How To Write A Dissertation
What is a dissertation?
To be able to write a dissertation, you first need to understand what one is...
In contrast to an essay, a dissertation is a comprehensive academic piece that sums up your university achievements and tests your writing skills. The process of writing a dissertation is both thrilling and exhausting. The very idea of a dissertation is certainly attractive to you, but when you start writing it, you face too many difficulties and do not know how to cope with them. A dissertation changes your life beyond recognition; after several weeks or months of very hard work you suddenly realise that your decision to write a dissertation was hasty and immature. But it is wrong to give way to despair and panic; there is always a solution to any problem.
Key points about writing a Dissertation
- Time allocation. Organise your time in such a way that you finish a dissertation before the deadline. Make a schedule and write down all your short-term and long-term affairs, finding the time gaps that can be used for writing a dissertation.
- Specific knowledge. If you want to produce a dissertation project of high quality, you should acquire deep knowledge of the area you are going to investigate and knowledge of the dissertation process. Peer-reviewed articles, conference proceedings, unpublished dissertations and research handbooks will be of great help to you.
- The ability to conduct a profound research. Even if you acquire specific knowledge, you may give up the idea of writing a dissertation because of your inability to handle a complex research. You should develop certain research skills to be able to delve deeply into a new research area; some of these skills are independent thinking, persistence, self-motivation, diligence and creativity.
More details on how to write a dissertation
Unquestionably, these three aspects pave the way to a successful dissertation; once you realise the subtleties of the writing process, you may start to write a dissertation. Firstly, you should choose a subject for your research; if you want your subject to be strong, you should reveal unstudied areas and evaluate them from various perspectives. However, you may also take an area of the prior study, but take a new direction to the research. As the aim of any dissertation is to fill the gaps in a particular field, it is especially crucial to focus on a subject that, on the one hand, is known to you, but, on the other hand, quite new. In view of this controversy, it is necessary to write a draft before proceeding to a dissertation; this draft is an essential tool in handling key concepts and issues of the future research.
The style and language of the draft will be simple, but as you progress with a dissertation, your writing will be more refined, clear, and, of course, academic. When the subject is approved by your supervisor and the draft is written, it is time to collect data for your research. In fact, modern students prefer to use the data taken from the Internet; although Internet resources have many benefits for those who write a dissertation, they are rather unreliable. It is better to search for data in dissertation databases or in the library archives that contain many scholarly articles. Information gathered in these resources is usually rare, concise, detailed and up-to-date. The data-gathering techniques may include surveys, questionnaires, field notes, audiotapes, test results, and case studies.
When the data collection is completed, move on to the data analysis. Reviewing the recent research, make notes of the most relevant information; ensure that different points of view are mentioned in your dissertation and all references are cited in the proper way. Once the literature review is done, you are ready to develop the theoretical basis for your research. You should devise hypotheses, research questions and methodology that have a direct relation to the studies analysed in the literature review chapter. Due to a great number of research methods, it is not easy to make the right choice. You should evaluate advantages and disadvantages of available methods and decide in favour of a definite approach. But you should understand that if you choose only one research method, your findings will be either limited or controversial. Instead of employing one method, use both quantitative and qualitative methods to acquire more accurate findings.
The further step is to turn to the practical side of your research, using the collected data to test the hypotheses. When you summarise the received findings, use tables, statistics and graphs to demonstrate independent variables. Your results may be either consistent or inconsistent with the prior research, but do not forget to give many detailed examples throughout your dissertation to back up your viewpoint. Finally, discuss the acquired evidence and give some recommendations for a future research in the conclusion chapter. It will be useful to include some appendices into your dissertation; these appendices contain additional information that can not be used in the body of your work, but may be of great interest to the dissertation committee members.
As you finish your dissertation, reread the introduction chapter and make changes. It is even recommended to write an introduction and an abstract at the end when you are well aware of all aspects of your research. A good introduction in a dissertation should present a statement of the problem and general information on the researched issue, while an abstract should provide a brief overview of your dissertation and specify the importance of the conducted research. Proofread the paper several times and submit the final version of your project to the dissertation committee.
Following the proposed guidelines, you will be able to avoid unnecessary stress and successfully complete your dissertation. If you value your time and efforts, properly organise the process of dissertation writing. Soon after the start you will find out how a dissertation destroys your former values, improves your skills and increases your consciousness. Learning to write a dissertation is an experience that you need, if you want to become an expert in your field.
