Dissertation Writing
Composing your dissertation...
As has been stated, it is extremely important that you adhere to the formal structure of a dissertation as this will ensure that you do not lose marks by failing to do so.
Although the abstract is placed first, and you have a version of it in your dissertation proposal, most students do not compile this until the dissertation is complete. If you think about it, it is good common sense to do this as you cannot know exactly what will go where until you have finished.
Indeed, many students do not even compile their introduction or definitively decide upon their title until they have completed the main body of their work so that if you change direction slightly, you can incorporate this into your introduction and/or dissertation title.
Be careful that you do mot veer too far from your original proposal in your dissertation writing, though, because if you do you will need to consult your supervisor and/or the research committee.
Each aspect of the composition of your dissertation writing needs to be given careful consideration, so let’s start by taking a look at your introduction.
Introduction
As has been stated, the introduction to a long piece of writing like a dissertation or thesis is often composed at the end, strange as it may seem. This is because that way you can be sure that you have included everything that needs to be said with regard to your content and method of working within the introduction.
However, it is important that you should be aware at the outset what an introduction to dissertation writing should contain and therefore we will consider it first even though you may later decide to write it last.
Basically, the introduction to a piece of dissertation writing should resemble the introduction to an average academic essay in three important aspects:
- the inclusion of the thesis statement
- the inclusion of the major works to be discussed
- the methodology to be applied.
Of course, you will need to extend and develop each of these in your dissertation writing but the familiarity that you have with these terms should ensure that you start you dissertation writing with a confidence born of experience.
As with essay writing, you should try to make your opening sentence as powerful and interesting as possible and close it with a sentence that links into your opening chapter to establish the cohesion of your argument.
One major difference between the introduction to an academic essay and a dissertation introduction is that it is perfectly acceptable to use quotations in your introduction in dissertation writing which you would not usually do in essay writing.
The Main Body
The main body of a dissertation should be divided into chapters, usually between three and five but this can vary. As with the introduction, there are similarities between the way paragraphs are structured in an essay and the way chapters are structured in a dissertation.
As with paragraphs, chapters in a dissertation should each address a different aspect of the main theme yet still maintain a strong connection to that central theme. Clearly, as this is a longer and more densely argued piece or work, the contents of the chapters will be more developed, too, especially in the area of substantiating evidence and attendant analysis.
In fact, your use of evidence can help lift your dissertation writing to a new level and increase the originality of your work. The way to do this is to invert the usual way of using evidence i.e. instead of using quotations simply to support the points you make in your argument you analyse quotes and take points from them.
This is not as difficult as it sounds as all you need to do is to quote as always but analyse in greater depth and see if you can pick up ideas from the individual words and phrases that you identify. For example, if you think of one of Dickens’ most famous novels, David Copperfield (1850), the opening recalls how as a child the boy used to look out of the window to where his father is buried:
There is something strange to me, even now, in the reflection that he never saw me; and something stranger yet in the shadowy remembrance that I have of my first childish associations with his white grave-stone in the churchyard, and of the indefinable compassion I used to feel for it lying out alone there in the dark night, when our little parlour was warm and bright with fire and candle, and the doors of our house were - almost cruelly, it seemed to me sometimes - bolted and locked against it.
If you were to quote this passage as straightforward support of a point about, say, David’s loneliness that would be fine but think how much more innovative the use of the evidence would be if you were to remark on the way that the child comments not that he never saw his father but that his father never saw him. This tells the careful reader a great deal about the way that the central character in the novel is more concerned with how he is perceived by others than with how he himself perceives. Thus, you will have taken a passage from the book and not just used it to support a point you want to make but highlighted a section from the text itself and made a point. In this way, the connection between text and argument becomes much stronger and your dissertation writing more innovative. This is the way evidence can be used to help you construct a more powerful argument in a much more original way in dissertation writing.
Remember, whilst we are talking about evidence, that all references must be completed in the style directed by your academic institution throughout your referencing and bibliography.
Conclusion
The conclusion to your dissertation writing is your final chance to make an impression, so don’t leave it to be completed as a last-minute task, have it in mind as you compose your dissertation writing.
The main thing to remember about a dissertation conclusion is that you are more likely to get a high grade if you show evidence of future research that the current work suggests. This shows your assessor that you are aware of the limitations of your work and that you see areas where you could expand upon your work in the future.
This shows an examiner that you are truly thinking of your work as part of the wider field of knowledge and not an end in itself.
And Finally...
Don’t forget that before you submit your work you should thoroughly proof-read it and correct any errors because after all that hard work you wouldn’t want to throw marks away by making careless mistakes, would you? ‘Good luck’!
>> Back to dissertation writing guides...
Would you like some essay help from an expert?
Hire one of our qualified experts today. Fill the form in below to find out more:
