Introduction to a dissertation
A dissertation or skillsyouneed:8 types of learning tanding your preferences to aid al thinking al thinking and fake g a dissertation or to write a research l issues in tation: the ching and writing a literature g your tation: results and tation: conclusions and g your dissertation or thesis of the skills you need guide for ng, coaching, mentoring and ability skills for ibe to our free newsletter and start improving your life in just 5 minutes a 'll get our 5 free 'one minute life skills' and our weekly 'll never share your email address and you can unsubscribe at any g a dissertation: the our: dissertation writing introduction to your dissertation or thesis may well be the last part that you complete, excepting perhaps the abstract. However, it should not be the last part that you think should write a draft of your introduction very early on, perhaps as early as when you submit your research proposal, to set out a broad outline of your ideas, why you want to study this area, and what you hope to explore and/or can, and should, update your introduction several times as your ideas develop. Keeping the introduction in mind will help you to ensure that your research stays on introduction provides the rationale for your dissertation, thesis or other research project: what you are trying to answer and why it is important to do this introduction should contain a clear statement of the research question and the aims of the research (closely related to the question). If there are theoretical debates in the literature, then the introduction is a good place for the researcher to give his or her own perspective in conjunction with the literature review section of the introduction should also indicate how your piece of research will contribute to the theoretical understanding of the g on your research introduction to your dissertation or thesis will probably draw heavily on your research you haven't already written a research proposal see our page writing a research proposal for some introduction needs to set the scene for the later work and give a broad idea of the arguments and/or research that preceded yours. It should give some idea of why you chose to study this area, giving a flavour of the literature, and what you hoped to find ’t include too many citations in your introduction: this is your summary of why you want to study this area, and what questions you hope to address. This means that your introduction can be much clearer about what exactly you chose to investigate and the precise scope of your er, whenever you actually write it, that, for the reader, the introduction is the start of the journey through your work. Although you can give a flavour of the outcomes of your research, you should not include any detailed results or good ideas for making your introduction strong include:An interesting opening sentence that will hold the attention of your ’t try to say everything in the introduction, but do outline the broad thrust of your work and sure that you don’t promise anything that can’t be delivered the language straightforward. Although you should do this throughout, it is especially important for the introduction is the reader’s ‘door’ into your thesis or dissertation. Ask a friend to read it for you, and see if they can understand it the end of the introduction, it is also usual to set out an outline of the rest of the can be as simple as ‘chapter 2 discusses my chosen methodology, chapter 3 sets out my results, and chapter 4 discusses the results and draws conclusions’. If your thesis is ordered by themes, then a more complex outline may be ng and with any other piece of writing, redrafting and editing will improve your is especially important for the introduction because it needs to hold your reader’s attention and lead them into your best way to ensure that you can do this is to give yourself enough time to write a really good introduction, including several not view the introduction as a last minute g a literature g the tation: results and tation: conclusions and extra ic referencing | research @ to undergraduate dissertations in the social is a dissertation? 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.
Introduction of a dissertation
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. 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. 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. 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.
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 in current sity homeuniversity a-zmaps and the university us on us on us on t learning development▼ d in your g a g a a printer-friendly pdf version of this guide, click study guide addresses the task of writing a dissertation. In writing your dissertation you will draw on some of this earlier writing to produce a longer and more comprehensive out what is embarking on any substantial writing for your dissertation you will need to check the exact requirements regarding:The word limit: maximum and minimum; and whether or not this includes words within tables, the abstract, the reference list, and the appendices;. Kind of content appropriate to place in the appendices rather than in the main text; marking scheme or are some conventions that guide the structuring of dissertations in different disciplines. There is likely to be a required format for the title page in your discipline, so you need to check what that may be one of the shortest sections of your thesis or dissertation, but it is worthwhile taking great care to write it well. Reading the acknowledgements in other dissertations in your field will give you an idea of the ways in which different kinds of help have been appreciated and ts, and figure and table contents pages will show up the structure of the dissertation. The introduction has two main roles:To expand the material summarised in the abstract, signpost the content of the rest of the literature review, or context of the purpose of this chapter is to show that you are aware of where your own piece of research fits into the overall context of research in your field.
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For example a scientific dissertation would probably have very clear separation between the results and the discussion of those results; whereas a social science dissertation might have an overall chapter called findings, bringing the results and their discussion ons about style of presentation may need to be made about, for example:Whether you want to begin with an initial overview of the results, followed by the detail, or whether you move immediately into the detail of the results;. As you edit and rewrite your dissertation you will probably gain and lose references that you had in earlier versions. It is important therefore to check that all the references in your reference list are actually referenced within the text; and that all the references that appear in the text appear also in the reference need to check whether or not the appendices count within the word limit for your dissertation. Again, make sure you reference the appendices within the main text where ing your detailed your dissertation is well-structured, easy to follow, logical, and coherent, your examiners will probably enjoy reading it, and will be able to listen to your argument without the distraction of trying to make all the links only way to achieve a consistent argument throughout a piece of writing is by creating some kind of plan or map of what you want to say. It can be useful to think of the research question or topic going like a strong thread throughout the dissertation: linking all the elements of the study, and giving coherence to its from doing the research to writing a comprehensive account of it is not necessarily easy. This is not a failure, but a positive sign of increased experience and ping an important aspect running through your dissertation will be your argument for:Why this specific topic is worth researching;. Is important that you are assertive about what you are arguing, but it is unlikely that, in a dissertation project, you will be able to be definitive in closing an established academic debate. Aim to be modest but realistic in relating your own research to the broader ing the structure and you have the dissertation in draft form it becomes easier to see where you can improve it. More ideas will be presented in the study guide the art of may choose to review your draft from the standpoint of a dissertation examiner, which might involve preparing a list of questions that you want to see answered, then reading through your dissertation scribbling comments, suggestions, criticisms, and ideas in the margin. If you have a marking guide then apply it to your dissertation and see if there are aspects that you can you do this, be aware of whether you need to increase the number of words, or decrease it to reach your target. You may begin to feel that your dissertation will never be good enough, and that you need to revise it again and again. It may be helpful to divert your attention for a while to the finishing off activities you need to attend to:Writing the abstract and the introduction;.
Remember the dissertation needs to demonstrate your ability to undertake and report research rather than to answer every question on a is important to allow yourself enough time for the final checking and proof reading of the finished time to planning the structure of the a structure that will enable you to present your argument in the detail, concentrating on getting everything recorded rather than sticking to the word limit at this writing as part of the research process, not an to edit and re-edit your material several times as it moves towards its final time to check and proofread s r.