This document provides guidance on writing a dissertation. It discusses key components of a dissertation, including formulating a research question, reviewing relevant literature, justifying research methods, presenting findings, and relating findings back to the original question. It recommends starting with a working title and short proposal, and outlines typical dissertation chapters: introduction, literature review, methodology, findings, discussion, and conclusions. The literature review should synthesize previous work and references. Methodology discusses research design. Findings presents results, and discussion relates these back to the literature. Conclusions assess what was learned. A sample timeline is provided, along with questions to ensure logical flow and structure.

1. THE
DISSERTATIO
PAUL HOPKINS

2. 1
DO ALL DISSERTATIONS LOOK THE
SAME?
At one level, yes. They will have to:
• Formulate a clear question that your dissertation seeks
to answer.
• Review the literature in the field relating to your question.
• Engage in independent research in addressing this
question.
• Justify whatever methods you choose to undertake your
research.
• Present and discuss your findings, whilst demonstrating
how they relate to your original question

3. 2
PRODUCING A “WORKING TITLE”
Insofar as the preparation of the dissertation is a process
of investigation and discovery, the precise scope of your
study may well only emerge as you become closely
involved in a detailed review of the literature. At this early
stage, your title may be a provisional one that you will
revise later. Your dissertation supervisor may advise on
the title in order to help you find and define the focus of
the dissertation.
You should examine articles in scholarly journals for
examples of appropriate titles for a study of this length.

4. 3
STARTING TO WRITE THE
DISSERTATION
‣ It is useful to write a short proposal or abstract, say of about 300 words, in
which you set out as clearly as possible what you intend to do in the
dissertation.
‣ The value of this exercise is that it requires you to focus and articulate your
thinking. It may be that you will be able to summarise the exact nature and
scope of your study, in which case the proposal can serve as guide to refer to
as you write the main chapters of the work.
‣ Alternatively, it may make you aware of gaps in your knowledge and
understanding, and show you the areas that need further thought and research.
‣ Retain it for reference and revision (and send to me!)
‣ As you continue to write the main chapters of the work, you may find that your
initial plan has changed. This means that when you have completed the
chapters that form the main body of your dissertation you can return to the
proposal and revise it as much as you need, to form the introduction.

5. 4
DISSERTATION PLAN
‣ Introduction
‣ The Literature Review
‣ Methodology
‣ Findings, Analysis and Evaluation
‣ Discussion
‣ Conclusions and recommendations

6. 5
INTRODUCTION
The field of study, the research question, the hypothesis
(if any) or, more generally, the research question that is to
be investigated. It should also include a summary of the
contents and main arguments in the dissertation.

7. 6
THE LITERATURE REVIEW
Usually, this comes immediately after the introductory
chapter. This may be more than one chapter, but should
certainly be written in sections. This should include
previous work done on the field of study and anything that
you consider to be relevant to the hypothesis or research
question and to its investigation. It will include a large
number of references to the literature in your chosen
area. A (very) rough guide of thumb is 1 reference per
100-150 words.

8. Breakdown of Literature Review
The first stage of your literature review is to collect a list of literature that is relevant to your study using the research
databases and that “key source” (or sources)
Once you have a list of references for your dissertation, you now have to access and read this material. This is time
consuming because you will be reading a large amount of material. Once you start you might find that some literature is
of little relevance to your study. This is something that many researchers and dissertation students go through and is
often a necessary part of the process. It is better to read something that is not central to your dissertation than miss
something that might be an important and relevant contribution to the field.
Use a note-taking or referencing system that works for you (Zotero / Endnote). Make notes about the central themes
and arguments of the book, chapter or article. These notes can then be incorporated into the finished version of your
literature review.
General Literature: It will be clear that some of the reading you have done is of more relevance than others. It is
important, however, that you do not discard the less relevant work; instead this can form the broad background of your
discussion of the more relevant literature within your field; these might include theoretical approaches and empirical
approaches.
Central Literature: Once you have discussed the range of literature that is only of general interest to your study, you
can then go into more detail on the literature that more sharply focuses on the questions that are of interest to you.
Detailed analysis of theoretical and conceptual debates; Discussion of main findings of important empirical studies and
their critiques; focused analysis of policy implementation.
When you have written your literature review, this is not the end of the process. Throughout your dissertation process,
you will come across literature that is of relevance to your area of study, do not ignore this material, you can always add
more literature to your review as you come across it.

9. 7
METHODOLOGY
This section should include an account of the research
questions and/or hypotheses to be investigated, relevant
methods of investigation and an argument for why you
think these methods are the most appropriate ones for the
question and for your circumstances. You should consider
the benefits of your chosen method as well as identifying
any disadvantages and how you overcame them. Ethical
issues and the ways in which you dealt with them should
be noted. This section should also discuss any variations
from the original fieldwork plan, and should conclude with
a reflection on the experience of doing fieldwork.

10. 8
FINDINGS, ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION
This section should present the main findings of your
research together with an account of the strengths and
weaknesses of your data relative to your research
question/hypothesis. You may also wish to include an
evaluation of any difficulties you encountered in collecting
and analysing data, together with an assessment of how
this affected your plan of research. Here you can provide
an assessment of whether and how well you were able to
answer your research question and/or confirm/reject your
hypotheses.

11. 9
DISCUSSION
This chapter must relate the findings to the
theoretical/policy discussion in your literature review. You
should NOT introduce any new literature at this stage

12. 10
CONCLUSIONS AND
RECOMMENDATIONS
An overall assessment of what you found out, how
successful you were (you do not need to ‘suceed’) and
suggestions for future research.

13. 11
ROUGH TIMETABLE
‣ ~December: Research Plan and Literature gathering
‣ ~end January: Start literature review and complete ethics forms
‣ ~end March: First draft of literature and outline of methodology
‣ ~end April: Literature and Methodology “completed” and data collection
methods agreed. Start data collection*
‣ ~end June: First look at data - discussion about analysis methods
‣ ~end July: Analysis and Findings and Discussion
‣ ~end August: First complete draft

14. 12
TUTORIALS
Tutorial #1 mid February Research Plan and ethics forms completed
Tutorial #2 end March
First draft of literature and outline of
methodology
Tutorial #3 end April
Literature and Methodology “completed” and
data collection methods agreed
Tutorial #4 end May
First look at data - discussion about analysis
methods
Tutorial #5 mid July Analysis and Findings, and Discussion
Draft
Submission
end August Gives time for feedback and Development

15. 13
SOME KEY QUESTIONS
‣ How long is your dissertation going to be? (15 - 20k)
‣ Have you mapped out the content of each of your chapters?
‣ In what order will the content flow best?
‣ Is your evaluation doing its job?
‣ Is the order of the chapters logical and coherent?
‣ Will it make sense to the reader?
‣ Likewise, is your conclusion suitably conclusive?
‣ Does it have a beginning, middle and end - and a clear narrative?
‣ Do your sentences and paragraphs make sense?
‣ Do you know someone else who can proof-read the dissertation for you?
‣ Have you allowed enough time to proof-read properly?