separately: the University of Toronto, Toronto Metropolitan, Brock and Trent all require the abstract to be double-spaced even where the body may be 1.5, while Western requires the abstract to match the body spacing exactly.

Position in the front matter is checked too. At the University of Toronto the abstract begins at page ii, at Concordia it is page iii, at McMaster it sits at page iv behind the descriptive note and the lay abstract, and at Windsor physical numbering starts at the declaration (iii) with the abstract at iv. McGill is the outlier that surprises people most: its Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies office places the table of contents before the abstracts, not after.

Several universities also cap the abstract at a single physical page on top of the word count, notably Ontario Tech and OCAD U.

Check before you deposit

Three questions, in this order. What is my institution’s cap, in words or characters or pages ? Do I owe a second abstract in another language, or a lay abstract ? And does my abstract contain anything on the banned list (a table, a formula, a citation, a keyword line I was not asked for) ?

If your university is one of the thirteen with no published length, ask your faculty or program committee in writing and keep the answer. A delegated rule is still a rule, and it is still checked at deposit.

Sources: U of T SGS formatting, Western Senate thesis procedures, uOttawa monograph components, Queen’s Standards for Graduate Theses, McMaster SGS Preparation Guide, Windsor thesis format checklist, McGill GPS preparation, UdeM Guide des mémoires et des thèses, Concordia Thesis Preparation Guide, INRS guide ST 2025, plus the official source linked in every table row. Knowledge base verification dates: Ontario 2026-07-02, Montreal area 2026-08, British Columbia 2026-09-03. Last verified: 2026-09-03.

Coverage note: the eleven British Columbia institutions were verified against their official pages on 2026-09-03. Vancouver Island University publishes no abstract length at all, and Royal Roads publishes its doctoral handbooks behind a login, so both are recorded as not published rather than guessed.