Dissertation Writing Guide - Advanced Academic Writers
A dissertation is an academic argument, a scholarly piece of writing grounded on research that a student writes for the award of a graduate or postgraduate degree. It demonstrates your proficiency in a particular subject. Writing a dissertation gives students the chance to become knowledge producers rather than consumers. Dissertation writing requires you to collect data, synthesize it and compile it academically. Depending on the academic level, dissertations usually vary in length. For master’s or MBA level, a dissertation is between 15,000 and 25,000 words, while for Ph.D. students, a dissertation is more than 50,000 words.
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All research begins with a question. Consider some of the theories and topics you are interested in or covered in your program. Are there any aspects/information you would like to know more about them?
Once you have a question, begin researching. Read as many books, journals, prior dissertations, and papers, peer-reviewed articles, etc., as you can that are related to your topic and, specifically, your question.
As you are becoming more familiar with this information, come up with your study’s or dissertation’s purpose. Once you find one, start working on your dissertation proposal. It is a 750-2,000 words long document that clearly outlines your prospective study’s aims and objectives. Think of it as a pitch to your supervisor on what your dissertation will entail. The more outstanding your proposal is, the better your dissertation will be.
Students can then hold a preliminary meeting to polish their plans and clarify the dissertation’s completion details. For doctoral students, dissertation proposal presentation is part of their qualifying exam.
You can then start working on your instrumentation, collecting data, and analyzing it. By this point, your chapter one and two should already be complete.
Each dissertation is unique; however, most share the following outline.
chapter, clearly lay out your study’s research problem and outline the study’s significance. Also, give a brief background of the study’s focus. Students are supposed to describe how their study contributes to the body of knowledge and discipline. This chapter should contain:
A brief description of the study’s area of concern: In three to four paragraphs, set the stage by giving some context and background information about its main focus.
Significance of the problem: Highlight why it is important to conduct the study. Also, highlight its significance and impact on the topic and oftentimes the general academic field.
Problem statement: What is the purpose of your study? How is it relevant to the topic and your academic field?
Research questions and hypothesis: Normally, you will have a few research questions and a hypothesis for each. These research questions should be practically testable, have a relationship between variables, and be phrased as questions.
This chapter reviews previous studies conducted and relevant to your dissertation’s topic. This does not mean that you combine what other researchers have said, instead describe these studies and analyze them to provide a theoretical background to your own study. Your goal here is to find out what is known or not known about your topic. The literature review should lead up to your research questions and hypothesis.
This chapter details the data collection methods that your study utilized and the data analysis methods applied. Indicate which method you chose and (using sources) back it up with why it is most appropriate. Also, describe the:
Research design and its internal and external validity.
Study population, and the justification of the sampling method used.
The study’s participants.
Instruments used in data collection. Also, highlight its pretesting, validity, and reliability.
This chapter contains the results of your data analysis in order of the research questions. Use your study’s research questions to organize the results. Each question should be followed by data/results that answer it. These results should be free of interpretation. Data in this section should be organized in graphs, figures, and tables.
This chapter explores the study’s results instead of just reiterating them. What do your findings mean to your topic, academic field, or even profession? Begin by summarizing your findings in non-statistical terms, and discuss them in relation to the theoretical framework presented by the literature review. Go into detail about how these findings are significant to your topic, academic field, or profession. Next, outline the study’s limitations. A limitation is a weakness that inhibits the study’s validity, for example, your sample being predominantly male. Finally, state areas or directions for future research.
List all the sources you have used in developing your dissertation. Use a consistent reference style (per your department’s standards). There are various reference styles such as Harvard referencing, Vancouver referencing, APA style, MLA style, and OSCOLA. If you are unsure of which style to use, consult your supervisor.