About Dissertation Writing - Phd Dissertations

Let's start with the complete process of dissertation writing. If you have come up with a good idea for research, had your proposal approved, collected the data, conducted your analyses and now you're about to start writing a dissertation. If you've done the first steps, well writing a dissertation will be quite enjoyable.

The major myth in writing a dissertation is that you start writing at Chapter One and then finish your dissertation writing at Chapter Five. This is seldom the case. The most productive approach in writing a dissertation is to begin writing those parts of the dissertation that you are most comfortable with. Then move about in your writing by completing various sections as you think of them. At some point you will be able to spread out in front of you all of the sections that you have written. You will be able to sequence them in the best order and then see what is missing and should be added to the dissertation. This way seems to make sense and builds on those aspects of your study that are of most interest to you at any particular time. Go with what interests you, start your writing there, and then keep building!

If you prepared a comprehensive proposal, begin by checking your proposed research methodology. Change the tense from future tense to past tense and then make any additions or changes so that the methodology section truly reflects what you did. You have now been able to change sections from the proposal to sections for the dissertation. Move on to the Statement of the Problem and the Literature Review in the same manner.

Write your dissertation using the real names. Then at the end of the writing stage you can easily have the computer make all of the appropriate name substitutions. If you make these substitutions too early it can really confuse your dissertation writing.

As you get involved in writing a dissertation, you will find that conservation of paper will begin to fade away as a concern. Just as soon as you print a draft of a chapter there will appear a variety of needed changes and before you know it another draft will be printed. And, it seems almost impossible to throw away any of the drafts! After awhile it will become extremely difficult to remember which draft of your chapter you may be looking at. Print each draft of your dissertation on a different color paper. With the different colors of paper it will be easy to see which is the latest draft and you can quickly see which draft a committee member might be reading.

Always use hand drawing to elaborate tables and graphs for the draft of your dissertation. Make sure your committee can clearly understand your graph, but don't waste time trying to make it perfect. After you defend your dissertation, take the time to prepare the "perfect" looking graphs and tables.

Dissertation writing style is not designed to be entertaining. Dissertation writing should be clear and unambiguous. To do this, well you should prepare a list of key words that are important to your research and then your dissertation writing should use this set of key words throughout. There is nothing so frustrating to a reader as a manuscript that keeps using alternate words to mean the same thing. If you've decided that a key phrase for your research is "educational workshop", then do not try substituting other phrases like "in-service program", "learning workshop", "educational institute", or "educational program." Always stay with the same phrase - "educational workshop." It will be very clear to the reader exactly what you are referring to.

Review two or three well organized and presented dissertations. Examine their use of headings, overall style, typeface and organization. Use them as a model for the preparation of your own dissertation. In this way you will have an idea at the beginning of your dissertation writing what your finished dissertation will look like. A most helpful perspective!

If you are presenting information in the form of a table or graph make sure you introduce the table or graph in your text. And then, following the insertion of the table/graph, make sure you discuss it. If there is nothing to discuss then you may want to question even inserting it.

If you are including a Conclusions/Implications section in your dissertation make sure you really present conclusions and implications. Often the writer uses the conclusions/implications section to merely restate the research findings. This is a key section of the dissertation and is sometimes best done after you've had a few days to step away from your research and allow yourself to put your research into perspective. If you do this you will no doubt be able to draw a variety of insights that help link your research to other areas.

Potentially the silliest part of the dissertation is the Suggestions for Further Research section. This section is usually written at the very end of your writing project and little energy is left to make it very meaningful. Make sure that your suggestions for further research serve to link your project with other projects in the future and provide a further opportunity for the reader to better understand what you have done.

After you've had a chance to write your dissertation all the way to the end, the last thing you should do is turn back to Chapter One. Reread Chapter One carefully with the insight you now have from having completed Chapter Five. Does Chapter One clearly help the reader move in the direction of Chapter Five? Are important concepts that will be necessary for understanding Chapter Five presented in Chapter One?