What To Include in Your Dissertation?
The dissertation is your magnum opus—your one opportunity to show research skills, writing skills, and critical thinking. If you have your dissertation written, you must start focusing on how you will present it to your committee.
What is a Dissertation?
A dissertation is a multi-chaptered document where students are required to complete extensive research on their topics of choice. The students need to select an interesting topic, conduct a thorough literature review, gather and process data and come to conclusions logically. The dissertation needs to be full of detailed analysis of data, ground rules, problem-solving, situational analysis, propositions, and recommendations.
The dissertation is probably the most extensive and complex paper and the project you have ever completed. The dissertation is the culmination of all the knowledge gained at a university. It introduces you to communities of scholarship, provides a thorough critique of existing research, and proposes solutions to the problems it identifies. It is the culminating point of your education, so naturally, it is the most challenging component to complete.
Your dissertation reflects your graduate program, and a dissertation that demonstrates proper research, strong conclusions, and logical arguments can be the difference between passing the class and failing it.
Here’s What to Include in Your Dissertation:
Chapters
Your dissertation will include several chapters; these chapters are the foundation on which the rest of the paper is built. They will outline your research question, how you answered it, and why you believe your findings are important. If you include this section at the very beginning, then the rest of your paper will be structured with your reader in mind.
Title and Abstract
The dissertation title is all about you and your interests. It needs to be persuasive enough, so the reader wants to read more. The abstract is what the dissertation is about and is also a teaser, so the reader gets an idea of what they will be reading.
Review of Literature
Remember, your dissertation review will consist of referencing the various works that you have written in your dissertation. Each reference you have should make the reader want to delve deeper into the content. The literature review should be long and detailed enough to give the reader a general idea of the topic. Each reference should be cited properly so that the reader will be able to refer to it in the future.
Methods
You must include your methodology in your dissertation. This is a part where you can disclose your work processes and methods, including theoretical and empirical methods, data analysis, and results section.
Results
As above, one major part of dissertation writing is deciding on the methodology to use for your study. A dissertation methodology describes how you plan to gather the information, analyze it, and report the results. This process of deciding how you will research (and what to include in your dissertation) will help shape the rest of your paper and save you time in the long run.
Interpretation and Recommendations
A doctoral dissertation is the culmination of years of work and research. It presents evidence collected through the careful observation and analysis of specific subjects and situations and the careful writing of those ideas into a coherent text. The dissertation is the capstone project for many Master’s programs, and the finished product is often put through the rigors of academic peer review.
All dissertations consist of three parts that are usually similar in content: an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. The main purpose of the introduction is to introduce the reader to the topic area that he is about to read. The introduction should explain to the reader what the dissertation is about, how the topic area fits in scholarship, and the purpose or goal of the research. The dissertation body then comprises the analysis of the literature, the methodology, and research results, and finally, an evaluation of the research.
