Writing a Dissertation

Everything You Need to Know About Writing a Dissertation

Dissertation (n) – synonym for nightmare.

This is not even a joke, it’s a fact. If you’re in a college you would know. If you are a fresher and haven’t had to do a dissertation yet, ask a senior and pay attention to their facial expressions, you’ll know.

 

What is a Dissertation?

Dissertations are lengthy assignments that you have to write and submit at the end of your semester. Typically, a dissertation is of (on a generous average) 40,000 words, and it involves a lot of research, and it’s dedicated to a highly specific subject or topic.

A dissertation is the highest level there is of any kind of academic writing. A dissertation basically (if done properly) becomes a source for others to look up to. It can be used as a reference in academic researches and as if practically proved, a dissertation can even be included is a course of study.

Since a dissertation is a very detailed and lengthy document, it has to be written in a very structured format. There are sections or chapters that have to be there in a dissertation. Every section or chapter has their specific role in containing the information written in the dissertation.

 

What is the Structure of a Dissertation?

A dissertation consists of the following segments or chapters, and are written in the same order:

Introduction – Literature Review – Methodology – Findings and Analysis – Conclusion.

Also, you have to essentially write an abstract for your dissertation. Why? In case you missed it, a dissertation is too lengthy a paper. You need to put forth a summary of your dissertation assignment before you present the actual paper.

 

What All Is There In an Abstract?

An abstract is a precise summary of the dissertation. You need to keep a few things in mind while preparing the abstract for your dissertation:

• Make it as appealing as you can. You can put your knowledge of language to good use here. But remember – you’re not writing a poem.
• Mention everything that is there in your dissertation paper. There should be no surprises left in your dissertation.
• Only thing you need to keep in check is the ‘conclusion’ part. Mention your ‘findings and analysis’, but skim over the conclusive verdict on the problem statement. It should be exclusive to the dissertation.

 

How to Begin?

A dissertation does not come with a predefined or assigned topic – you have to lo-ok for the topic on your own.

That does sound like a lot of reading and more reading. Yes, we’re not going to keep you in the dark, there is a lot of reading you will have to do to get your dissertation written perfectly and have a good topic, but let us see how can we make it a tad bit easy:

 

• Sit and ponder about the concepts or theories from the subject that appeal the most to you. There won’t be a lot of them, nonetheless, make a list.
• Now, sorting is very necessary if you want to save time. If you want, you can do it for all the topics that interest you, but we’d suggest that you take some time to pick one concept and then start reading.
• Read until you find one statement or fact that takes your fancy. This way, you will get a topic that is exclusive to your reading. Most students choose from the internet; don’t do that.

 

Writing the Paper

Now that you have the topic, you can start looking for places where you will find sources of information. Make sure you have everything you need, on your table before you set your pen to work. Also, before you begin writing, make an outline of your assignment. Plan out all the points and set them in the order relevant to the topic. These little tricks will save your time.

Now, let us see what all the sections are all about and what do you need to put in them:

 

• Introduction: The very first section where you make the readers acquainted with the topic, brief them, and then bring in the main problem statement that your dissertation is proposing to solve.
• Literature Review: In this section, you talk about the previous works that have been carried out on the subject. Mention the sources you chose and why.
• Methodology: Here, you need to give all the details of the techniques you are going to put to use to get to the bottom of your problem statement. The better this section is, the better your dissertation looks.
• Findings and Analysis: Here, you discuss the results of your techniques, and compare them with the earlier works that have been done.
• Conclusion: You put down a verdict that closes the problem statement. You need to answer all the questions you put forth in your introduction.