“I can’t find a topic for the dissertation”, “How to start a dissertation chapter”, “I have no ideas for my degree dissertation”. Research Prospect is about to answer the most common questions that all of us have asked ourselves and are now in the minds of you, future young graduates.
Those of you, in these days, are participating in the degrees of friends and family, with that anxiety and agitation of those who will soon have to personally experience that fateful moment; One way is to take the help of professional custom essay writing service.
Here are 4 useful tips that will help you write your degree dissertation. Maximum score guaranteed!
- Ideation
Theoretical phase
1. The writing of the dissertation takes place in small steps . Concentrate on the short-term objectives , on what broadly to do the dissertation ( think of a title … download the indications for the font and margins of the sheet from the faculty website … write the first paragraph on blablabla …): don’t worry, what you conceive all beginning is never what you will get in the end.
2. Choose the topic to be covered. When you are in front of the classic white sheet, whether it is paper or Word, thinking “I can’t find a topic for the dissertation”. Do not overdo it by choosing something too complicated to attract the attention of the commission: it will never be a good job like what you feel yours , even if it seems simple and trivial. The “de trivialisation” will come later.
If you do not have ideas for your degree dissertation, consult the dissertation archive of your university, you could expand and / or update a topic dealt with years before that has now been innovated.
You could choose the area that you would like to be your field of work in the future, so that you can attach your dissertation to the CV as a ready-made project and just waiting for a possible realization.
3. Find the speaker. There is no perfect speaker, and, above all, you will have to fight for his attention (especially if you have chosen the last graduation session of the academic year). Among a thousand undergraduates, why you? Answer this question and you will already be halfway there.
Do not choose the best or the most beautiful, the important things are: seriousness, reliability (you must be sure that he reads your paper), possibly punctuality and maybe trust in you. A speaker convinced in the graduate’s work is next best thing after chocolate with guarana coffee beans, but just as hard to find.
Practical phase
Now that you have an idea of what you want to do, here’s what to do before starting to collect the materials for the dissertation.
4. Print all the dissertation registration forms from the website or have them given to you by the student secretariat. I recommend: make sure they are the right ones. You will fill them in together with the speaker at the right time.
5. If you have an agenda that you always carry around, write down your email address, mobile or telephone number and reception hours on the front page.
Don’t underestimate the importance of emails. Usually the university provides a general email to each professor with the name of the university as a domain (eg John@MIIT.com ); is the least used, try to get another email, which you use more often. In theory, a graduate student should have a preferential path to other students.
6. Make a list with all the libraries in the area and their respective hours (civil, municipal and university libraries). Also add the sites from which you can download essays for free that will be able to implement your arguments by giving an extra touch of professionalism (the so-called journals or scientific articles that professors are in love with).
Here is a small list that might help you:
– https://scholar.google.com/ (it is the google version that searches only and exclusively among scientific essays);
– https://www.academia.edu/ (social network where researchers from all over the world share their papers);
– http://www.jstor.org/ (often here the articles are only available or for a fee. To solve this problem, skip a few lines);
– personal page of eminences of the interested sector, sometimes the researchers upload the pdf of their essays that can be downloaded for free;
I recommend: ask your university library about their database. Almost all universities have online subscriptions to the scientific journals you need and through their computer you can download the essays you need for free.
7. Buy: black tea, coffee and dark chocolate. They will help you fight sleep during the long nights spent writing your dissertation.
- Preparation
Ladder or division of the dissertation
This method is especially valid for the three-year theses. For the master’s theses, reapply it for the number of parts in which you will divide the theses (the master’s are usually divided into parts, each of which into chapters. The three-year theses directly into chapters).
Imagine your dissertation divided into 4/5 chapters plus introduction and conclusion, which you will deal with at the end of everything.
The division into chapters must be “funnel”, that is, from general to specific.
Usually you start with a smattering of general theory and come to the final chapter where you summarize all your knowledge into something empirical. A questionnaire, a phonetic analysis, an interview.
