Writing A Dissertation: A Useful Guide To Follow
When you are writing your dissertation you can get affordable help online and through your school. Both offer a variety of tools that help you manage your time and your progress. They even teach you how to structure the paper.
How do you structure the dissertation?
Writing your dissertation is a unique experience and the structure is something that you need to decide upon for yourself. You will need to consult with your advisor to find the best project structure. You will need to read other works completed by other students too in order to get a feel for what works best.
The most conventional structure for your paper is to write the dissertation in a book form made up of multiple chapters. The number of chapters needed is contingent upon the research you are undertaking but the general organization of chapters would look like this:
- Title page: this is the opening page which contains the general details about your thesis.
- Abstract: this is a summary of the background to your paper as well as the methodology and the findings of your study.
- Contents: this is the table of contents that lists the chapters contained in your final product and your figures.
- Chapter 1: the background. This is where you provide the reader with the rationale behind the project.
- Chapter 2: the literature review. This is where you present a summary of the literature that supports your argument.
- Chapter 3: the methodology. This is where you describe the methods used in the research you did.
- Chapter 4: the data analysis. This is where you describe the techniques you used to analyze your research information.
- Chapter 5: the discussion. This is where you discuss the conclusions to your data analysis and how it relates to the bigger picture.
- Bibliography: This is where you cite all of the references you used in the thesis.
- Appendices: this is where you include any additional materials you used in your research.
So how can you improve your writing skills?
- The best way you can improve your writing is to finish your first draft as soon as possible and send it to your advisor. Ask them to look it over and correct any errors. Doing this process as often as possible will help you to recognize the mistakes you are making while you are writing and will make it easier for you to start catching the issues yourself.
- If English is not your primary language it will behove you to ask any English speaking friends you have to read over the thesis and to warn you about any mistakes that you are making with relation to your syntax. If you know what mistakes you commonly make you can prepare yourself for them throughout the rest of your writing.