WHAT IS A DISSERTATION – A GUIDE
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Many degree programs require students to submit a dissertation or thesis as part of the coursework. Learn how to do this well by paying attention to these five crucial areas.
While planning and organizing your written work as an undergraduate is vital, your comprehensive dissertation demands careful planning. You will experience a range of emotions during the process, including excitement, self-doubt, panic, and euphoria, from choosing a topic and creating a title until the moment you submit it.
The following steps should help keep you on track whether you’re preparing for your undergraduate, master’s, or Ph.D. dissertation.
What are the types of Dissertation?
The type of dissertation you write will depend on your field of study. The distinction between empirical and non-empirical dissertations is one of the key ones.
Data collection is necessary for empirical dissertations, including those written for psychology degrees. When acquiring data from the general public, this may include abiding by moral and professional standards. Laboratory work may be a major component of empirical dissertations in the natural and life sciences or may even take center stage.
Non-empirical dissertations rely on data and arguments from earlier studies. This probably entails spending a lot of time sucked up in a book! You must make sure that in this kind of a dissertation, you do more than just summarize what others have said and investigate the work’s potential applications in practice.
Competencies required
Regardless of the dissertation format and topic you choose, you will need to provide evidence of the following abilities:
- Establishing a specific study topic and question
- Finding the most pressing problems
- Finding the right sources of data
- Analyzing its authenticity and trustworthiness
- Assessing the validity of arguments on both sides of a dispute.
- Arriving at a reasonable conclusion
- analytically organizing and persuasively presenting your work’s results in the prescribed research style
STEPS ON HOW TO WRITE A DISSERTATION
Carefully select a topic for your study.
Choosing a research topic that interests you, and has relevance to your professional goals. If you want to stay motivated while writing your dissertation, choose a topic that you are interested in. Your dissertation is an opportunity to present your views and ideas, research a subject in greater depth, and consolidate past knowledge.
If you can’t think of a good topic for your dissertation, look through your course materials, academic journals, newspapers, and other media to see what’s happening in your field at the moment.
In addition, you and your supervisor can collaborate to settle on a specific emphasis or research issue, with you both benefiting from the supervisor’s familiarity with the research field, the most relevant methodologies, and the potential outcomes within the allotted time.
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Have a plan and a purpose.
You can start with a dissertation proposal once you’ve decided on a topic. It will be much simpler to write your introduction, literature review, and methodology if you can clearly show how your research area is important.
Your proposal should explain why and how you are conducting research for your dissertation. To maximize the likelihood of generating a solid and logical argument, sticking carefully to a strategy will help you stay focused without being too overambitious with your research. When you have a clear destination in mind for your thoughts, you can rest assured that you won’t stray from the topic at hand.
Keep a running log
When you’re ready to start writing, it can be helpful to set a reasonable goal for yourself, such as a thousand words per week. Get started right away and utilize the writing process to your advantage to gain a deeper understanding of the subject.
After finishing a section, make sure it covers what you intended. They should all contribute to the whole, but each in its unique way. While developing the story, writing helps you make sense of the subject at hand, and your analysis, interpretation, and focus will shift as you gain a deeper understanding of the matter. Frequently creating backups, taking research notes, and keeping a detailed list of sources are essential.
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keeping track of what you’ve been reading and where it came from will save you hours of labor later. When there are volumes stacked high and files bulging with journal articles, it can be incredibly difficult to remember where ideas came from.
Find out what is expected of you.
Students need to become well-versed in their departments’ ethics procedures, module handbooks, and referencing style guides to avoid making any avoidable blunders. Get clear on the parameters before diving into a strategy. Get the facts:
how does formal writing function in your field of study
what time and place you have to hand in your dissertation and how many words it should be.
When writing a dissertation, how should one go about organizing the material?
How many distinct kinds of primary and secondary sources are employed?
What purposes do these materials serve?
The editing process is vitally important and should not be rushed.
If you want your final product to be well-organized, consistent, and polished, editing is an absolute must. Give yourself enough time to fully interact with your work on multiple levels, including re-evaluating the overall piece’s logic, proofreading, and confirming that you’ve paid attention to details like the needed reference structure.
Make it evident to the reader that you are familiar with the contributions of the most prominent theories and studies within your field, as failure to do so may give the impression that you lack the necessary expertise on the subject.
In conclusion, the dissertation writing process can be very daunting. The majority of post-graduate students have composed some sort of seminar paper or master’s thesis. Nonetheless, a dissertation is very similar to the novel-writing process.
Perusing completed dissertations in your field will help you establish reasonable goals and get an awareness of the standards for a completed project in your academic field. Inquire with your supervisor as to whether or whether the department has any previous dissertation samples available for review.