Writing a dissertation can be a complicated task for a student whether they are in the undergraduate, postgraduate, or doctoral level. However, it isn’t an impossible feat as with correct guidance, you can create a compelling and factual Dissertation that will leave a lasting impression. The first pointer of a good dissertation is a well-organised structure. If the format/structure of a dissertation is not properly framed, the information provided will seem to be all over the place and the flow of the dissertation will break. This causes the readers to stop mid-way and drift away from the key points of your work.
What is the Significance of a Good Dissertation Format?
The very purpose of a good dissertation is not just putting down the facts and findings of your research but most importantly making your work accessible and easily comprehensible for your readers. We need to expect that all readers may not have an in-depth background on your selected topic and might be reading your work to understand the meaning of the topic for the first time. Hence, we need to think about the varied range of demographics. This also ensures that your dissertation paper has the maximum possible impact on the readers. In the absence of a good dissertation format even the best of topics and the findings may fall short on providing the intended effect.
Key Elements of a Dissertation Format
Dissertation is made up of various essential components and following are the ones we recommend you should not skip, if you would like your presentation to be perceived well rounded and professional. These key components are :
- Title – This is the first page of your dissertation and provides the general information about you like your name, department name, the degree you are submitting the dissertation for, the University name, Supervisor’s/Professor’s name, Submission date, Enrollment number, etc.
- Acknowledgement – In this section, the author/writer of the dissertation paper can be a little personal and show their genuine gratitude towards people who provided their invaluable support to the author in his researching and writing the dissertation journey.
- Table of Contents – This section provides all the page numbers and what is being discussed in the pages to the readers. This helps in easy navigation of the paper for the readers. Usually, the dissertation papers are longer in format and consist of a larger number of pages. So if a reader wants to re-read a certain section or wants to skip over to an entire section, they can use the table of contents section to do that with ease rather than needing to flip through all the pages.
- Introduction/Overview – This is the first impression of your work to your readers and basically provides an overall overview on what will be following next. If your readers are not engaged in this section then there is a high chance of them not reading the entire thing. The biggest concern about this is that, the readers may create an opinion about your work even before having a complete knowledge about your work and half knowledge is more dangerous than no knowledge. So our goal with a good introduction is to use interesting hooks like bold statements, curious questions, etc to make the readers keep wanting for more.
- Literature Review – The writers in this part cover the existing literature/works available on the selected topic. This ensures, if there are any gaps, it is addressed, if any discoveries are made, it has a base information on which it has been able to build on, and also gives credit to the works of other authors. Basically, a thorough Literature review results in the credibility of your work and the gap your research work is filling.
- Methodology – This shows the methods and the tools you have used for doing your research for your paper as well as how you have written your paper. This covers the steps of writing, the tone of the paper, the certain angle your work has taken, etc. This declaration is an ethical practice so as to provide a reference point to other writers/authors who are exploring topics closely related to yours or even the same. The accurate dissemination of the methodology of your work also ensures correct replication thus maintaining the integrity of your work.
- Analysis/Interpretation – In here, we answer the research question or validate/invalidate the thesis statement based on our findings. Here, we interpret the facts discovered matching the angle of our work. It needs to have a relevant tie with our question or statement.
- Conclusion – In this section, we are again summarising all the key points of our research paper and bringing back the attention of our readers to the main topic of our paper. They should be reiterating what you began with and have a better understanding of the answers your work was seeking and whether your paper have added value to their existing perception of that particular topic. For example, if I have written a paper on the topic – ‘Effects of globalisation on local businesses in Delhi, I will be aiming for my paper to add to the preconceived notion of readers about effects of Globalisation on local businesses in Delhi whether I am leading with a positive or a negative angle.
- Citation/Bibliography – In here, you give credit to and mention every source you have used to collect materials from for your dissertation paper. Firstly, proper citation does two things for you – validate your work even more as it is built on or inspired by the trusted and proven works of other authors. Secondly, it helps you avoid getting convicted of plagiarism, a damaging allegation in the academic community.
- Glossary(Optional in most cases) – If your work has a lot of abbreviations or complex terminology, it is better to include a Glossary at the end of your work to explain or expand the words. This helps the reader fully absorb the message you intended to put across.
How can ScribbleMasters LLP Help You with Your Dissertation Format?
ScribbleMasters LLP knows that it may sometimes seem an overwhelming process of writing a dissertation paper for students as it is a long process involving many steps. Hence, we are here to make your work a bit easier with our experienced team of excellent academic writers in every possible field of study. Our team of writers have worked on numerous dissertation papers, research papers, etc and provided effective and compelling results. We provide assistance to our learners in every step of crafting the dissertation paper and testimonials from our clients can back our claim.
Conclusion
To sum it up, the format of a dissertation is the foremost step that a student needs to refine to provide a great direction for your paper and ensure that the flow of your work is consistent. It provides a structure to input all the important information you wish to present via your paper to your readers. A well-organised structure with accurate information and thorough understanding of grammar and proofreading skills will ensure that your dissertation paper makes a lasting impact on the readers. We recommend our readers to follow the above given standard format to draft your paper and make sure that your paper upholds the standards of professionalism, clarity, and conciseness that is demanded from a well-written dissertation paper in the scholarly works. Should you require assistance to avoid making any mistake with the structure of your dissertation paper, incorporating professional guidance will ease your burden to a great extent.