How to Write a Good Dissertation: Full Guide for Beginners

Writing dissertation cannot be easy, and unfortunately you can’t avoid this step in your education. This academic paper allows getting a PhD degree, so it means a lot for all writers. If you start a dissertation, you should be ready for hard work, long sleepless nights, and potential mistakes. Besides sacrificing your personal life you must understand the criticism and make proper corrections in the text.

In case this paper is really complicated and important, you should pay much time to the preparation stage. Get enough information, practice, collect sources, etc. That’s why article, written by our essay writers, will be useful for all future Philosophiae Doctors. Its goal is to share not only the most important recommendations, but also give you professional tips and real help with dissertation.

So keep reading and find here everything you need to know about this type of academic paper. It would be useful for those students who need to prepare dissertation for his career or commercial writers who work for students’ sake.

What is a Good Dissertation?

Dissertation usually means the final project for student who is going to get the Master’s degree in exact science field. He should make own independent research according to all rules in a corresponding undergraduate program. That’s why everyone who wants to gain the status of PhD must know how to write a good dissertation.

The success of your dissertation presentation depends on 2 elements: your ability to present own job and the quality of content. So you should start with the text, then plan the presentation, and as a result to make a public appearance. Be sure, you can’t waste your time on one side, so do both elements of your task properly.

But let’s define the differences between 2 important terms: the dissertation and the thesis. According to accepted definitions in the USA academic community, they are similar, but mean different papers. In general thesis is connected with the master’s degree rules, and dissertation is referred to the submission for the doctorate. It is also common for colleges and universities to use thesis as a cumulative project to get a bachelor diploma. In general, the dissertation must contain the unique and important contribution to the topic, while thesis show the knowledge and skills in exact field.

Also you can’t write good dissertation without understanding its purpose. Remember 2 mains goals of your writing:

• to show full and deep knowledge in selected subject;
• to discover new and unique methods in making research.

With such approach in writing dissertation you can reach awesome results. Only first class content will bring you PhD degree and easy career improvement. So be aware of common mistakes and issues with your dissertation paper.

What are Common Mistakes in the Dissertation?

According to its definition and particularities the dissertation means a lot for students. That’s why they usually get nervous, angry, and helpless when something goes wrong. Unfortunately, you can’t control each situation, so unpleasant issues will happen. Even if you spend the whole time on writing and editing you can’t be sure in the paper quality.

Yes, you may start with perfect mood and be ready for everything, but hardly you can keep calm during dissertation writing. Besides, because of full overload with this paper and other studies students make mistakes all the time. Here are several examples of the most spread issues:

1. Lack of knowledge. If you have missed several topics or did not understand them for 100%, then you have got a problem. Usually your knowledge grow as a snowball, so missing a part of studying can cause troubles with the future topics. The most harmful consequences you will see in the research. If you haven’t real experience in holding investigations or great knowledge, you will definitely make a week analysis. Each dissertation is built on the research, so fake conclusions will thwart your achievements.
2. Lack of writing skills. Not everyone is born with the talent of Shakespeare or Aristotle, but the dissertation requirements must be executed. If you are not keen on grammar and making logic sentences, then you must ask professional writer or editor for help. In any case writing a dissertation includes much more tasks than gathering and sorting information.
3. Procrastination. Physiologists confirm that a tendency to postpone your tasks is a bad feature that harms your success. Most students face with procrastinate behavior and become very stressed because of numerous tasks. They can control their time and use time-management advices, so become very close to the edge. As a result, the deadline is soon, but hardly you have done your draft.

You may think that such issues can happen to everyone, but not you. Believe, each student think this way and get into troubles. If you really wish to make great dissertation, then you must start your writing as soon as possible.

In any university and specialization, you require only qualitative dissertation. Only in such case you can confirm your skills and knowledge, so you will get a desirable degree. To reach such goal you should choose good topic, collect actual sources, make proper research, and do numerous other tasks. Let’s find out how to write a dissertation in proper manner.

5 Steps of a Successful Dissertation

1. Create a Dissertation Proposal

The proposal in dissertation is the author’s proposition to the future research. He presents it to the committee members and expect their approval. In this section you must understand what is a good dissertation and how to make it step by step. Then confirm your goals and ensure other people that your paper will be valuable for your topic or field.

