Dissertation Structure - a Guide

Dissertation

Abstract

Summary of your dissertation including key findings.

Introduction

Setting the context of your thesis, what issues are you going to address in your thesis and why?

Link your research question/hypotheses with the gaps in existing literature.

Literature Review

What research has been done? What do they say about your research problem? Establish the gaps, issues, contradictions in existing literature on your research topic. Link your research question/hypotheses with the gaps in existing literature.

Establish gaps, issues and contradictions in existing literature on your research topic.

Theory

Provides with a viewpoint, a philosophical stance about research. What are the theoretical foundations for your approach?

  • What approach does your research questions/hypothesis necessitate? Why? (Justify your methodological approach)
  • What is a theoretical background for this approach? (Describe your methodological approach)
  • Which methods are linked to it?
  • Which methods did you decide for and why? What other methods could you have chosen but did not and why?
Methodology chapter

How, why and what chapter: How are you going about gathering your data.

Contains information about methodological approach/methods/sampling procedures/ethics /validity and reliability of your data collection. In particular you should answer the following questions:

  • How are you going about gathering your data? How will you evaluate the data?
  • How do you choose your participants? (Describe and justify your inclusion and exclusion criteria)
  • What kind of ethical considerations your research project encounter? How you will deal with them?
  • Does your data reliable? Explain how you ensure reliability of your data.
  • How do you validate your data?
 
 
Findings

Show your data, does it or does it not answer your research questions, proof your hypotheses? Why or why not?

Did they prove or discard issues raised in the literature review?

Discussion/Interpretation

What implications do your findings have? Did they prove or discard issues raised in the literature review? What do your findings mean in context of your profession?

What do your findings mean in context of your profession?

 

What kind of implication your findings brings into to theory/policy/field of study?

Conclusion/Implications

So what? Impact on your field. What kind of implication your findings brings into to theory/policy/field of study ? What kind of contribution your findings brings to theory/policy/field of study?

What kind of contribution your findings brings to theory/policy/field of study?