Sample Dissertations

Dissertation Referencing Styles

Throughout your life in the academic arena, you will be required to provide a proof of your writing. One such useful technique is to provide references for the other people’s work from which you have borrowed their ideas.

What is referencing

Referencing is a system that allows you to acknowledge the sources of information you use in your writing. If you do not reference your sources you are plagiarizing. Direct quotations, facts and figures, as well as ideas and theories, from both published and unpublished works must be referenced.

When to Reference

You must provide a reference whenever you quote, paraphrase or summaries someone else’s ideas, theories or data. You must also reference any graphic information you use. Some of the sources you will need to reference include:

books or chapters in books
journal or newspaper articles
conference papers
films or television programs
personal communications like emails, interviews or letters
electronic sources such as web pages, journal articles from online databases, or usenet groups.

The importance of accurate citation and dissertation referencing

To prevent plagiarism-If you draw upon other people’s work in your writing and research and do not acknowledge those sources, you can be accused of plagiarism.
To enable you quickly locate information you have already cited
To enable your supervisor or instructor to check the veracity of the information quoted
Correct citations allow others to follow up sources you have referred to, so citing is in the interests of scholarly investigation and the sharing of ideas.
Moral Rights – The Copyright Act includes a section called “Moral Rights” which applies when you reproduce works such as text or images that are subject to copyright. This section protects the moral rights of an author to have their work accurately acknowledged and treated with respect.
An author/artist/creator can take legal action if their work is copied without due acknowledgement or if it is incorrectly attributed to someone else. Furthermore their work must be treated with respect and not subjected to any prejudicial treatment. Hence due acknowledgement of an author’s work can now be seen as a legal requirement as well as good academic practice.

Which dissertation referencing style should I use?

There are number of referencing styles available for use. Your college or instructor will provide you with guide on which referencing style you need to adapt. Some of these referencing styles are listed below:

Harvard (also called the Author-date style)
Numeric (also called the Numbered List or Vancouver style)
MHRA (Modern Humanities Research Association) for literature and the Humanities
APA (American Psychological Association) for Psychology
AIP (American Institute of Physics) for Physics.

Whatever style you use, it is very important to be clear, consistent and correct, making sure you include all the relevant details.

When do I need to give references?

You need to give a reference if

you quote the exact words of another author
you paraphrase or summarize a passage by another author
you use an idea or material based directly on the work of another author

The Harvard style of referencing

As pointed earlier, Harvard style of referencing is just of the many styles available. However, this style is the most common used in the arts and social sciences. One might find other systems in other disciplines because the things they reference have different requirements (e.g. legal or political documents). Some of these referencing systems use footnotes. However, the

Harvard System does not use footnotes. Again, in the Harvard system, there are varying versions of it. You might find other that this manual provides a slight different version from the one you have been taught in class. We are not looking for something perfect, but a real attempt in using the system. Kindly check with your supervisor or institution you are studying to confirm the acceptable version of the Harvard style of referencing.

How does it work?

The Harvard system consists of two parts:

In-text citation

This is done within the body of your work. In making reference within the body of your text, you generally provide the name of the author(s) and the year of publication in the text.

References (List of references)

This involves providing the name of the author(s), the year of publication in the text and giving the full details of where to find the reference at the end of your report. This section is called references or list of references. Only those sources you have used in preparing your work and cited directly in the text need to be included at the end of your report.

In-text citation

As pointed earlier, in-text citation is accomplished by providing the name of the author(s) and the year of publication the main body of your text. As a result the general rule is to give the surname of the author or organization name in the case of the companies followed by the year in which the source was produced.

Below are different variations of in-text citation

Referring to an author’s viewpoint in your text

Author(s) for books and reports

Again there different cases, but the basic format is Author (Date).

If the author’s name occurs naturally in the sentence

If the author’s name can be incorporated sensibly into the text, the year is followed in parentheses

e.g. suppose you have read a book written by Adisai Jones in year 2008, then you have to cite inside your main body of the research document as follows:

Jones (2008) argued that all organizations need to adapt the new accounting standard for their final reports to make sense.

