Postgraduate Dissertation Tips: 6 Points That Will Display Your Professionalism

Have you been told to write a dissertation? Congratulations, you are almost done with your postgraduate degree! But don’t take this assignment likely; a dissertation is an assignment that can make or break your academic career and requires careful planning and your utmost attention to get it right. It is a way to prove that you can write an original paper, one that is well-researched and well-written, something that will be of value to science or academia. That is why it needs to be nothing but professional.

We have gathered six tips that will help you write the most professional dissertation ever. But before that, let us discuss what a dissertation really is.

What is a Dissertation Anyway?

A dissertation is a final paper that undergraduate, postgraduate or Ph.D. students write before they get their degrees. It is aimed at showcasing their ability to research and work on their own to produce an original paper. It is one of the longest essays that you will ever write on any particular subject, where you choose a topic, research it and then discuss your findings.

Without further ado, here are the six tips you must follow to write a professional dissertation:

1. Choose a Topic

This is where many students stumble when it comes to writing a dissertation. Selecting a topic is easier said than done because there are hundreds of topics to write about and filtering them out to find one that is relevant to the problem is not easy. To find a topic, look at the problem your dissertation is asking you to solve.

You must remember that this is not your typical college assignment, so a simple title, like “The Need for Cyber Security in an Organization,” will not do. Think of something along the lines of “Cyber Security in Business: A Critical Analysis of At-Risk Infrastructure and the Threat from Cyber Criminals.”

The title should be clear as well as interesting. Avoid going with something vague and boring. Once you have an idea of the title, discuss it with your supervisor and refine it over the course of several weeks to get it right. In the end, make sure your final title is something that you can use to build a strong argument. You should also be able to offer objective and testable evidence to support it.

2. Write a Proposal

A proposal is like a sample of your final dissertation, something that will make committee members know that you are tackling a complex problem from an interesting and unique angle. The proposal is where the plan for your final paper takes shape, and you discuss how you will gather information and go about writing the dissertation.

3. Research

This is the stage where you gather all your sources of information and filter out the unimportant ones. This step is crucial, and you have to be meticulous and effective together credible and useful information to include in your dissertation. You can use Google Scholar if you need to find reliable sources.

You also need to organize your resources so that you don’t have trouble searching for vital information whenever you have to come up with a valid argument or look up an important statistic to come up with or support your argument.

4. Give It an Outline

Your supervisor will give you a structure to base your final dissertation on, but if you haven’t been given one, here is an example of a structure you can use:

• Title Page – Includes the title, your name, names of all contributors, course name, supervisor’s name, and date.
• Abstract – One or two sentences talking about the purpose of the dissertation.
• Acknowledgments – A list of people who helped you with your dissertation.
• Table of Contents –  This is where you list all the chapters along with their page numbers and any subheadings.
• Tables and Figures –  An itemized list of all the tables and figures used.
• Introduction – This is where you introduce the problem/question/thesis and describe how your dissertation has been structured.
• LiteratureReview – This is where you discuss the sources of information you have used to construct your hypothesis.
• Methodology – The methods you have used to gather the data.
• Results  – This is where you analyze the data and explain the outcomes.
• Conclusion and Discussion – This is where you discuss the results and give your answer to the problem question.
• References – This is where you list all the sources of information you used in alphabetical order.

5. Edit and Proofread

When you reach this stage, it means that you have finished the first draft of your dissertation and need to go through it again to refine it and fix some grammar and spelling mistakes. If you leave mistakes in the content, it can make your arguments sound unintelligent and distract readers from comprehending the main argument. Also, resist the urge to write and edit the dissertation at the same time. Turn off the spell check and just focus on the writing. Leave this step for after you have written down the last sentence.

6. Get it Reviewed

Sometimes, you might think your argument is sound or that you have corrected all the mistakes, but we are all human and can miss something during the editing process that someone else can catch. That is why it is important to get a peer to review your paper. Your supervisor is also another excellent example of someone who can point out any weakness in your arguments and the mistakes since they are trustworthy and professional.

If you follow the steps outlined above, you will definitely write a professional quality dissertation from scratch. Remember that this is the last assignment of your undergraduate life, and it needs to be of the highest quality. If you are overwhelmed or don’t know how to get started, you can use custom writing services to help you out.

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