It involves so many skills that one doesn't normally learn any other way:
The irony in this question is that, if you have already chosen a good topic, then you must have already done a lot of reading on it. However, if you like only like a particular topic, then you need to narrow it down and do lots of reading, especially of recent research. Keep notes of your reading because your thoughts will develop as you learn more.
After that, you need to think about a proposal and literature review, but those steps are further down the road.
Twelve months is quite possible in some circumstances. In others, three years is very good progress. It depends greatly on many factors, some of which are:
Consider this outline to complete a dissertation in eighteen months:
It is possible to write a PhD dissertation in less than three months, but not under normal circumstances; it takes that at least that long to do a thorough edit of a long dissertation. The most obvious case is when all the research has been done and published as a series of articles. It is then simply a matter of:
original contribution to knowledgeand is not just a collection of articles, and
Obviously one would have already thought through the topic very thoroughly, so it's mainly a matter of establishing coherence. In that case, even less than three months is quite feasible.
It will depend to some extent whether the program has an academic or a professional focus and what you want to do afterwards.
First of all, a good dissertation is a finished dissertation. Your goal should be to finish well and not to “stand out from the rest.” This is where you learn the craft of original research, not aim for a Nobel prize.
My next main tip would be to hone your writing and research skills. Being able to write better papers more efficiently will help you do better and give you other options later on. Many of those skills are actually quite procedural and not so difficult to learn. This will give you time for aspects that are not procedural, such as being curious, and finding better questions to ask.
Having said that, find a good topic and, if it allows or requires an innovative methodology, so much the better. At this stage, the trick is to find the best questions.
One way to think is in terms of horizons. Start by asking, “What is on the horizon?” Then imagine that you are there on the horizon. Look to the next horizon past that, and ask, “What is there and how do I get there?”
Edit well. Reading it should be a pleasure because the typing and punctuation are error-free, and the language makes for pleasant reading: good grammar, good style, easy to follow structure, correct references, no verbiage, etc. This releases the reader to enjoy original ideas. That’s what you should be writing. Good ideas and good editing.
This kind of dissertation has a topic of broader interest than most dissertations, and is something of general importance that is valuable for a long time. These qualities are quite rare in dissertations because most of them are highly specific and comprise only one relatively small step that will soon be overtaken by subsequent research.
The popular dissertation is well-written and reader-friendly, suitable for publication as a monograph for a wider readership, and even better if it becomes a standard reference book for undergraduates.
There are a few of these but quite rare. Clifford Geertz's Religion of Java was his PhD dissertation at Harvard in the 1950's and is still in print. D.L. Baker's Two Testaments, One Bible is now in its third edition.
If you have a specific area of interest, start reading and making notes as soon as you can. You don't need anybody's approval for that.
It will give you time for your ideas to develop. It will also be useful for your literature review and even more useful if your topic is an analysis of literature of some kind. However, it would be foolish to write much dissertation content until you have decided on a topic. (If you did, you'd probably have to discard lots of it.)
If you plan to collect data from human subjects, it is illegal to do so until you have an ethical clearance. That means that your proposal first needs to be approved by your supervisor and ethics committee.
If you are working in a laboratory as part of a team, it will depend on what your supervisor thinks.
Here are three ways:
It will depend on the field of study and the methodology.
Dissertations that comprise literature analyses do not necessarily follow a prescribed outline, although the introduction and conclusion have clear guidelines.
A particular outline is quite standard for most fieldwork topics, whether your use a qualitative or a quantitative methodology. (It is also similar to the requirements for many journal articles.) Many US programs, however, require students to follow. Some institutions are flexible about it; for example a dissertation might need separate chapters on context, epistemology, or implications. I say “most fieldwork topics” because ethnographic research often requires a different outline.
The “standard” outline is as follows:
In most cases, students can only go as fast as possible, and many topics actually take a long time.
However, it can be difficult in a very fast-moving field. By the time you've finished your project, other people might have solved the problem or published something so significant that your work needs major revision just to be acceptable.
Many US students who find good external help say it is invaluable and, for some, it is the difference between success and failure. Consider these questions:
If you are permitted to engage external support, I'd advise that you learn enough so that when you send something off to your editor (or methodologist or statistician), it is already fairly good. That will prevent you paying for multiple re-edits.
Probably not. An emotional opinion without good support is a waste of ink. It would not be good to prove to your readers that you are an idiot.
