No doubt you have been given numerous guides on how to write your dissertation, how many sources you should be looking for and in what tone you should be writing down your research and evaluation/conclusions for your reader, but how do you actually structure your dissertation? Do you really know if the rationale comes before the methodology? This short article identifies the main structure that colleges and universities go from and expect students to follow when setting out their dissertation.

Abstract – this is a synopsis of the whole document, which should allow your reader to gain an understanding of the objectives and outcome of the actual dissertation. You are looking to keep this part brief and to the point, looking to write no more than 130 words.

Contents – will list the main parts of the dissertation, with subsections, and will have page numbers for these sections. You should aim to have the different areas of your work under different headings. Also, many students prefer to create a rough draft of the contents page as a structural plan to help them include everything in their research paper. This can help some students write more effectively and on topic.

Introduction – this section should provide the reader with a detailed, yet focused view to the background of the dissertation research project and will set out the structure of the paper. You should also summarize the main conclusions and outcomes of your paper to provide a complete overview of the paper. Many students choose to write their introduction around a journey through the project, you should introduce the topic, say what will happen and what were the other things that happened in the process.

Literature Review – this chapter of your work will outline all of the previous research that is relevant to your research project. You will review these and construct an argument within to result in a hypothesis or research question. You should also concentrate on the most important points here, as this is the key area to bring in relevant content.

Methods Chapter – you will want to identify the different methods that you will be using in the research project. You should also mention ones that you have dismissed and are choosing not to include, and specifying the reasons why. You should also provide support for the different methods that you are going to be using and allow the reader to understand why these are beneficial to the study. Describing why you would not use a certain research method will also be relevant in this chapter.

Data Analysis – analyzing the data collection from the research process will be one key part of your dissertation research paper. You should display significant data in the form of graphs, charts and diagrams to identify any key areas where the research discovered a trend or significant piece of information. You should also make sure that this chapter can sit independently from your conclusion chapter, and that in the conclusions area of this chapter, you should be able to focus on the data analysis and what it means.

Discussion – as the researcher of your dissertation, this section should be to identify the data that you have analyzed and present your main findings.

Conclusion – commonly though of as the ‘wrapping up’ of your paper, this section is a summary of the main points that you have covered in your research paper. You will need to analyze what your paper contains and then be able to communicate this clearly to the reader. You could also evaluate this actual conclusion too and make recommendations for further analysis or research.

Bibliography – all reference should be listed alphabetically, this doesnt matter whether you have quoted from them or not. You should include the authors name, title, place of publication, publisher and date when including any material in your bibliography.

Appendices – a section that will include such things as a copy of the questionnaire, transcript of interviews and other relevant documents to your dissertation. Such information would disrupt the flow of your argument and thus be better placed here.

If you follow this simple design, then you should be able to put together a seamless dissertation thesis. You don’t want your reader to be reading a dissertation paper that is disjointed and that they won’t be able to read easily. You want to lead them on a journey and be able to provide them with a story about your research project. Also, you should make sure you have your work checked by a professional proofreader before you submit it.