Friday, March 13, 2009

Top Tips To a Great Dissertation Report

By Nick Sanders

If you are currently thinking how do I structure my dissertation, then this guide will be able to help you. You will, most likely, have already looked over a few different guides that offer you information on the tone and style of your writing, yet have not set out the actual structure of your dissertation paper. You will need to understand: how do I actually structure my dissertation? and possibly: does the rationale come before or after the methodology? You will find that this article will cover a basic layout of an academic dissertation that you can follow and use for your research paper.

Abstract - this is a synopsis of the whole document, which should allow your reader to gain an understanding of the objectives and outcome of the actual dissertation. You are looking to keep this part brief and to the point, looking to write no more than 130 words.

Content Page - this page will set out the main content of the dissertation, including the key sections that are contained within your paper. This will mean that different areas of your work should be under different headings and thus divided for ease of readership. Some students will create a rough contents page at the start of their research project as this may help them to keep their writing well structured and concise.

Introduction - your introduction should provide a detailed and focus overview of the background on the dissertation topic and the structure the paper will follow. Your main findings are provided and you should also summaries the conclusions that you have gained from analysis of your results. You should base your introduction around a journey of the reader - it explains to them where they are, where they are going, and what other things they will find when they pass by.

Literature Review - your literature review will simply outline all previous research that has been undertaken on the topic for which you are investigating. You should concentrate on the most important points that are relevant to your chosen topic and angle to gain maximum effect.

Methodology Chapter - this section needs to identify the different methods of collecting data and why you should and did choose them. You will specify the different methods that you have chosen for your topic and thus outline how you will collect empirical data for your study. This is the area when you substantiate your argument for using the different methods and allow your reader to understand why these different methods are relevant to the data collection processes in your research.

Data Analysis - analyzing the data collection from the research process will be one key part of your dissertation research paper. You should display significant data in the form of graphs, charts and diagrams to identify any key areas where the research discovered a trend or significant piece of information. You should also make sure that this chapter can sit independently from your conclusion chapter, and that in the conclusions area of this chapter, you should be able to focus on the data analysis and what it means.

Discussion - this section is for a researcher to identify the data they have collected and analyze it against one another to develop an analysis of gathered data and present your main findings.

Conclusion - your conclusion is a summary of what you have already said in the paper. If you can clearly draw a conclusion from what you have said in earlier parts, then this needs to be stated here clearly. You could also include an assessment of how appropriate (firm or tenuous) that particular conclusion is, with indication of further research or analysis to overcome this issue.

Bibliography - all reference should be listed alphabetically, this doesnt matter whether you have quoted from them or not. You should include the authors name, title, place of publication, publisher and date when including any material in your bibliography.

Appendices - these will have extra information that you didn't want to place in your dissertation as it would become cluttered. You should include such things as a copy of the questionnaire, transcripts of interviews etc.

By following the above basic structure, you should be able to present a dissertation research paper that is well structured and easily read by anyone. You will also want your dissertation to flow from one area to another and this guide will help you. Leading the reader on a journey should be your understanding and you should be a writer who guides them through your project step by step. As a final step you will benefit from your work being proofread and edited by a professional.

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