Dissertation Essentials

Okay, so I only wrote one blog in March, so let me make it up to you with some super-duper April blogs now :)

I have SO MUCH to tell you all!!

Right. First thing’s first: DISSERTATION. So as you know already, I was stressing out and panicking over my dissertation, as quite frankly I had left it until the last minute. I was working right up until the deadline, and although I've finally submitted, I’m well aware that the quality of my work is not as high as I am capable of :( Dissertations vary across schools, and as my friend Kelty (http://gre-kelty.blogspot.co.uk/) has written about her Psychology dissertation, I think it’s only fair that you get an insight into the dissertation process in the Business School.

At the end of your second year, you are advised to start thinking of topics and doing some preliminary research in preparation for third year; TAKE THIS ADVICE!! The more prepared you are early on, the smoother your dissertation will go and the less stressed you will end up.

When selecting your dissertation supervisor, the process in the Business School is completely different from the School of Health and Social Care (Psychology falls under that bracket); instead of writing down who you want, you have a tutorial sign-up. It is down to you to select the tutorial slot online, and whoever the tutor is for that slot will become your dissertation supervisor; the main disadvantage of this, of course, is that if you want a particular person, you have to select their tutorial slot, even if it is at 5:00PM on a Friday afternoon. One thing to note, however, is that after the first term there are no more dissertation tutorials, and you just meet with your supervisor as and when you schedule appointments.

Once back at university in the September of your third year, you begin to finalise your chosen topic and start formulating a research question. In the Business School there are two dissertation “models” you can choose from: Model A and Model B. A Model A dissertation requires the author (you) to actually go out and conduct primary research, process the data and analyse the results. Model B, on the other hand, requires the author to gather and analyse existing research on the chosen topic in order to answer the author’s research question. My dissertation was on corruption in the Philippine government and its effects on health care, education and human trafficking; I chose the Model B approach and this resulted in me reading through well over 40 articles related to my research question – THIS IS NOT UNUSUAL SO BE PREPARED FOR THIS!!

The longest part of the dissertation is the literature review, which (for the Business School) is due before the Christmas break. It is 4,000 words long (3,000 if you are doing Model A), and requires the author to outline a vast number of articles related to the research question and assess how helpful they will be in answering the research question. After the literature review is the methodology; this is where you must select six of the thirty/forty/fifty-something articles in your literature review for deeper analysis (there must be rhyme and reason to your selection – you cannot just choose six at random). You must not only analyse the six articles in their own right, but you must compare them with one another and comment on the differences and similarities in the research methods and findings. Once this is done you can move on to write up your findings. This is a 3,000 word section and is actually one of the easiest parts of the dissertation! By this point you should be very familiar with your research topic, so writing about it is relatively straightforward.

Naturally, you end with a conclusion, and then it’s usually at this point that most people write their introduction! This may seem strange, but by this stage you know what your dissertation covers, and you also have background knowledge on the topic, so writing the introduction is easy.

The best pieces of advice I can give when doing your dissertation are:

• Plan early
• Be organised
• Regularly meet with your supervisor and take their advice
• Choose a topic you are extremely interested in!

I hope all of this helps – please familiarise yourselves with this now so you are less stressed in the long-run!

Don’t say I never look out for you guys! ;)

Until the next blog, folks!

xxx