Its length is quite small, but the text must contain only relevant content. There is no way to write general sentences and share well-known facts. You should also pay attention to imperative elements in your dissertation proposal. Among them are the following:

• the main problem you are going to research;
• the reasons why your topic is valuable for academic community;
• the reasons why you choose this subject;
• the plan how you are going to reach your goals.

Even if your university doesn’t demand writing and presenting proposal, you should do it for yourself. Be sure, that this paper will help you more, than other people. The proposal will allow you gathering main goals and plans in one place, so you can prepare really important and valuable research.

What is a Dissertation Proposal Format?

You should use the well-known and accepted format for your dissertation proposal. It will consist of the following elements:

• the title of your paper;
• three objectives (but not more than 3);
• the list of relevant references;
• the main research questions;
• the list of all methods you are going to use;
• examples of outcomes you expect to get;
• the schedule of your writing stages.

2. Do a Thorough Dissertation Research

The dissertation research is a core of your paper and creates the main part of your project. Its purpose is to demonstrate you have already discovered the subject, analyzed previous researches, and are ready to conduct the main aim now – to get an answer for exact scientific questions. If you wonder how to write a dissertation research, you should use the following tips:

• Make limits for yourself. It is important to create a kind of anchors to stop your research. Don’t commit a serious crime – to hold never-ending investigation and miss other essential parts of your dissertation;
• Use only authoritative and relevant sources. Unfortunately, not every book, journal, and article contain fair information. So keep looking for high-quality references in libraries and on the Web;
• Organize your job. Make notes in notebook or online tool, sort your sources, select proper arguments and delete discredited arguments.

Remember, that your research is too important to make any mistake.

3. Think Over About a Good Dissertation Structure

The dissertation belongs to academic papers with strict structure. You need to follow it without any change. Here is the sample for you:

• Introduction (the first chapter that presents the background of your paper);
• Literature (make a quick overview of important sources which helped you in making research);
• Methodology (expose scientific approaches which allows you making your findings, also explain main research questions and hypotheses)
• Outcomes (this chapter includes your achievements according to the research goals);
• Summary (means your conclusion about your job and its results for you and scientific community);
• Bibliography (this part includes all citations and references to other sources).

While writing dissertation outline with such elements you should remember about important rules. First of all use effective tips of time management and try to divide your job into sections. Then you will be able to write the whole dissertation according to your outline.

4. Editing & Proofreading Your Dissertation

You are doing great; this is almost the final for your dissertation writing. The next stage is to improve it in grammar and context way. To complete your text you can use one method or comprehensive approach (recommended). Here are tips to reach the perfection:

• Editing. This process is focused on the meaning of each sentence and dissertation chapters in general. You will correct weak parts, change words, replace blocks between different sections. Take notes and write down own suggestions which can make the text better. You may choose self-editing or trust this task to professional editor.
• Proofreading. The main difference from editing is the focus on the format. Proofreading means corrections in spelling, grammar, writing style, etc. There are several online tools which can help you, but only human can find and improve real mistakes. Notice, that proofreading belongs to one of the hardest tasks for writers. They are too excited with their papers, so can’t see all mistakes and misprints. So it’s better to ask someone else to proofread your dissertation.

It is important: you can’t edit your dissertation without having a good rest. Being in hurry with your paper you become too inattentive to note apparent and latent mistakes. That’s why give yourself a rest before making edits. It should be at least several days or a week in an ideal scenario.

5. Ask for Feedback

Don’t make a submission before getting feedbacks. This is very important information that allows writer finishing the dissertation improvement. You may get reviews from your friends or colleagues, but choose only those people you trust. Get as more their suggestions as possible and use them on your editing and proofreading stages.

The next person to give you feedback is your mentor. You need his or her constructive criticism to finish the dissertation and prepare it for the defence. Also if you cooperate with experienced mentor, you may probably get additional advices how to improve the paper.

That’s why people consider the dissertation to be the great challenge. It requires a lot of time, knowledge, skills, and your ethical readiness. If there is a lack of something, don’t get depressed. You should cooperate with the specialists of our custom dissertation writing service. Be sure, that experts in academic writing can solve your problems no matter topic and writing style!

Lorena Stone

Lorena studied at the University of Colorado and got Ph.d. in Phylology. During 4 years of being a writer, she created own approach to write academic tasks. Now she shares useful recommendations for students to improve their texts.