Dissertations and Extended Essays

1
Dissertations and Extended Essays

• Shaun Theobald
• The Student Learning Advisory Service

2
The workshop structure

• Maximising project potential
• Preparing a synopsis or abstract
• Time management managing reading
• Summary/final discussion

3
Your final subject choice

• Engagement intellectual curiosity academic
  fun
• Choose a subject you enjoy
• Then (with the right organisation preparation
  etc) the results will follow
• Your opportunity to negotiate your own area of
  interest

4
Preliminary

• What questions do you have about extended
  essays/dissertations?
• What kind of document are you going to produce?
• Word limit?
• No of chapters?
• Visual material?
• Secondary sources?
•  

5
Maximising project potential getting started

• Get going as soon as you can!
• Capture ideas
• Ideas notebook
• The terminology/discipline-specific notebook
• The reading notebook
• Keep track of references!

6
Maximising project potential getting started

• Seek advice
• Talk to
• Peers
• Previous students
• The Department/School
• Your (potential) supervisor
• Who will mark your work?

7
Maximising project potential organisation

• Organisation is vital
• Organisation in one place
• Study space - the base camp for your work
• Filing away - research material to hand!
• Continuity needed
• Maintain reading records
• Working with others?
• Agreeing space/time
•  

8
Maximising project potential preparing for
reading/research

• Preparing the bibliography
• Understanding Department/Module referencing
  conventions
• Active reading lists
• Three areas
• 1.Material that will be used
• 2.Recommended material
• 3.Rejected material

9
Maximising project potential planning and
choosing the topic

• What? Why? How? Where? When?
• Guidance from Department/Module
• Your instincts
• Your interests
• Width and depth
• Current academic thinking
• Consulting journals to access this
•  

10
Maximising project potential planning and
choosing the topic

• Use librarians
• Use electronic data
• Effective literature reviews
• Budgetary constraints-time money
• Access to materials/libraries
• Methodological/fieldwork constraints
•  

11
Literature reviews

• Think about your own ideas before you search
• Relate the literature review to your ideas
• Show sensible focus and selection
• Be guided by others dept. supervisor librarian

12
Literature reviews

• Integrate your literature review into your
  writing
• Discuss your material
• Dont just tack-on a summary of research!
• Dominant theories/approaches
• Chronological organisation?
• Thematic organisation?

13
Preparing a synopsis or abstract

• Hypothesis-How?
• Aims-Why?
• Argument-What?
• A document to guide you
• A document to discuss with your supervisor
• A document that can be revised

14
Supervision

• Take charge?
• (Diplomatically!)
• Anticipate questions in advance
• Plan actions to discuss them
• Then record agreed actions
• Always have a specific agenda
• Plan meetings strategically regularly

15
Time management

• Priorities
• Schedules
• Using gap time effectively
• Working to a deadline
• Working backwards from a deadline
• Leaving time for disasters!
• Leaving time for creative thinking
• Writing in stages?
• Or one draft, then review?

16
Time management 4 big tips!

• Write-up empirical research as you go along
• Work to a time/word limit
• Allow about 25 of total time for writing up
• Remember the time needed at the end for binding,
  paginating, sorting appendices etc!

17
Managing reading

• Seek guidance
• Establish priorities
• Read actively always carry forward questions
  skim scan read for detail
• Practice rapid-access reading
• Work with an active and accurate bibliography

18
Notes from reading

• Make notes selective
• Not summaries!
• Use a variety of methods
• Systematic organisation
• Systematic filing
• Bibliographical details
• page nos.
• Separation of source material from your
  paraphrases
• Avoiding the plagiarism trap

19
Good luck with your writing

• For further support, contact us
• www.kent.ac.uk/uelt/learning