What does dissertation mean
What does dissertation means?
Most of the student are curious to know what does dissertation means. To help them understand and have better idea of what does dissertation means, this blog is focused on its explanation, definition and the structure of the dissertation.
Dissertation or thesis is the long piece of scholarly research and writing intended to demonstrate the research and writing skills of students and to qualify for the final academic degree. It may vary in length and the dissertation structure. Normally, every dissertation is divided into five chapters and the length of each chapter may depend on the nature of the topic and the previous research on it. The dissertation writing services are the best source of knowledge in order to understand what does dissertation means.
Definition of the dissertation
The dissertation definition has been offered by various scholars in different ways. Here are some dissertation definitions available online:
The Faculty of Humanities Study Skills Website had defined the dissertation as “a dissertation is an extended piece of writing based on extended reading and some independent research at Undergraduate or Masters level”
The dictionary.com has defined the dissertation as a “a written essay, treatise, or thesis, especially one written by a candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Cambridge.org has defined dissertation as “a long piece of writing on a particular subject, especially one that is done in order to receive a degree at college or university”
According to merriam-webster.com, the dissertation definition is as “a long piece of writing about a particular subject that is done to earn an advanced degree at a university”
So, keeping in view all these dissertation definitions, it may be summed up that it is a long piece of research work done independently on a chosen or given topic aimed at earning the academic degree.
Why students have to write dissertation?
Dissertation writing is almost mandatory for all students from graduate to doctoral level. As said earlier, the main purpose of dissertation writing is to assess the skills and capabilities of students with regard to their understanding of the study area of how they can conduct independent research on the given topic.
As the final degree and the overall academic scores solely depend on the grades achieved in the final dissertation, it is vitally important that students get through this process with better grades. So, mostly they are assisted by the mentors and dissertation supervisors about how to conduct the data collection for literature review and the primary data for analysis. They are also taught about various research methodologies used in academic research and what kind of statistical software are available for data analysis and which one they need to learn.
Structure of the dissertation
Although there is no fixed length or structure of the dissertation, usually a dissertation may consist of five chapters starting from the dissertation title page, the introduction, the literature review chapter, methodology, results and finally the conclusion and recommendations. It has already been explained how to write dissertation title page in one of the previous blog. Here, as the focus of this article is on the importance of the dissertation so, each chapter of the dissertation is reviewed briefly below:
Dissertation introduction chapter
Writing the introduction chapter of the dissertation is very difficult and important as well. It is difficult in the sense that getting a good start is always challenging and one has to make every effort to have a good start so it may give a good impression on the readers. So, when you are going to write the introduction chapter of your dissertation, you need to have clear understanding of the following headings of this chapter.
Introduction
Background of the Study
Problem Statement
Purpose of the Study
Research Questions and Hypotheses
Significance of the Study
Structure of the Study
So, you must clearly define all these headings logically and convincingly and if this chapter is written well, you will find it very easy to complete the remaining chapters.
Dissertation Literature Review
This chapter is focused on the previous studies conducted on the same topic so the student may be aware what kind of previous research already exists and what gaps are there to be filled by the current study. This is the synthesis of the past studies in which students have to show their critical analysis skills and how they can review and assess others research work. For this purpose, every student has to collect all available articles, reports, books and researches close to the topic and briefly write on these offering critically review of these studies.
For the data collection, the use of search engines is an effective means of gathering existing literature on the topic chosen. Several search engines, including Google Scholar, ProQuest, ERIC, and Emerald databases, are used to identify literature and empirical studies related to the topic. The literature review presents a historical overview of the study area providing the foundation for the study as well as the application of the theories in learning environments.
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