i wanted to give my thesis proposal abstract a listing in the table of contents, but i didnât want to give it an explicit chapter number. to achieve this, i prefaced by abstract with: \addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{\protect\numberline{}Abstract}. wanted to give my thesis proposal abstract a listing in the table of contents, but i didnât want to give it an explicit chapter number. to achieve this, i prefaced by abstract with: \addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{\protect\numberline{}Abstract}.