If the name does not occur naturally in the sentence

In this case, both the author’s name and year are given in parentheses e.g. Following a study on new accounting principles auditing focus has also shifted (Jones 2008), from…

If there are two or more authors

In this case the surnames of both authors are given. e.g. In a study of auditing and investigation, Jones and Evans (2008) established… e.g. In a study of auditing and investigation (Jones and Evans 2008), the results showed that…

If there are more than two authors

If there are more than two authors the surname of the first author is given, followed by et al. This is a terminology meaning and others. e.g. Smith et al (2007) concluded that marketing research … e.g. Marketing research is core to the existence of the business (Smith et al 2007) such that….

If you have two authors with the same surname </DIV>

When you have two authors with the same surname, then Initials are included to distinguish. <DIV align=left>e.g. The ERP model was suggested by B.A. Morgan (2003), with some modification later by C.H. Morgan (2006).

If the author(s) has more work published in the same year

When a author has published more than one cited document in the same year these are distinguished by adding lower case letters after the year within the brackets. e.g. Jones (2008a) argue that… However, Jones (2008b)….

If you refer to an author of a chapter in an edited book

Suppose you refer just to one chapter in a book within a collection of chapters coming from different authors, provide an in-text citation fro the author of the chapter you want to cite, but give the date of the book. e.g. David (2003) provides a general model for portal organisation in a higher learning institution.

If you are citing a series of reference at the same place in the text

In this case the references should be listed in chronological date order, with the earliest first. e.g. Morgan (2008), Jenkinson (2006) and Smith et al. (2004) argued that…

Summary, paraphrasing and quotation

If you are summarizing or paraphrasing a specific page or section, then you start with the author, year of publication, colon followed by page number(s). e.g. Smith (2007:37) showed that… e.g. Marketing research is core to the business (Smith et al 2007:89) such that…. If you are summarizing the entire book, you do not need to provide the page numbers. For quoting work of a given author(s), the same technique is applied. However the exact words are placed between double quotes. e.g. “The number of users determines whether the database is classified as single-user or mult-user” (Rob and Coronel 2007:8).

When Author is an organisation

Some sources may be produced by organizations and not individuals. In this case you should use the name of the organization in the author’s place omitting any leading article (e.g. A, The). In the same manner, if a publication is produced by an organisation and no individual is credited as the author, treat the organisation as the author. e.g. IAA runs postgraduate diploma in accountancy and finance as well as certificates programs in accountancy, information technology and computer science (IAA 2006).

Author’s name not given

When the author name is not given, use Anon in place of the author. The number of entrepreneurs is increasing in Tanzania (Anon 2003) Note: the keyword Anon stands for anonymous author.

If there is no date on the publication

If you do not know the date of publication, use “n.d.” (which stands for “not dated”) in place of the year. e.g. VfM Steering Group report (n.d.) identifies a number of challenges facing management of student record systems in higher education.

Secondary referencing – Authors quoting other authors

Coventry (2007) refers secondary sources as “second hand sources”. Therefore, try to find the original source before you make us of the secondary sources. If you find the original source, cite it as explain above. However, if you do not find the original source, cite it by giving the author’s name, then write ‘cited in’ and give the author of the book or article you have actually read.

e.g. (Smith 2007: 65 cited in Jenkinson 2008: 89).

Citing a journal article

In citing a journal article follows the same procedure by providing the author(s) of the article and the year in which the journal was published.

e.g. Zastrocky and Yanosky (2002) proposed integrated…

Referencing figures, diagrams, tables and graphs

Tables, diagrams, graphs and figures should be referenced if they are based on another’s work. The reference would normally be given after the title of the diagram or table. These references for diagrams etc. must also be included in the list of references.

Example

Figure XXX ERP architecture (Zastrocky and Yanosky 2015)

Electronic Sources

Information taken from the Internet should be cited in a similar fashion to its printed counterparts. Therefore, for any source accessed online including electronic journal, electronic book, e-mails, electronic figures, tables, pictures just to mention a few; give the author’s surname or the corporate author and the data in brackets.