If you have compelling evidence to support your view, it might be a good idea. However, it would also be wise to also evaluate fairly alternative opinions.
Kind of both correct.
You can use technical language because you are writing for an academic audience. Use of simplistic language would probably attract some negative remarks.
Some technical terms need definitions if they are ambiguous or unclear. In some fields, there are competing definitions that are different. “Jargon” is a pejorative term.
However the language style needs to be readable. Some students write lots of verbiage to sound impressive but actually have weak ideas. Better to have clear, simple, precise language and good ideas. Even many academics don’t enjoy reading pretentious verbiage.
Several particular criteria normally apply.
First, the literature review needs to go through the literature with enough detail to justify the analysis and critique. In other words, a writer may not make sweeping (i.e. unjustified) judgements and generalisations about the existing literature.
Second, the criterion for methodology is enough detail for someone else to replicate it.
Finally, the analysis needs enough detail to support the conclusions based on the data. In other words, don't jump to unjustified conclusions.
That's normal in a first draft. Start by getting your words onto the screen (or perhaps paper), even if you can't find quite the right words at the time. Just do your best and get it all in writing. At this stage, perfection is your enemy.
When you have a rough draft, it is not all that difficult to improve something once it's written down. However, it is extremely difficult to write a first draft with all good wording.
It normally takes multiple drafts and lots of checking to get to the final draft. Use a thesaurus to check your vocabulary selection, use a spell-checker for your spelling, and use a grammar checker for sentence structure.
Don't show people the early drafts with all those mistakes. Just show them the greatly improved drafts and they'll think you're clever.
Other than that, be realistic about your expectations. Any research will only appeal to a certain audience, so don't expect everybody on the planet to be interested. For example, most research requires some background knowledge of the topic. If you tried too hard to appeal to everybody, then you would have to write so simplistically that you couldn't get any research done.
This is based on a true story of someone who wrote a doctoral dissertation. It cost only phone and videoconferencing bills to access the supervisor and other cohort members.
The title simply identifies the topic as factually as possible. It needs to be brief and factual so that prospective readers will have a good idea of what it is about and can decide whether or not it is relevant to their own research.
When anybody is looking for a thesis or dissertation, the title is the first thing they read. If it clearly states the topic they're interested in, they will look further, usually the abstract. If the title is ineffective, then they ignore it. (The same applies to journal article titles.)
Try to express the topic clearly and succinctly in ten words or less. Be factual and objective so that anybody reading it will know what the dissertation is about. (Don't try anything “cute” or “catchy;” it will only make you look amateurish and any serious reader will ignore it.) You don't have to get it right at your first attempt. Give it your best shot and then revise it until it's right.
Some institutions have rules limiting titles to 10 or 15 words. If you need your title to be longer, your supervisor might advise you have a brief main title and then put any other necessary details in a subtitle.
The title could be a question, although I personally don't like that kind of title. Check with your supervisor and follow his her advice. If you can use a question, you will probably need a subtitle. For example, “[Question]? An inquiry into …”
The title page is only ever one page and all institutions I know use almost exactly the same layout. You must follow your institution's instructions, and they will normally give you an example and most likely a template. There can be other preliminary pages (eg. Table of Contents) but only one page is called the title page.
An abstract is a summary, and is helpful for other researchers looking for research on a topic.
In any review of research, researchers use the abstract to know how relevant an item of research is to their own topic, and whether they need to get the whole document. The order is often:
Check the rules of your institution. They will normally specify a maximum length and how it must be laid out and submitted. E.g. as a preliminary in the thesis or as a separate document.
The institution might also specify a particular layout for contents, such as purpose, methodology, findings, etc. Otherwise, there is an internationally used formula for these things.
Your institution has probably set a maximum, usually 300–500 words, but I have seen one that has a two-hundred word limit for short theses. Check the rules at your institution. Some also have a formula for the contents of abstracts, so check that, too.
Writing the abstract is one of the very last things you do, along with other preliminaries.
When you start writing your dissertation, go straight into the body of the work. You can't write the abstract at that stage anyway unless you already know the findings of the research.
A preface is good practice when the author's personal circumstances are helpful for readers to understand the dissertation. For example, if you write about Xyz-land and have lived there for ten years, your readers should know that about you.
Otherwise, do not include a preface.
You should acknowledge funding and perhaps any other kind of unusual assistance. You do not need to acknowledge your supervisors if they were only doing their job. If you have a preface and acknowledgements are short, put the acknowledgements at the end of the preface.