Get help from the speaker, having his approval from the first pages will ensure you don’t have to do it all over again when the job is almost done.
Materials collection
Do you remember the list with the addresses of the libraries and sites to consult? Use it to search for the books the speaker gave you. You can consult the catalogs of the libraries on the list from home, so you save yourself some empty trips. These catalogs are all called OPACs.
If the professor has not given you book titles, use the OPAC thematic research to get an idea of the books available on the topic of your dissertation.
Do not underestimate the bibliography of past theses with a similar topic to yours. You could take inspiration from those same sources.
- Drafting
The working method
- timing: give yourself 1 month for each chapter + 1 month for conclusion, introduction and revisions. Eg: 4 chapters, 5 months;
- every time you finish a chapter, send it to your supervisor via email for a review;
- draw up the bibliography as you actually cite a text as you write;
- give yourself a minimum of time a day for writing, if only to reread what you have done up to that moment;
- remember the breaks , they help the mind not to overload;
- keep these sites open on your pc for quick reference: wordreference (for the translation of foreign words if you work on material in a foreign language), and wikiversity , the wikipedia university page. Only for consultation to clarify doubts at the moment, they do not count as bibliographic material!
take care of you
Usually the panic causes the student to throw himself headlong into the writing in a continuous full immersion, to the detriment of his own health. Try to remember a few things:
- limit the coffees, too many will cause acidity in your stomach and the dissertation will wear you out more than it should;
- take care of your nutrition; certain vitamins help the brain work better;
- reserve one day a week totally away from the computer;
- balance the screen brightness according to the light in the room, so you don’t strain your eyes too much.
As my grandmother used to say, “better a live donkey than a dead scientist”. Keep this in mind.
When to deliver the dissertation to the supervisor? The supervisor must be able to view the entire dissertation corrected and revised according to his indications at least one month before the graduation date , well before the submission of the dissertation application itself. The dissertation application can in fact be approved only in the presence of a complete, corrected and revised version of the dissertation.
- Presentation
And finally the advice for the discussion of the degree dissertation. It is the moment in which you will play it all and for all. How to start the discussion that fateful day? There are universities where the dissertation is delivered to the secretariat and that’s it, others where you have to present orally, still others where a powerpoint presentation is mandatory .
Leaving aside the first case, here are the tips for exhibitions.
Oral presentation without presentation
Usually in these cases you sit in front of the committee and talk. Nothing more difficult.
Anxiety, terror, panic, rapid heartbeat, sweat, stuttering… all of this can be minimized with good preparation in the previous days.
- Prepare the speech at least a week in advance.
- Spend some time in the following days to memorize it. You don’t need word for word, but break up the text into paragraphs by theme or topic and learn those subdivisions. They will help the mnemonic process.
- Use the recorder to listen to yourself. Usually in hearing your voice you notice small common mistakes, such as speaking too fast, too many leaps ( er, that is, in reality, but … )
- As you pass aloud, give yourself a rhythm with your hand, tapping on the leg while keeping time. The voice will follow the hand.
You could record yourself with the camcorder and then watch yourself on video. Sometimes we have facial tics that show how nervous we are.
With power point
- Even in this situation, start preparing the power point a week before.
- Typically 24 or 28 font, Arial or Times New Roman font.
- Put one image per slide.
- As the first slide, title, university at the top, your name and email.
- Final slide with thanks for your attention and again email as address.
- The dress makes the graduate
Appearance is everything. When choosing how to dress for the discussion, opt for sober garments, which you would wear for a job interview in the office .
For men , shirt and jacket are a must.
For women : if you choose to wear a dress, always use stockings. Bare legs are unprofessional. And pay attention to the length. Heels are allowed, but nothing dizzying. Attention also to the neckline. Avoid too bright colors. For example, if you want to wear a blue shirt, strictly gray, black or white trousers, to balance the view.Finally, for the discussion, talk to the speaker, they will direct you to the issues most subject to a possible question. See here more details: How to Write a Dissertation – Step by Step Guide?
