SMILE
mainImage

Unit 11: Writing skills - The Dissertation

How to structure a dissertation

  • Implementation of the research - approximately 15 per cent of dissertation. Factors that you may wish to consider:
    • Access and ethical issuespaper pages
    • Sampling and selection
    • Applying techniques to data collection
    • Documents
    • Interviews
    • Observations
    • Questionnaires
    • Recording your progress
    • Possible problems re data collection
  • Presentation and analysis of data - approximately 15 per cent of dissertation. Large tables should be placed in appendices. Clearly label records, figures or tables in the text and in appendices. This clarifies the relevance of the data to the reader. It outlines any challenges in obtaining data and explains how these issues were approached. Relate the findings to the research questions and discuss the results.
  • Comment or discussion - approximately 20 per cent of dissertation. This chapter discusses the main findings, and relates these to the literature review. You should also explain and justify the similarities and differences to the theories or perspectves that you have outlined in your literature revew.
  • Summary and conclusion - approximately 10 per cent of dissertation. This chapter should summarise your main findings, central arguments, and relate them to your original hypothesis/es. Finally state the importance of your work and reiterate the main points.
  • References. All references applied in the text.
  • Bibliography. All background sources not referred to in text.
  • Appendices Large tables and figures logically in logical order.

More help is available from your Learning Development Centre.

Creative Commons License
SMILE by Imperial College, Loughborough University and the University of Worcester, modified by Marion Kelt Glasgow Caledonian University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License