PARTS OF A DISSERTATION
- Cover Sheet
- Abstract
- Acknowledgements
- Table of Contents
- List of Figures
- Introduction
- Literature Review
- Methodology
- Findings/Results
- Discussion
- Conclusion
- References
- Appendices
Parts of Introduction
- Background
- Research Focus
- Overall and individual aims
- Value of your work
- Outline the structure of your Dissertation
Introduction/ Introduction background
Gently introduce the reader to your research area in general
Introduction/ Research Focus
What is the gap/problem/issue in the literature that you spotted and then will try to deal with?
Introduction/ Overall and individual aims
Define APPROPRIATE, FOCUSED AND CLEAR objectives
Introduction/ Value of your work
Explain how your work will add value to your field of study
Introduction/ Outline the structure of your Dissertation:
Outline the structure of your Dissertation:
General structure of an Abstract
- Establish context of research
- Establish topic of research/research problem
- Indicate the methodology
- Present the main findings
- Indicate the main conclusion
- Keywords (optional)
Literature Review
Haywood and Wragg (1982: 2) put it:
“a review of literature should demonstrate that ‘the writer has studied existing work in the field with insight’”.
What exactly should a Literature Review do?
Evaluate the literature, and lead logically to your research questions.
Functions of a Literature Review:
— Justify your research – what’s the issue? Why should the reader care?
— Explain and justify your research methods
— Give the background info/context your reader needs to know
— Get the vocabulary needed
— Show you are familiar with the research field/issues/techniques used
In a Literature Review note things such as:
- Findings that are common/contested
- Two or three important trends in the research
- The most influential theories
Literature Review: Conclusion
- Concluding paragraph reiterates overall assessment of the literature.
- It shows how the literature which has just been reviewed will be important for the following part of the dissertation (e.g. methodology).
- It prepares the reader to what comes next (e.g. methodology).
- Concise: one or two paragraphs ONLY!
Research Methods/ Introduction
Restate the research objectives, explain the chapter objective with the research method you chose and why such method was chosen, and finish it the outline of the structure of the chapter.
- What specific research objective does your empirical research relate to?
- Why are you collecting your own data?
- Is there any indication on how are you going to structure your chapter?
Research Methods/ Research strategy
Present the research method you chose and explain WHY it was chosen, using Literature on Research Methods to back you up. Compare and Contrast with some other strategies and explain why these other strategies don’t fit your research focus and the strategy you chose was/is the BEST
- What is your overall research strategy? (case study, survey, experimental, historical, action research, grounded theory etc.)
- Why have you chosen that research strategy?
- How do you intend sampling your target population?
- Why have you chosenthat sampling approach?
Research Methods/ Data collection
Describe what, where, who and how your data refers to. Support your choice on data collection techniques through Literature on Data Collection. Provide as many details as possible so that another researcher could replicate your study. Include all the extra things as Appendices.
- How do you propose to collect your data? (questionnaires, interviews, observation, organizational reports, etc.)
- Why have you chosen to collect data that way?
Research Methods/ Framework for data analysis
Present the analysis method you chose and explain WHY it was chosen, using Literature on Research Methods to back you up. Give details about the procedures used to analyse the data.
-Once you have collected your data, what are you going to do with it?
[or How are you going to analyse your findings?]
Research Methods/ Limitations and potential problems
Address validity and reliability to show that your research was/is trustworthy, not a bunch of invented/created/planted data!
- Do you see any limitations or problems with your practical research?
- Have you faced the twin issues of validity and reliability?
Methodology/ advice
- Don’t overdescribe the literature on research methods, use it to explain WHY your methodology choices are a good basis to the objectives of your reasearch
- Describe your methodology as clearly as possible: If another researcher were to conduct YOUR work, would they be able to based on your explanations?
- Read other methodology chapters from other dissertations to get examples of how to write it properly
Final Paragraph: Summary of this Methodology chapter. Introduce the reader to the next chapter, Results/Findings!
Methodology structure
- RESEARCH STRATEGY
- DATA COLLECTION techniques,
- approach to DATA ANALYSIS,
- acknowledged LIMITATIONS of the work
Results/Findings
what is?
The results should directly answer your research questions and clearly indicate the answers to your research questions or, if you are using hypotheses, whether they were fully supported, partially supported or not supported.
In most cases, it is best to report your results succinctly and clearly, particularly if you have a discussion section in your study, as that is where you can go into detail about your interpretations of the results.
Be sure to emphasise both those results that turned out as you had hoped and those that ran counter to your hypotheses.
Results/Findings
introduction
•Introduction: The introduction provides a brief summary of and rationale for how
data were analyzed. It describes the organization of the chapter according to research
questions, conceptual framework, or thematic categories.
Results/Findings
body
- Findings build logically from the problem, research questions, and design.
- Findings are presented in clear narrative form using plentiful verbatim quotes, and “thick description.” Narrative data are connected and synthesized through substantive explanatory text and visual displays, if applicable, not simply compiled. Some tables and figures may be deferred to the appendices.
- Headings are used to guide the reader through the findings according to research questions, themes, or other appropriate organizational schemes.
- Inconsistent, discrepant, or unexpected data are noted with discussion of possible alternative explanations.
Results/Findings
conclusion
• Summary: This section explains in summary form what the chapter has identified,
and also prepares the reader for the chapters to follow, by offering some foreshadowing as to the intent and content of the final two chapters.
