How To Write A Dissertation

You must have received a dissertation assignment and are wondering how to get started with it. You must be feeling blank due to a lack of ideas and concepts regarding the subject matter assigned. Do not worry anymore; just continue reading to get started with the dissertation process. 

What is a Dissertation?

To start a dissertation, you must first understand its purpose. Moreover, you must be able to understand what new views and ideas you can impart through your dissertation and how they will help your readers. A dissertation comprises an academic writing piece based on your research. To write a unique piece of dissertation, you must first apply different kinds of research processes that would answer your existing research question. Your dissertation can counter a viewpoint that many believe, according to existing research.

Moreover, you should begin writing your dissertation once your dissertation proposal has received approval from your supervisor. Then, after you finish the research process and the research methodology, you must assess your work. Consequently, you must obtain insights of your own and provide a conclusion explaining your findings. 

How to Structure a Dissertation?

To arrange your ideas and write a unique dissertation piece, first, you need to come up with an innovative dissertation topic. To do this, you must first conduct preliminary research that provides answers to your research questions. In this phase, you must be able to imagine how your dissertation should be designed and what vital concepts you should include. Consequently, you should be able to identify what observations other researchers have obtained on the same topic by conducting a literature review. 

In the third place, you should decide on which research methodology suits your work the best. The research methodology might be the quantitative method, mixed approach, or qualitative method which you wish to execute in your research design. 

Finally you must mention your observations with reasons to justify them in the concluding paragraph. If you want to write a dissertation, follow its relevant structure. Stated below is a step-by-step guide to writing a dissertation structure to start with your research topic.

Title page

Your title page should not be too long or too descriptive. It should unusually contain your project title. Moreover, it should comprise your complete name, your department name, and the name of your university. You should also mention the degree you have written the dissertation for, the month and year of your final dissertation submission, and the name of your supervisor.  

Acknowledgments

In this section, you usually express your thanks and gratitude to the people who have helped you on your research journey. Though this section is optional, it is important since it creates an impression in the minds of your professors and supervisors and is, hence, a good practice in academic discipline. 

It’s natural to convey your thanks to your professors, academicians, or supervisors who have helped you. You can also convey your heartfelt thanks to your friends and family. You should keep this paragraph short to help your readers keep their eyes glued to your dissertation.

Executive Summary

Your executive summary usually comprises your abstract, which provides you with a wider image of your research project. You must be able to understand the observations you make while trying to find an answer to every research question you encounter.

In the abstract, you must mention your goals and objectives related to the research questions you wish to answer. Then, you must specify the research methodology you may use. It may comprise a methodology that aims to find answers to your research questions. 

In the third stage, to write a dissertation, you need to understand the insights obtained in the context of your research. In the final stage of your summary writing process, you should be able to interpret the meanings of the findings derived. Here, you must be able to understand the in-depth answers to your research questions.

Table of Contents

You must create a table of contents that should provide your readers with a brief idea of the list of chapters that you cover in your dissertation. To create a table of contents for your dissertation, you can utilize the functional features of Microsoft Word’s automatic table of contents creator.

Introduction Chapter Titles

In this chapter of your dissertation, you should provide a summary of what new concepts you are going to introduce to your readers in this thesis paper. Here, you are going to introduce your readers to what you wish to discuss with them in your dissertation and why these facts are important for your dissertation. This is the section where you discuss what research methodology you will use in this dissertation. This chapter will mostly provide your readers with background information.

Literature Review

In this section, you are going to research journal articles and better-quality publications associated with the industry that try to analyze the theories regarding the topic. These theories may be propounded by relevant authors. In the next stage, you can discuss the gap that may be existing in the theory and the reason behind the gap. Thirdly, you need to generalize your observations that counter the theory of a specific author and provide reasons to justify it. Finally, you need to explain the authenticity of the insights derived by you. In the end, you need to express how you arrived at your conclusions from the previous findings.

Research Methodology Chapter

In this section, you need to explain the research methodology that you have chosen for your dissertation and the reason why you have chosen it for the purpose of your dissertation defense. The methodology chapter describes your aptitude for research.

Results Chapter

If you use a quantitative methodology for research, then you should present your objective findings achieved in the report and then interpret your observations of the objective data. These observations intend to derive answers to specific questions, themes, or hypotheses. In this section of your dissertation, you are supposed to arrive at qualitative findings from your quantitative observations. This data helps you to arrive at certain conclusions regarding your research. 