A system of chapters is required for all theses and dissertations.
However, research papers and journal articles do not need chapters. They seldom exceed 10,000 words, and side titles are quite adequate. In contrast, the shortest theses are normally at least 10,000 words
Their purpose is to make the final work readable; they guide the reader through the text and follow the logical progression of ideas. In some kinds of dissertation, figuring out a sensible system of chapters is essential to showing that one even understands the topic, because systematic thought naturally can be divided into meaningfull chunks.
Some schools have a mandatory system of chapters, and a student who did not follow them would probably be asked to reformat his/her dissertation.
The introduction specifies your purpose. Without a purpose you're going nowhere in particular, so you will fail. You might round up bits and pieces but will not even have a purpose to distinguish between what should and shouldn't be included.
The simplest conclusions simply show how the dissertation has achieved its purpose. Some kinds of conclusions also include residue (phenomena that cannot yet be explained) and suggestions for further research.
Several particular criteria normally apply:
Underneath they are both similar; they both start with a purpose and go through the necessary information so that the purpose is reached.
Creative writing is usually about creating a story with a plot. It starts with some kind of conflict or problem, then builds a context and a cast of characters, follows through to a climax, and finally to a resolution of the conflict or problem.
Many academic papers follow a set kind of outline: Introduction, literature review, methodology, analysis, conclusion. In fact, this is really a kind of story:
The main requirement is the original contribution to knowledge through research, not length.
Actual word totals can vary greatly, and each institution can make its own rules, and if necessary, can grant exemptions.
In the US, 250–350 pages might be quite common but it varies according to discipline, with mathematics often shorter. An average of 60,000 words is common. British PhD dissertations are on average longer; the most common maximum is 100,000 words, including bibliography and appendices. Some dissertations are so long that they have had to be bound in several volumes. Some institutions apply the word limit to the chapters only, which allows writers to put very large amounts of information in appendices.
Masters theses vary greatly, especially if one considers international comparisons. Some are short works of 15,000 words. Some are longer. Some are simply critical reviews, and some include new research where 40,000 words is a reasonable expectation. The frequent guideline for a higher masters by research is a maximum of 60,000 words.
It will vary from university to university. The main criterion is that it makes an original contribution to the knowledge of the topic. Some dissertations are quite short, especially in mathematics.
In some fields, assessors definitely look at the length. If they think it is too brief to pass, they might ask for corrections if that will bring it up to PhD standard. Otherwise, it will depend on the country. In some countries, they will check whether it meets the requirements for a lower award, usually the Master of Philosophy. If it does, the student leaves the institution with an MPhil. (In fact, many PhD students are afraid of being MPhil-ed.)
There are no absolute rules about what should and shouldn't be in the appendices. The principle, though, is quite simple: anything necessary to the research but that interrupts the flow of reading. For example, appendices can include:
How the principle is interpreted will be up to you and your advisor, and everyone is a little different.
No, glossaries are not normal in dissertations, and you could only include one on the recommendation of your supervisor. It is normal to define new terminology either in the introduction or at its first occurrence in the text.
Dissertations do not contain indexes. However, it is a good idea to add an index when turning a dissertation into a publishable monograph. Many modern word processors have a way to automate the process of making them.
There are not many gray areas, but two come to mind:
Yes, it is easy to do. You read something and thought about it. You now vaguely remember an idea and can't remember whether it is your own or from something you read. You write the idea into your paper but actually it was from another source.
If you're honest and really need to use it, you can lose a lot of time looking for the source.
It depends on the style guide. Some institutions have one style guide for the whole institution while others have different guides for undergraduates and for graduates, or for different fields of study. Added to that, there are many different style guides and you need to follow meticulously the one for your program. Some common ways of placing references are:
There are two kinds of revision.
The first kind is part of the writing process. The first draft of anything is usually very bad, with lots of gaps, redundancies, grammatical and stylistic errors, typos, layout mistakes, and things that don't make as much sense as you intended. It is usually so bad that you shouldn't show it to anybody. It takes a series of drafts to fix all these things. If you generally don't revise and fix these things, your supervisor might even refuse to read your drafts. And if your final draft is still poorly edited, you will not be allowed to progress to assessment.
The second kind is corrections of minor errors that assessors require as a condition to pass and graduate. The task is not onerous and everybody makes these corrections. (If the student didn't, they would fail the whole program.)
The final stage is usually editing details: