How to write a good dissertation introduction

To start your with finding literature and ating the research sibility in the research ision of the g the all dissertations look the same? To write the ing work on main ng sections after supervisor's nes for producing g the g a literature r r r g the methods g the findings g the g the ines on ting the completed questions further ping your academic style of g the the time you start to write the first draft of your dissertation, you will probably already have accumulated a wealth of notes, scribbles and ideas. Planning is essential, but do not be hesitate to draw up new plans whether it is a brief abstract of your dissertation as a whole, or a detailed breakdown of a particular chapter. This section looks at effective planning, which should be a continuous process that intensifies during the writing of your dissertation and not something that fades into the all dissertations look the same? They will have to:Formulate a clear question that your dissertation seeks to the literature in the field relating to your in independent research in addressing this y whatever methods you choose to undertake your t and discuss your findings, whilst demonstrating how they relate to your original different types of dissertations video (. This video clip contains comments from the following academics:Christopher study 12 making sure your dissertation doesn't get on top of ing a 'working title'. As the preparation of the dissertation is a process of investigation and discovery, the precise scope of your study may well only emerge as you become closely involved in a detailed review of the literature. Your dissertation supervisor may advise on the title in order to help you find and define the focus of the should examine articles in scholarly journals for examples of appropriate titles for a study of this ng to write the isors have different ways of working and you will, to some degree, need to negotiate your approach to supervision style. For example, your supervisor may advise you to write a short proposal or abstract, say of about 300 words, in which you set out as clearly as possible what you intend to do in the dissertation. It may be that you will be able to summarise the exact nature and scope of your study, in which case the proposal can serve as guide to refer to as you write the main chapters of the work. Alternatively, it may make you aware of gaps in your knowledge and understanding, and show you the areas that need further thought and is useful, therefore, to write the proposal and to retain it for reference and revision. It helps to attempt such an abstract even if your supervisor has not suggested that you write one.

As you continue to write the main chapters of the work, you may find that your initial plan has changed. This means that when you have completed the chapters that form the main body of your dissertation you can return to the proposal and revise it as much as you need, to form the is highly advisable to draft a plan of the dissertation. There is a lot in common between different dissertations regarding the structure and although you do not need to stick slavishly to a standard plan, such a plan is very helpful as a template to impose some order on what may seem an unmanageable task. You should not introduce any new literature at this sions and overall assessment of what you found out, how successful you were and suggestions for future ing work on the main body of the you have produced the proposal and discussed it with your supervisor, you may want to write the first draft of a chapter of the dissertation. You may, for example, produce a draft introduction setting out the issue, together with a literature review which covers what, if any, treatment of the topic has gone beforehand. Be sure to back up all your work on a floppy disk, cd, or memory sing your ing on the credit rating of the dissertation, the amount of time you devote to it should be equivalent to the time you would devote to a taught course with the same credit rating; that is, seminar and lecture time plus time for private gs from our our research we found that students often did not think about the credit rating of their dissertation and actually spent more time working on it than they should have! They saw it as such an important part of their degree that they wanted to put more into it:It [the dissertation] took up more of my time ... This can have a detrimental effect on your other modules - one student said ‘i did the dissertation and left the other work’ - don’t make his mistake. All the modules in the final year are will find that once the final year begins, the weeks go by very quickly, and you will need to organise your time well from the start so that the ongoing preparation of your dissertation continues alongside work for the taught units you are studying. Once you have a workable plan it is much easier to plan the work in sequence and to set yourself targets for the completion of the separate parts (see the section on getting started with the dissertation). Allow plenty of time for final revisions after your tutor has seen a complete you are taking a dissertation over two semesters, you should aim to spend the equivalent of one full half-day per week working on your dissertation during each semester of your final year if it is worth 20 credits - nearer twice that amount of time if it is a 40-credit nes for producing will decide with your supervisor precisely when to produce drafts, but if you are taking a dissertation module over one academic year then by the end of the first semester you would normally expect to produce a proposal or abstract and a first draft of one or two chapters. You would then produce the drafts of the remaining chapters and complete the process of revision and writing-up during the second the second semester, when drafting the remaining main chapters of the dissertation, you will follow the practice established in the first semester of submitting the drafts to your supervisor for comments and advice.

You should take advantage of the period between the first semester and the start of the second semester to write a draft of a chapter, and you should plan to have produced first drafts of all the main chapters by at least four weeks before the submission date (also allowing for any vacation periods when staff may not be available). However, you are taking the dissertation module over one semester, you will need to adjust this time frame g the introduction to your dissertation should explain to the reader what you are going to investigate. Having completed the work on the main substance of your dissertation, you should have a much clearer idea of its nature and scope than you did when you wrote your preliminary abstract or proposal. The introduction to your dissertation should explain to the reader what you are going to investigate. You should explain your reasons for investigating your chosen topic by referring to the appropriate is important, however, to write the introduction as though you are setting out on a process of investigation. So, you might simply say that you have identified certain common features in the relevant literature, or a particular issue that it deals with, and that your dissertation will examine the literature closely in order to demonstrate the relationships between treatments of the issue in the sample texts. When you have completed the main body of the work and your tutor has commented on your complete draft, you may well wish to revisit the introduction to take into account your findings and your tutor's comments on their g a literature dissertation is a substantial piece of written work that ideally should conform to a number of academic conventions. This is a difficult question given that the total length of your dissertation might be anything from five to twelve thousand words. Literature review is an important device in your dissertation as it performs a number of related functions:It demonstrates to whoever reads the dissertation that the author of the work has read widely and is aware of the range of debates that have taken place within the given field. It provides the proof that you have more than a good grasp of the breadth and depth of the topic of the dissertation - your dissertation gives you the opportunity to show off how clever you are! Make sense of your you have a list of references for your dissertation, you now have to access and read this material. This is something that many researchers and dissertation students go through and is often a necessary part of the process.

It is better to read something that is not central to your dissertation than miss something that might be an important and relevant contribution to the notes about the central themes and arguments of the book, chapter or article. One thing to remember however is that just because you talk about an author's work in your literature review, doesn't mean you never mention it again in your dissertation. Throughout your dissertation process, you will come across literature that is of relevance to your area of study, do not ignore this material, you can always add more literature to your review as you come across y, make sure that you keep a record of all your references, even the ones that have been of little use. Your stance on what should pass as acceptable knowledge) basis of the study and demonstrate a good working knowledge of the methods to be employed. It should include good coverage of the process of the fieldwork and indicate how the analysis was undertaken. The discussion should be precisely that: an opportunity to raise the different voices of interest in the research question and to explore the findings in the light of the literature and different perspectives within g the main chapters of your dissertation will have focused on particular topics or issues. This is also an appropriate place for you to point to the limitations of small-scale research of this kind and to indicate possible avenues for researchers to address the issues in the you submit the dissertation, you should check that the final version of the title is an accurate reflection of what the dissertation is about and, if not, change the process of preparing your dissertation for submission begins with a careful final drafting of all your chapters and sections. You will check that your bibliography is properly presented and contains all sources cited throughout your ines on should refer to the guidance provided by your own department, but in general you should think about the following:Your dissertation must normally be typed or word-processed on a4 own text must be ed quotations must be pages of the dissertation must be must have a title must have a table of ting the completed completed dissertation should be submitted in the form set out by your department. If there are no formal styles, submit the dissertation in a format that makes it easy for the examiner to handle - avoid complicated spring-back or ring-backed cts of sections and of the dissertation as a whole will help to focus your writing and direct your yourself deadlines for drafting chapters. Agree these with your supervisor if you think that will motivate ing on the rules and regulations of your own institution, give your supervisor drafts of chapters as you write them, and try to be responsive to criticism. Check that your argument flows if you write the introduction last, write it as if you have yet to find the answers to your questions. Some basic rules:Type or word-process your dissertation - do not write it double line spacing for your own single line spacing for indented quotations (and footnote these!

A title page and a table of er to adhere to any format stipulated by your ant: check how many copies your department long is your dissertation going to be? This resource has been developed in partnership by the higher education academy and sheffield hallam to undergraduate dissertations in the social is a dissertation? Development es for ation for introduction generally consists of the following elements:Scene setting: the introduction usually opens with a statement about the general area of research, highlighting its importance, interest or ch background: this is an overview of key studies that are directly relevant to the issue being : this element focuses the attention of the reader on the specific area where (further) research is needed. There may also be references to the value of the e: most introductions contain an outline of the chapters or sections of the thesis or are some examples of useful phrases for each of the elements of the introduction:Recently, there has been growing interest in x. 2017 newcastle g an introduction is often seen as a relatively straightforward element of the assignment writing process. The reason for this may be that we often find typical ‘ingredients’ in an introduction that we can use, regardless of the assignment we are writing. One of the challenges of writing a good introduction, however, is to be brief, and to stay focused. A rambling or unfocussed introduction, or one that is over-lengthy, will get the essay off to the wrong sort of start and will not create a good impression. A sample ad a checklist to help you edit your essays and written are the typical ‘ingredients’ of an essay introduction? They identify the following series of ‘moves’ in a typical introduction to a research paper:Move 1: establishing a research showing that the general research area is important, central, interesting, problematic, etc. Listing research questions of announcing principal stating the value of the previous indicating the structure of the research i follow introduction structures closely? Above-mentioned elements of an introduction are helpful, and could be followed quite systematically to produce a reasonably acceptable introduction.

However, there might be several problems associated with an attempt to follow these introduction structures too closely and to include them in every assignment you write:Your introductions might become too predictable and ‘formula-written’, and may lack a sense of enthusiasm and commitment;. Introduction may become too lengthy in relation to the remainder of the essay (depending on the length of the paper);. Introduction might become too ‘detailed’ and this may spoil the ‘surprise effect’ of what you go on to say next;. Existence of an ‘introduction’, as described above, is not self-evident or natural in all disciplines; and even within subjects that commonly require an introduction (typically, social sciences and humanities disciplines) there may be some types of question that do not especially need one (e. Of the key aspects of writing an introduction, in many disciplines, is to attract the interest of the reader – if you give the impression that your writing is ‘formula driven’, you may fail to make the sort of impact you want on your reader. Sometimes, of course, the reader is not looking for interesting introductions (especially in fact-based or mathematical work). And many respects, the procedure for writing an introduction remains the same for a longer piece of writing, such as a dissertation. In particular, it is still very important:To write an ‘eye-catching’ opening sentence that will keep the reader’s attention focused;. To say everything you have to say in the introduction – save some of your good material for try to keep the reader in ‘suspense’ and to make them read on;. Ensure that there is a direct relationship between the introduction and the remainder of the dissertation;. Among these differences are the following:As well as having an overall introduction to your dissertation or thesis, each chapter should also have an introduction (as well as a conclusion). The reason for this is that in a longer piece of writing, it becomes more important to ‘remind’ the reader of what you are doing and why you are doing it, before each chapter e of its length, there will be more opportunity to introduce a sense of ‘debate’ into the introduction to a thesis; and you will have time to bring in a wider range of references from is a good idea in a chapter introduction to remind the reader what happened in the previous chapter (e.

An introduction is often seen as a relatively straightforward element of the assignment writing process.