Note: For website and other electronic sources, do not give the full web address as this will be included in your list of references.

e.g. Tzonline (2015)

e.g. (IFM 2015).

e.g. IAA (2015)

Compiling List of References

Harvard style of referencing requires each source cited inside your text to be full referenced at the end of your work. This is well placed in a section called the List of References or simply References. Normally this section is after conclusion and recommendation chapter. The full references should be in alphabetical order arranged by surname.If you do not have an author then list the item alphabetically by title. If an author has more than one publication, list the publications chronologically with the earliest first. It is important to remember a list of references contains details only those works cited in the text and not everything you have read for your work. On the other side, a bibliography includes all sources you have read and which are relevant to the subject. Harvard style of referencing requires one to use List of References and not bibliography. Kindly check with your supervisor to see which one you should use.

Below are the different styles for writing list of references

A book by a single author

For a book with a single author, the format is Author’s Surname, first name initials. (Year of publication) Title. Edition (if not the first), Place of publication: Publisher. The following example shows how this format works:

Morgan, B. (2007) Managing IT for Information Age. Arusha: Oxford

The explanation for the above citation is as follows:

Morgan, B. (2007) Managing IT for Information Age. Arusha: Oxford

[Author] [Year] [TITLE (Italicized or underlined)] [Place of Publication] [Publisher]

Some more examples are given below:

Munguatosha, G. (2007) MS Word 2007 for beginners. London: Macmillan.

Mwaitete, C. (2005) Economics for beginners. 3rd ed. Nairobi: Towson

A book by two authors

In this case follow the format given below:

1^stAuthor’s Surname, first name initials. & 2^ndAuthor’s Surname, first name initials. (Year of publication) Title. Edition (if not the first) Place of publication: Publisher.

Examples for two authors are as follows:

Bird, P. (2002) Understanding Company Accounts. 3^rd London : Pitman Publishing
Johnson, G., Scholes, K. and Whittington, R. (2004) Exploring Corporate Strategy: texts and cases 7^th London: FT Prentice Hall
Shirima, L. & Shasha, S. (1998) A first course in accounting. Arusha: Levi Press.

A book by more than two authors

All authors need to be listed in your list of reference. A common mistake by most of the writers is to use “et al.” in the list of references. The keyword et al should only be used in the in-text citation and not the list of references.

The suggested format is:

1^stAuthor’s Surname, first name initials, 2^ndAuthor’s Surname, first name initials. and n^thAuthor’s Surname, first name initials. (Year of publication) Title. Edition (if not the first) Place of publication: Publisher.

Examples

Saunders, M., Lewis, P. and Thornhill, A. (2003) Research Methods for Business Students.3^rd London: FT Prentice Hall
Tessa, M., Ruzegera, L. & Hansi, W. (2006) Tanzania Election 2005 Dar Es Salaam: UDSM Press.

Multiple works of the same author

Where there are several works by one author published in the same year they should be differentiated by adding a lower case letter after the date. Remember that this must also be consistent with the citations in the text.

For multiple works the required format is:

Author, first name initials. (Yeara) Title of book . Place of publication: Publisher

Author, first name initials. (Yearb) Title of book . Place of publication: Publisher

Author, first name initials. (Yearc) Title of book . Place of publication: Publisher

And so on, depending on the number of sources taken from the same author

Examples

Deshler, C., and Lincoln, Y. (2006a) A framework for human resource management 4^th ed. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall

Deshler, C., and Lincoln, Y. (ed.) (2006b) The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research 3^rd ed. Thousands Oak, CA: Sage

When you have both an editor and author

If the book you are referring to has both editor and author(s), then give the author’s surname as usual and the date in brackets, then write éd. by’ and give the editor’s surname and initials, followed by the title in italics then full stop. Finally give the place of publication followed by colon then the publisher.

Some examples include:

Denzin, N. (2005) ed. by Lincoln, Y. The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research. 3^rd ed. Thousands Oak, CA: Sage

A chapter from an edited book

Sometimes you need to reference only one chapter from a book which contains many chapters which are written by different authors. In this case adapt the following format:

Chapter author’s Surname, initials. (Year of publication) ‘Title of the chapter.’ followed by In Title of book. ‘ed. by’ Surname, Initials of editor(s) of publication Place of publication: Publisher: Page number(s) of the chapter.

Examples

David, E. (2003) ‘Campus portal strategies.’ In Designing Portals: opportunities and challenges. by Jafari, A. and Sheehan, M. London: Information Science Publishing: 68-88

Bantz, C. (1995) ‘Social dimensions of software development’ In Annual review of software management and development by Anderson, J. CA: Sage: 502-510.
Weir, P. (1995) ‘Clinical practice development role: a personal reflection’ In Innovations in nursing practice by Kendrick, K., Weir, P. and Rosser, E. London: Edward Arnold: 5-22.

