The Dissertation Process
So it is fairly basic to know what you are looking at when you start writing your dissertation before you (that is, the dissertation) gets written. So what is a dissertation? Simply put, a dissertation is an extended piece of writing that reports on the outcome of a piece of research relating to a particular topic; it obliges you to read and engage with the literature in your field; it requires that you engage in some form of research; and it dictates that you write up your findings in a way that will make your final output easy to read and engage with.
Almost all dissertations will follow the same broad structure, and you will be required to write an introduction, literature review, method section, results, discussion, and conclusion – learning what each of these sections entails and their role in the research process will be a significant determinant of how you approach your work. Your institution may also have guidelines, so it’s important to be aware of what is expected of you before you start.
Choosing a Research Topic
Picking your topic is probably the most important thing you decide early on in the dissertation process. You want to study it, and be able to talk about it, and write about it, and read about it, for years. But the topic must also be justified in your field, in the sense that it must be related to the same high-level questions that people in your discipline care about. And it should be feasible. You need to know that, if you’re lucky, you might actually be able to get this topic researched and written up within the time you have, using the resources you have, before you’re done.
One of the main steps to writing a dissertation is seeking feedback and support, and checking an Academized review 2024 can help you decide if their writing services are the right fit for your needs. So, select a topic that is worth writing about based on the current body of literature, and find gaps that your research can fill. When choosing a topic, you should discuss it with your academic director, your mentors or others close to your advisor. Doing so is often very helpful for selecting a topic that is both sound and enjoyable. A good topic is the first step toward completing a dissertation because it provides the initial motivation.
Conducting a Literature Review
Your literature review is the second most important part of your dissertation (after your research question or hypothesis) – it tells the reader what you’re going to be studying. It reviews the literature, meaning the scholarly books and articles on your topic. The purpose of the literature review is to tell us where the field is, what we already know, where the gaps are; and why and how your work needs to be done.
One ‘mini unit’ to developing a literature review is producing a list of primary sources – for example, books, journal articles and conference papers – on your topic, and then providing an analysis of each, exploring the work’s merits and demerits, exposure to your particular research question, and its relevance to your research interests. A literature review that is up to the task will put your research on solid footing as each step in your own work is shown to stand on the shoulders of others.
Developing a Research Question and Hypothesis
Once you’ve conducted a review of the literature, the logical next step is to formulate a research question or hypothesis. Your research question should be easily understandable, focused and researchable . It should guide your research, providing a direction that you maintain throughout the dissertation process.
A good hypothesis, if warranted, is a testable statement that predicts the outcomes of your research. For example, your research question or hypothesis might be: Will increases in tree cover in a city reduce urban temperatures? In developing this question, it is important to be clear and precise, and your articulation will help determine the research design and methodology that you use.
Designing the Research Methodology
Your methodology is the part of your thesis that describes how you conducted your project of research. You need to describe your research design and how you collected and analyzed your data. It needs to be appropriate to your research question, and generate reliable and valid data.
There are qualitative, quantitative and mixed-methods methodologies. Your methodology and the data-gathering methods embedded in it will depend on your research question (what you want to find out) and your data needs (what you need to find out). Your methodology will be described and defended in writing so that a reader can recognise the logic of your approach and could follow it to repeat your research, if called upon to do so.
Conducting Research and Collecting Data
Once you’ve laid out your methodology, then comes time to actually conduct research, gather whatever data is relevant to answering your research question – which might include experimental, survey, interview, observation and other data, depending on the sort of methodology you’ve laid out.
You’ll want to maintain comprehensive notes on your data-collection process (especially how you managed those instances when you hit a brick wall in terms of data-collection) that will be essential when you come to write up your results and discussion. That you’re being ethical in your data collection, and have obtained any permission or consent required.
Writing the Dissertation: Key Sections
With that data in hand, you can now embark upon writing your dissertation – that is, presenting not only your findings, but also what they mean. Typically, the body of the dissertation can be divided into several main parts or sections, each of which performs a different function in the overall dissertation.
Writing the Introduction
The introduction is the opening part of your dissertation. This is where you start by presenting your research topic, discuss why it is relevant and important, and provide a general outline of the topic without going into great detail. You will also introduce the study and tell who you will be focusing on and why, and give a brief overview of what should follow.
Your opening paragraph will make a bold statement about what you are going to investigate and why it is important, as well as including some commonly known context about your topic. This bid for a captive audience won’t let go for the rest of the first paragraph because you are obliged to clearly delineate the purposes and boundaries of your research.
Presenting the Literature Review
The second section of the paper is the literature review, coming after your introduction. You need a thorough literature review explaining what other research is available on the topic you are discussing. What are the major findings? Where are there gaps in the literature? Why do those gaps exist? Have some researchers qualified or criticized previous findings? How does your proposed research fill this gap?
Your literature review shouldn’t just be a summary of studies already done; you should also be critically evaluating what’s been written, and explaining why you’re embarking on research in the first place. This section shows your mastery of the area and your ability to enter the scholarly conversation.
Explaining the Methodology
The methodology section describes the ‘how’ of your research, including the type of research design (e.g., a survey, an experiment), how you got your data, and how you analyzed the data. Your methodology section should be detailed enough that someone else could understand how you did your research, and could replicate your research if necessary.
In this section, you should summarize your findings and also include any limitations in your methodology and how you addressed them. The more you are forthcoming about obstacles you came across and the choices you made in doing the research, the more persuasive your conclusions will be.
Main Differences Between Qualitative and Quantitative Research Methods
|
Aspect of Research |
Qualitative Research |
Quantitative Research |
|
Research Focus |
Understanding phenomena through detailed, non-numerical data |
Measuring and analyzing variables using numerical data |
|
Data Collection Methods |
Interviews, observations, and content analysis |
Surveys, experiments, and statistical analysis |
|
Data Analysis Techniques |
Thematic analysis, content analysis |
Statistical tests, regression analysis |
|
Sample Size |
Typically smaller and more focused |
Larger and more representative |
|
Outcome |
In-depth insights and understanding |
Generalizable results and predictions |
Analyzing and Presenting Results
Then comes the results section, which states your findings. This section should also be straightforward and compact, consisting of information that’s closely related to the question you set out to answer. If you have a hypothesis about the world, you might have a way of testing it – and the results section is where you would report the results of that test. If you’re conducting an interpretive study, you might perform some theme analysis and describe key patterns that emerge. But of course, the results section can take many different forms, depending on your research question and methodology.
Writing the Discussion
The discussion section is where you interpret your results; what do your research findings mean for your field, and what are the wider implications? Here is where you speculate about the interpretation of your results, and their implications for the broader literature. Have your findings supported or contradicted something that was predicted in the review literature?
In addition to overviewing your findings, this part of the discussion should highlight the limitations of your research and offer suggestions for further research. This section should be written in a concluding, analytic manner so as to make sure that your research is significant.
Concluding the Dissertation
You should relay the main results found during your research, discuss their implications, and address any contribution of your research to the field.
It can also offer a small space for personal reflection on the process of doing this research and on potential future research. A good conclusion will let your piece linger with your reader in a way that leaves them feeling they’ve just read something important.
Conclusion
In other words, writing a dissertation is a long and challenging process, but if you follow the basic steps of the essay dissertation writing process, you will finish it with confidence, and can be as clear as possible, from choosing the best topic for your research, to the submission of the final version of your dissertation to the commissioning committee. In this case, you will follow the basic step-by-step manual of dissertation writing and, when you are as clear as possible about the structure of dissertation and essay dissertation writing process, you can do your research with meaning, to describe the results in the thesis orally, and make the final conclusion and recommendations.