Use our Writing the Dissertation - Overview and Planning guide as a way of steering you through the challenges of researching, planning and writing a dissertation. More detailed guidance on writing each chapter is provided throughout the various stages of the Dissertation Planner. What is your own opinion or stance on the topic? How do your own attitudes, values and beliefs affect your research? No one can be entirely objective – be honest about your own interests and values. Read your work aloud to get a sense of whether your sentences are 'reader friendly'. If you have to breathe like an Olympian swimmer just to get to the end of each sentence, for example, you might need to simplify some constructions!

Whenever you undertake research, no matter what level you are working at, it is always important to consider the immediate and continued impact of your project.You are initially going to need to come up with a research strategy. This strategy is a description of how you are going to implement the research within your own study. It's an essential component of your project, but not something that is going to require a detailed review of general research strategies. This is a common mistake by students who often spend a lot of time discussing all research strategies, rather than focusing on the one that they have chosen and the justification for this choice. Introduce your area of study, sharing details about your research question, problem statement, and hypotheses. Situate your research within an existing paradigm or conceptual or theoretical framework.

A chapter is an inanimate object, so it is not capable of taking an action itself (e.g., presenting or discussing). However, the meaning of the sentence is still easily understandable, so the IS-AV construction can be a good way to add variety to your text. Example: IS-AV constructionChapter 1 presents an introduction to the problem and Chapter 2 discusses the relevant literature. Example 3: The I construction If any of the results were unexpected, offer explanations for why this might be. It’s a good idea to consider alternative interpretations of your data.The tabs of this guide will support you in beginning and managing your dissertation.The sections are organised as follows: Draw a typical week’s timetable on a large sheet of paper. Alternately, use a weekly planner document or calendar app. Show every day, whether or not you have any lectures or classes, and write or draw in the ‘fixtures’ for each week; these will include your University timetable, and other regular commitments such as paidwork, volunteering and regular social events. Once you have marked in the essentials, as you see them, take a good look at where you could commit time. Look for slots of between 30 minutes and 2 hours (your brain starts to slow down when you have been working for more than 2 hours) to spend on your dissertation. Look particularly for those odd hours which are easily frittered away doing nothing much and see if you can turn these into study time so that some clear chunks of time are left for you to relax, keep fit, go shopping, watch TV and so on. Trello is an online planning tool that allows you to create a project workflow. It is a simple and accessible tool that allows you to set yourself deadlines, colour code tasks and share your project plan with collaborators. View our example Dissertation Planning Trello board here and some guidance for students on using Trello (Linked In Learning). Ask for access, where possible, to past dissertations of the kind you are being asked to write, so that you can get a sense of their scope, structure, tone and the methodology used.

Want to build a perfect dissertation schedule? Using some strategies along with a dissertation planner is the solution. Now, you must be thinking about what those strategies and tools are that can help you do this. Hence, a brief description of all the strategies is as follows: 1. Choosing A Topic That Is Right For You In some disciplines, the conclusion is just a short section preceding the discussion section, but in other contexts, it is the final chapter of your work. Here, you wrap up your dissertation with a final reflection on what you found, with recommendations for future research and concluding remarks. It also means that you are learning in an environment where you develop and use research skills as you progress. The most successful students tend to develop research skills early and use them consistently. Research in higher education The whole point of a dissertation is to convince your professor that you are a competent researcher. This can be challenging, because it is likely that this is your first real experience with research and the first time you will have to attempt a piece of research to this scale of magnitude. Becoming a competent researcher means you have to demonstrate proficiency in each of the phases of your dissertation. The following tale represents the typical path of the "Dissertation Life Cycle."Make sure, too, that all of your references to other people’s work are accurate and made in accordance with the academic conventions of referencing, citations and bibliographies appropriate for your subject discipline. See here for guidance on referencing. Read other dissertations from students in your department/discipline to get an idea of how similar projects are organised and presented. Your methodology chapter describes how you conducted your research, allowing your reader to critically assess its credibility. Your methodology section should accurately report what you did, as well as convince your reader that this was the best way to answer your research question. It is almost impossible to write a dissertation without effective planning and schedule. Good planning is what uses a dissertation planner, along with other strategies, to create a dissertation schedule. All those strategies and tools support your dissertation at each stage. Planning can make a huge difference in a dissertation that is OK and a dissertation that you will be proud of.