Discussion Chapter

In this chapter, you must discuss the relationship between different variables and explain how they answer the questions stated in your research proposal. You can also go on to explain the reasons why such associations help you arrive at certain insights regarding the thesis statement.

Conclusion

Here, you must discuss the relation between the thesis statement you proposed and the answers you have arrived at. You can discuss a summary of all the chapters you have covered in your dissertation and the findings you have arrived at.

Dissertation Format & Template

While starting to write your dissertation, you must adhere to the template for the dissertation format and follow the formatting rules as an academic practice. Stated below is a perfect dissertation layout and formatting guidelines you must follow for your academic work, as stated in any dissertation preparation handbook.

Dissertation Language

You must use a formal tone while practicing academic writing. Moreover, you must avoid the usage of colloquial language or contractions in your academic writing. Colloquial language usually comprises informal expressions in contrast to formal expressions. 

Length

Your dissertations should be 300–1000 pages long. In the case of long dissertations, you should divide them into subsections, sections, and many chapters.

Text and Page Requirements

The size of your page should be 8.5*11 inches in total for your page. The length of your margins should be 1 inch. Your text should contain double spacing. With the domain of entry of each of your blocks containing quotations, bibliographies, and footnotes, they should all comprise single spacing.

You should use single spacing for long tables, lists of illustrative figures, lists of tables, and for your table of contents.

Moreover, the size of your fonts should be 10-12, and the file should be in PDF format.

Body of Tables, Figures, Captions, and Text

You should incorporate headings at the top of the tables. You must also provide a caption for the figures according to the manual of style mentioned to you. The captions should occupy the center space in the horizontal and vertical style as specified.

Pagination

You should incorporate a page number for every page and use Roman numerals for preface, graphs, tables, and illustrations. Every page must contain an image or text. You should arrange the page numbers in order in your table of contents, bibliography, suffixes, illustrations, and graphs. You must ascribe a page number to every chapter in your heading.

Copyright Statement

In your copyright statement, with the copyright symbol, your claim of your first publication, and through citing your name, you would be owning complete ownership rights of your creative work. In this way, you would be providing a license for your work.

Abstract

In this section, you should state the research question. You should explain your research proposal and methodology in detail, introduce the outcome you have derived, and state your final observations. There is no stipulated word count for this section. It should be formatted with double-spacing, indented on the first line of your paragraph, and contain a left-justified alignment.

How to Write a Dissertation Step-By-Step? Writing Tips with Examples

If you are aiming to earn a doctoral degree for various doctoral programs available, then you must be a pro at writing good dissertations. Stated below is a step-by-step dissertation writing guide, as explained in any thesis composition guide.

Decide a Research Topic

You must be well aware of the available work of research in your field. Not only that, you must also be able to detect any research gaps that may occur in literature reviews and the questions for which no answer is found. After being able to identify a few areas providing a wider scope for research and questions, find out what resources you can aptly apply in your answers. You have a scope to choose from a wide range of online dissertation topics available. Some trending topics to choose from nowadays are fashion dissertation topics and political science research topics that would make your dissertation better.   

Conduct Preliminary Research

You can conduct preliminary research to find out what should be the answers to a specific research topic or questions on research. You need to take down lots of notes, identify the areas that require research, and increase your volume of research in that field.

Write a Proposal for Research

After referring to secondary literature material like articles, books, and other scholarly works, you should begin with the process of writing a research proposal. In your research proposal, you should discuss the secondary literature materials, the research methodology adopted, and the research topic decided by you.

Research Intensely

You must go thoroughly through the secondary literature materials. In the case of computer programs, you must understand the complicated sets of data associated with machine learning. In the subjects like English, you can refer to sample unpublished work of poets or authors. In In psychology subjects, you must conduct a design to study the stressful behavior in individuals and assess their intensity. You can also measure student performance in the field of education.

Write Down Your Body Chapters

You can arrange your dissertation using the academic paper crafting manual while structuring the chapters containing research methodology, literature review, and results according to some disciplines.

However, according to other research project structure assistance styles, you can structure your dissertation in the form of a whole argument. Then, you can start writing the main body by describing the research process you have adopted and discussing the inner meaning of the outcome derived.