A book produced by an organization (a corporate author)

For a book with a corporate author, the format is Corporate name (Year of publication) Title. Edition (if not the first), Place of publication: Publisher e.g.

NBAA (2007) Financial Accounting Manual Dar Es Salaam: NBAA

A printed journal article

When citing a printed journal article in the list of references, use the following format:

Author’s Surname, Initials. (Year of periodical issue in which article appeared) ‘Full title of article.’ Full Title of Journal volume, (issue if available) page numbers of whole article including its notes and references

However, some journals do not specify an issue number. In these cases use the Volume followed by the date shown on the journal. Here are the examples on how to cite an article on the printed journal:

McClea, M. and Yen, D. (2005) ‘A framework for the utilization of information technology in higher education admission department.’ International Journal of educational Management 19, (2) 87-101
Morgan, N. (2001) How to overcome ‘change fatigue.’ Harvard Business Review 79(7) 1-3
Pearce, L. (2003) ‘Our stakeholders: requirements for institutional portals.’ The Journal of Information and Knowledge Management Systems 33, (1) 11-16

A Report

For a report follow the format below:

Surname, Initials or Corporate author (Year of publication) Title of publication Report Number (where relevant) Place of publication: Publisher.

Example

Ministry of Health (2005) Choice and opportunity: primary care: the future no.245. Dar ES Salaam: Government Printing

Wangwe, S.(1988) Industrial Property Protection and Technological Innovation: A Case Study of Tanzania Geneva: UNCTAD

Newspaper articles

For newspaper articles the required format is as follows:

Author, Initials. (Year) ‘Title of article.’ Full Title of Newspaper,

Day and month: page numbers

Example of how to cite the newspaper in the list of references is given below:

Danda, K. (2008) ‘Forensic audit unit must be effective.’ Daily News 16 March: 7,9

A conference paper within conference proceedings

For a conference paper within conference proceedings, the format is as follows:

Author, Initials. (Year) ‘Title of the paper.’ In Surname, Initials. (ed.) Title of the Conference Proceedings, ‘Title of the Conference.’ Held Full Date at Location of the Conference. Published location: Publisher: Page numbers

Example

Brown, J. (2005) ‘Evaluating surveys of transparent governance.’ In Smith, A. (ed.) Proceedings of the UNDESA Conference on transparent government, ‘ 6th Global forum on reinventing government: towards participatory and transparent governance.’ Held 24-27 May 2005 at Seoul, Republic of Korea. New York: United Nations: 67-72

Conference proceedings

Here, give the organization as the author then the date in brackets. Put the title of the conference followed by the full stop within single quotations marks. Give the conference location and then the title of the conference proceedings in italics then a full stop. Give the surname and initials of the editor or organizer followed by ‘ed.’ in brackets. Finally, give the place of publication followed by a colon then the publisher.

Example

ACM (2007) ‘Conference on Network design and analysis.’ Durban(2007) Use of IPVer6 in network design. Lawton, D. (ed.) Nairobi: Moi University Press

Thesis, dissertation or research report

The required format is:

Author, Initials. (Year of publication) Title of dissertation. Unpublished Level thesis or dissertation or report, Name of the higher learning Institution

Example

Morgan, B. (2007) Analysis of the Network traffic of IAA LAN. Unpublished MSc dissertation, IAA

Annual report

The required format is:

Corporate author (Year of Publication) Full title of annual report Place of publication: Publisher

Example

Shoprite (2007) The annual report 2006-2007 Johannesburg: Shoprite

List of references for electronic sources

The principles of referencing information found on the internet and electronic sources are basically the same as for other material. However, for the web based sources, you will also need to include the uniform resource locator (URL), or web address. Make sure you write down the URL exactly as even the smallest mistake in the punctuation can mean that it is not possible to retrieve the site.

It is also important to include the exact date on which you accessed the web site to find the information you are using to support your work. This is because, unlike books and journal articles etc, web sites are updated or change frequently and you need to indicate which version you used.

