Sections of a dissertation
Your dissertation will normally include…
- Title page
- Acknowledgements (if there’s anyone you want to thank)
- Contents
- Abstract
- Introduction: aims/purpose of study
- Literature review
- Methodology
- Presentation of results
- Analysis/discussion
- Summary and conclusions
- References
- Appendices
More detail
An abstract…
- is a concise summary of your dissertation
- states why your research is important
- states your conclusions/recommendations
- gives your research questions
- states your methods and results
- is often read separately
- is not included in your word count
- is best written when you’ve finished
- The methodology section states…
- how you conducted your research
- the methods you used
- how many people you surveyed
- how you selected your participants
- the instructions you gave them
- how you gained your data and analysed them
It can be written in the passive (e.g. ‘first this was done, then this was done…’) to avoid excessive use of ‘I’.
- Often done in tables/graphs for easy understanding
- The words need only point out main or surprising findings
- The discussion and analysis of your results will be a longer section