Write an Introduction and a Conclusion

You should begin your introduction with a summary of the research aims, the research approach, and the research outcome that you may derive. Your concluding paragraph should contain what you have portrayed in your dissertation and how you think it will help in future research in the specified field.

Modify Your Writing Draft

While editing your dissertation, you should break it down into chapters and make sure that there are no spelling mistakes or grammatical errors. You should modify the weak areas of your argument and avoid repetition.

Receive Feedback

You must derive feedback from your committee members and advisors. However, you must also elicit feedback from other readers who may mention confusing sections to you and provide suggestions. You must incorporate all the changes you come to know about your writing which will make your dissertation a great one.

What is the Average Word Count for a Dissertation?

A dissertation for graduate education students should be 8,000-15,000 words. Moreover, a dissertation for university students should be 12,000-50,000 words. For writing a Ph.D. thesis dissertation, you should write it in 70,000-1,00,000 words.

Conclusion

Thus, with all the dissertation writing tips and tricks, you are surely going to receive a wonderful grade in your college, university, or high school.

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FAQs

What is a dissertation, and why is it important?

A dissertation is a long form of academic writing that explores original research. You can use a dissertation to provide specialized knowledge regarding a particular subject.

It is an important form of writing, since you can earn a Ph.D. and Master’s degree only if you make a final submission. This form of writing is also needed nowadays if you desire a Bachelor’s degree as well.

What are the key components of a dissertation?

The main components of a dissertation are its title page, introduction, conclusion, bibliography, and headings in the main body. The introduction consists of a summary of the thesis statement on the topic mentioned in the dissertation, a brief description of what the main argument answers and specifications of the results. A dissertation also comprises a reference list with all the works cited by specific authors.

How do I choose a suitable topic for my dissertation?

You must choose a topic for your dissertation that you are passionate about and find interesting. Secondly, you must choose a unique topic that others may choose for their dissertation very rarely. Thirdly, you should be clear while choosing your topic and should not choose an abstract or ambiguous topic. Finally, you must choose a topic with a broader scope, and that should provide you with accurate results from the observations gained as a part of your answer.

What is the structure of a typical dissertation?

Your dissertation should contain a title page, a page for acknowledgment, a research methodology section, a results section, a separate section for discussion, and a conclusion section. In the end, the dissertation should have a reference list and a list of appendices as per the academic norm for the scholarly writing roadmap.

How do I conduct research for my dissertation?

Conduct a primary research and secondary research for your dissertation. In primary research, you can use a normative approach in data collection to investigate moral issues with your topic. Then you can utilize measurement approach and pilot questionnaires for conducting sample group experiments.

Moreover, you can also use secondary research to design your own research proposal that can be broken up into many questions that answer your doubts. Finally, you can refer to other resources to identify and bridge any existing research gap. 

What are the different methodologies used in dissertation research?

There are three types of research methodology quantitative, mixed methodology, and qualitative methodology. You can utilize data types like statistical data, analysis of discourse data, and content analysis as a part of quantitative and qualitative data analysis. As a part of the mixed methodology, you can utilize sampling research design where you can apply qualitative inferances on quantitative data and their observations.

How do I organize my dissertation effectively?

Your dissertation should have a topic that interests you genuinely. It should have a literature review. You should be able to think critically, and you should be continuously learning how to write. For conducting a literature review, you should refer to materials like the University Library, Google Scholar, and other websites. Moreover, you should be able to think intelligently, draw inferences from arguments, and establish your own arguments. At every stage, you should learn from your previous mistakes continuously for a good dissertation.

What are some common challenges faced while crafting a dissertation?

Choosing an interesting and unique topic that you would love is difficult.  Researching is another issue since the dissertation might deviate to a different angle from the topic. The third issue is writing since the subject contains multiple angles, and you may face a research gap, making your dissertation challenging to complete. 

What are some common mistakes to avoid if you want to write a dissertation?

You should make sure that you make a strong structure for your dissertation that provides a continuous flow of ideas and helps you to derive associations between different paragraphs of your dissertation. You should also ensure that your dissertation is free from plagiarism, and your content should be relevant in the context of the topic.

How do I cite sources and format my dissertation according to academic standards?

If you want to format your dissertation properly, you need to decide on a citation style. Then, you need to format your dissertation according to that style with a reference list, in-text citations, the date of publication, and the URL and page number style.