This section presents different forms of electronic sources and how to write the list of references at the end of your report.

CD-ROM, DVD or video

The required format for referencing is given below:

Corporate Author (Year of publication) Full title of DVD or video. [Medium e.g. CD-ROM] Place of publication: Publisher [Accessed Date of Access]

Example: Mwananchi Films (2008) Great films from the 90s. [DVD]. Dar Es Salaam: Mwananchi Films [Accessed 4 March 2008]

Journal articles from an electronic source

For journal articles from an electronic source the format is as follows:

Author, Initials. (Year) ‘Title of article.‘ Full Title of Journal [online] Volume number, (Issue/Part number) Page numbers if available.

Available from <full website address> [Accessed date]

Example

Feld, C. and Stoddard, D. (2004) ‘Getting IT right’ Harvard Business Review 82, (2) 72-79 [online] available from

<http://search.epnet.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&an=12109042> [Accessed 27^th July 2006]

E-version of annual reports

For an e-version of an annual report (or other document) the required elements for a reference are:

Author or corporate author (Year) Title of document or page [online]

Available from <full website address> [Accessed date]

e.g. Marks & Spencer (2004) Annual report 2003-2004. [Online] Available from: <http://www-marks-and-spencer.co.uk/corporate/annual2003/> [accessed 4 June 2005]

Online newspaper articles

For newspaper articles found on line newspapers the required format for a reference is:

For newspaper articles the required format is as follows:

Author, Initials. (Year) ‘Title of article.’ Full Title of Newspaper,

Day and month: page numbers [online]

Available from <full website address> [Accessed date]

Example of how to cite the online newspaper in the list of references is given below:

Danda, K. (2008) ‘Forensic audit unit must be effective.’ Daily News 16 March: 7,9 [online] Available from <http://dailynews.habarileo.co.tz/editorial/?id=3556> [Accessed March 24, 2008]

For websites the required elements for a reference are:

For a normal website, whether belonging to the individual or corporate, the following format is adopted:

Author or corporate author (Year) Title of document. [online] Available from <full website address> [Accessed date]

Example

Oracle (2015) PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal [online] available from <http://www.oracle.com/applications/portals/enterprise/enterprise-portal.html [5^th September 2015]

IAA (2006) About IAA [online] available from <http://www.iaa.ac.tz/pages/iaa/about_iaa.html>[13^th July 2015]

E-book

For e-books the required format is as follows:

Author (Year) title of the book [online] Place of publication: Publisher

Available from <full website address> [Accessed date]

Example

Shaman, R. (2005) Commuting in the dark [online] Chester: Castle Press. Available from <http://www.freeebooks.com / E-books> [Accessed 5 June 2005]

An online conference paper within conference proceedings

For an online conference paper within conference proceedings, the format is as follows:

Available from <full website address> [Accessed date]

Example

Available from <http://webapps01.un.org/pubsCatalogue/browse.do?by=category&code=9 > [Accessed March 24, 2008]

Online information for Conference proceedings

Example

ACM (2007) ‘Conference on Network design and analysis.’ Durban(2007) Use of IPVer6 in network design. Lawton, D. (ed.) Nairobi: Moi University Press [online] Available from <http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1027802.1027891> [Accessed March 24, 2008]

Online thesis, dissertation or research report

The required format is:

Author, Initials. (Year of publication) Title of dissertation. Unpublished Level thesis or dissertation or report, Name of the higher learning Institution numbers [online] Available from <full website address> [Accessed date]

Example

Morgan, B. (2007) Analysis of the Network traffic of IAA LAN. Unpublished MSc dissertation, IAA numbers [online]

Available from < http://myweb.polyu.edu.hk/~lbaho/Library/Writing.pdf> [Accessed March 24, 2008]

Visit Our Dissertation Collection Here

Dissertation Structure

Your research dissertation may prove to be the longest piece of academic writing you will undertake during your studies, but there are useful methods that will assist you in making the task of writing a dissertation less troublesome. It is important to note that structure is critical along with time management; you should allocate a reasonable amount of time on structuring your dissertation correctly. It will help you gain a better overall grade and having a structured dissertation will keep you on track. This article will outline the typical structure of a dissertation.

