How to Write and Structure a Dissertation – Complete Guide
If you clicked on this article, then it means that you’re are on that crucial academic stage where every student has to write a well-researched paper. An excellent dissertation paper needs months of research as your whole grade depends on it. The aim of writing a dissertation paper is to illustrate your research skills in your preferred area of study and to present the outcomes of that research through original content to contribute to the academic and scientific community.
So, before diving into the guide, let’s understand what dissertation exactly is.
Dissertation paper is usually referred to as the final outcome of the independent work and research for an undergraduate program, while the thesis can only be done at the end of the master’s degree.
Moreover, PhD candidates also write dissertation papers to mark the end of their doctoral degree. So if you’re an undergraduate student or PhD graduate, then the format of writing the dissertation paper is going to be exactly the same. However, PhD students conduct more serious and in-depth research than undergraduates.
This guide will provide you assignment writing service for writing dissertation papers. It doesn’t matter if you’re an undergraduate or a PhD student, this guide contains every answer to your questions and complete assistance for writing dissertation papers.
Firstly, it’s not easy to write a good dissertation paper! No matter how keen your research is, or how well your research outcome matches your hypothesis, if you won’t be able to write the correct dissertation, then your all efforts will go down the drain! Most students show great enthusiasm at first, but as soon as they get to the complex part, they give up. Truth be told, planning and conducting research is the hardest part of the student’s life. You have to go through several obstacles and pass through many barriers to achieve a successful result.
Despite all the challenges that come your way, if you strictly adhere to the guidelines, you will be able to write the perfect dissertation!
Step 1: Write an attractive dissertation proposal
A good dissertation depends on how well you have conveyed your research proposal. The proposal includes the rationale and the commitment you make at the beginning to illustrate how valuable and interesting your research is. This is comparatively a short paper than the final dissertation paper but has equal importance in the overall research outcome.
In this paper, you have to explain the research question on which you’ll be working, the plan of how you will carry out the research and the method of gathering the relevant data. A well-written dissertation proposal illustrates how organised and structured your paper would be. Even if writing the proposal is not in your university requirement, you should still write it and discuss it with your instructor.
Structure of the Dissertation Proposal
You need to follow the pattern given below to write a convincing proposal.
- Dissertation Title: The tile of your research
- Objectives: Write the aim and objective of your research. If you skip defining the research objectives, it will look like your research doesn’t have any focus or aim to achieve.
- Literature: In this stage, you need to narrow down all the information, previous literature or school of thoughts you are going to use in your research.
- Research: Here, you need to mention the area of your study and elaborate on the ideas of your research question.
- Methodology: In this section, you have to define the research methodology you’re going to use in assembling and collecting the data. Make sure to provide a strong rationale for choosing a specific method for your research.
- Potential outcome/hypothesis: This section will carry out all the potential outcomes you think will come out after the completion of your research. Jot down all the results you expect to come from this specific research.
- List of references: This section includes the list of all the references you used during the research. This part will indicate how well-researched and authentic your proposal is.
Step 2: Conduct a Thorough Research
The stage will determine the overall progress of your research. You have to thoroughly study and assess all the relevant sources and information that will help you during the research. Since you don’t want to waste your time & effort in reading through the bulk of irrelevant sources, the following are some tips that will help you go through the process easily:
- Make a proper timetable for research
Before carrying out dissertation research, it’s crucial to fully understand the terminology and the phenomenon that revolves around your area of research. The best bet is to go through all the previous studies on your research question. But it is not humanly possible to assess all the past research papers in such a short time. However, at one point or another, you will need to eventually stop researching. It’s better to only focus on three or four research papers, and build your argument around it. This stage aims to illustrate how well you’re informed and have developed a comprehensive understanding of previous research papers and their limitations, before carrying out your own research.
- Find the right places for sources
Make sure to gather all your information from authentic and trustworthy resources. Look for Google Scholar to locate reliable publications or journals. You need to realise that not everything on the internet is true or authentic, so double-check the source to maintain the credibility of your paper.
Dissertation Structure:
The basic outline for writing a dissertation is mentioned below:
- Introduction: In this section, you need to set up a background for your research. Then, you have to give the rationale of your study by defining the research problem. It also includes all the definitions of the terminologies used throughout the paper.
- Literature Review: This section should include all the acknowledgements and review of the previously done studies you have gathered for the research.
- Methodology: This section comprises of the methodology used in collecting the data for your research (Either quantitative, qualitative or mixed research method).
- Findings: The outcomes of your research and analysis of the data collected should include in this section.
- Conclusions: This section contains a summary of your research, along with a brief description of the findings.
- Bibliography: The list of all the references used in the paper should be included in this section.
We know the dissertation writing process can be challenging and requires endless efforts to reach the endpoint. But with great dedication and following the above guidelines, you can tackle the project with ease and come out of it successfully.