Title Page

The dissertation title is an ideal opportunity to tell the reader and academic supervisor what your research is focused on. You will need it to be explicit, concise, on topic, descriptive, and representative of the research topic you have undertaken. More likely than not, there will be a required format for the title page in your research discipline, it is advisable to check how a title page is constructed at your institution, it may be best to check with your supervisor and locate previously written title pages by fellow students. I have written three dissertations during my time spent in education and the illustration below shows how I constructed my dissertation title page;

This tends to be the shortest and most concise section of your thesis or dissertation, but it is advisable in taking great care to write it well. Fundamentally, the abstract is a brief summary of the research undertaken. It should be able to represent the dissertation aim and objectives, and what the results and implications of the research are. In most cases a dissertation abstract is only one page long and you may have to adhere to a word limit, it is worth checking this with your supervisor and university guidelines. Be mindful that the dissertation abstract is an important section of your dissertation or thesis, it will naturally become a document in its own right, and there is a possibility that your dissertation may become registered on an academic database. Now that prospect sounds exciting. As the abstract comes before the main body of the dissertation, it may be prudent to write the abstract at an early stage when constructing your dissertation or thesis. It may form the framework for your research and will act as an aid in identifying the dissertation rationale and findings. This in turn will help formulate the structure of the dissertation.

Click the link to read further information about dissertation abstracts

Acknowledgements

This section is not mandatory and I tend not to include an acknowledgements section in my research. If you decide to include this, it will be an opportunity to mention individuals who have been particularly helpful to you while you have been writing your dissertation. Casting your eye over previously written acknowledgements by fellow students will give you a rough idea of the ways in which different kinds of guidance and support has been appreciated and mentioned. Again, this is not a mandatory section and you will not get downgraded for not including an acknowledge section.

Contents Page and List of Figures

The contents page in its simplest form denotes the structure of the dissertation. Any discrepancy in space devoted to different sections of dissertation content will become noticeable, it is important that the contents outlined in the contents page match the headings and subheadings throughout the document. Be mindful that many universities assess the presentation of a dissertation and the content structure is often seen as a significant contributor towards the final grade of a dissertation. It is recommended that you build a separate contents list for data tables, charts, figures and graphs.

Introduction

In most cases this is the first section of writing the reader encounters after the abstract or executive summary, it is often best to leave its preparation to last as, until then, you will not be totally sure what you are introducing, it is far easier to write an introduction once your dissertation is near to completion. When writing a dissertation the introduction has two primary roles (1) to expand the material summarized in the abstract section and (2) to indicate the content of the dissertation sections. I strongly advise that you include the following points to your dissertation introduction;

Research aims and objectives
Research concepts
Dissertation rationale
Methodology employed and scope
Brief outline of research questions and hypotheses
How collated data was analyzed and where it originated from
Structure of the dissertation

Click the link to read further information about a dissertation introduction

Literature Review

The main purpose of the literature review is to demonstrate that you have painstakingly explored and understand where your dissertation or thesis fits into the research field you have undertaken, have you identified existing theory and how does this relate to your research? You should be able to demonstrate the ability to identify key scholars and theories applicable to your research dissertation and how you have applied, assessed and critiqued this research. To do this you need to;

Define the current state of research in your chosen subject area
Assess whether there are any closely related areas that you also need to refer to in your research dissertation
Identify any gaps in literature where you argue that further research needs to be explored and added
Explain how you plan to address research gaps

This can lead to a clear statement of the research questions or hypotheses that you will be addressing. Further to the research context, there may be additional research contexts to present in your research. Typically, this would include;

Theoretical or hypothetical context
Methodological or operational context
Practice context
Political context

Undoubtedly, it may prove a little difficult to identify the optimal sequence for the above contexts as your specific research questions can be complex and there may be a handful of reasons why the research is needed in the field of study. It is worthwhile taking additional time to develop a fluid structure as this will help to convince examiners of the relevance of your research and that you understand its significance to field of study. The literature review should also be a straightforward description of how you conducted the research and how you referenced existing literature and theory.

The literature review reflects on critical points of current knowledge including findings written by prominent scholars, as well as theoretical and methodological contributions to a particular topic. Remember that a literature review is a secondary research source, and as such, do not report any unpublished, developmental or experimental research. Also, a literature review has a prominence in setting the research undertaken within the body of literature and to provide a clear context for the reader. Never forget that academic literature reviews are an integral element for research in nearly every academic field, regardless of the level of study.

Click the link to read further information about a dissertation literature review

Results and Findings

Many academics perceive the results and findings as the most fascinating and worthwhile elements of a research study, many scholars unearth significant results that can radically change the way a subject area is perceived. Many see this as a Eureka Moment. As a student, you will need to check which style of academic writing is best suited to your field of study. For example a scientific dissertation will have a clear separation between the results and the discussion of results presented; whereas a social science dissertation will contain a findings section that brings the results and discussion together to formulate a conclusion.

Click the link to read further information about dissertation findings

Discussion

The discussion section will allow you to evaluate the research in relation to the wider study, this will ascertain if you have kept your research on topic or not, and if you’ve answered the questions you intended or not. You will be able to refer back to the initial dissertation rationale that you gave for your introduction and literature review sections. You will also be able to see how impactful your research is and discuss what your own research study has added in the respective field. It is important to show that you appreciate the limitations of your research (be realistic) and how these may affect the validity and impact of the research findings. If you have acknowledged certain research limitations, you can report on the implications of your findings for theory, research, and practice in general.

Conclusions and Final Thoughts

Normally, this section of the dissertation tends to be much shorter than the aforementioned discussion. It is not a simple summary of your research by any degree, but needs to conclude concisely the main points that have been unearthed and what they mean for your chosen field of study. Be sure to highlight significant contributions and noteworthy outcomes from the research findings.

Referencing

This critical section of the dissertation needs to be organized, exact and must include all of your references in the required referencing style outlined in your university’s referencing guidelines.

As you add to and edit your dissertation you will probably gain and lose references that you had in earlier document versions. With this in mind, it will be advantageous to version control your documents up until completion (dissertation_v1.1.docx). It is vital to check that all the references contained in your dissertation are referenced accurately within the reference or bibliography section. From my personal experiences, I always checked to see if I could find every reference in the bibliography in the main body of the dissertation this means that you can locate any missing references and add them without running the risk of plagiarism. It is important that you reference all material used, I cannot stress this enough.

Click the link to read further information about dissertation referencing

Appendices

This section of the dissertation is very useful indeed. Items that normally appear in the appendices are those that a reader would want to see, but which would take up too much space and disrupt the flow if placed within the main body of the research. You can add your supporting documentation such as research questionnaires, cover letters, statistics, list of acronyms and photographs. It is worthwhile finding out if the appendices count towards the final word limit for your dissertation, normally the appendices do not. Be sure to reference the appendices within the main body of the research where necessary.

Click the link to read further information about dissertation appendices

Dissertation Structure Tips

Below are some dissertation tips that have proved useful throughout my time spent in education, I am sure that some of the bullet points below will prove useful to you;
Write your research as you go along, do this on the fly. Inspiration comes when you have information fresh in your mind if you cannot do this; write it down on a piece of paper and revisit it in the future. There is nothing more frustrating than losing an inspirational moment.
It is advantageous to keep track of how your research ideas are developing and writing helps clarify your thought processes. This negates the need to cram in thousands of words at the end of your dissertation this would lead to an imbalanced research project.
As previously mentioned, you do not have to start with an introduction; I have always found it easier to write an introduction once I have completed subsequent chapters such as the literature review or methodology. Alternatively, you may prefer to write the introduction first, so you can get your ideas formulated from the outset. There is every chance that you will add to and edit the introduction at some point.
Think of each chapter as a mini research project in itself. Each chapter should have a clear and concise introduction and conclusion. Use the chapter conclusion to link back to the overall research question and theoretical linkages to previous chapters.
Imagine the main questions and hypotheses of your dissertation as a river, and each chapter is a stream feeding into this, there should be fluidity from start to finish, you do not want to tie the reader up in knots. The individual chapters will contain their own opinions, and go their own way, but they all contribute to the main flow of the research project. Remember that a good dissertation structure is important.
Don’t go off on a tangent and don’t create your own bespoke dissertation structure, this will count against you. Always refer to your university guidelines if you are unsure.

Creating a good dissertation structure requires extra time, effort and preparation. “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” – Benjamin Franklin

Do you have any additional points that could be added to this post?