Writing up your dissertation

1
Writing up your dissertation

• Some guidelines

2
Announcements

• 2 Volunteers to speak to upcoming final year
  students, Wednesday, May 11, 1.15 to 2.05 3E 2.1
• Volunteers to send M. Corcoran their
  methodological case study for inclusion in a
  handbook on fieldwork

3
Congratulations, at this stage you have

• Read thoroughly in your topic area
• Found the original or new angle which your
  dissertation will explore
• Organised your theoretical/analytical framework
• Marshalled your evidence/gathered your data
  (documentary, interview, statistical or whatever)
• Begun to analyse your data
• Designed a chapter outline (which can change)
• Begun to submit chapter drafts to supervisors
• and if you havent quite completed all these
  tasks, you are within sight of doing so

4
Structure of a Sociology Dissertation

• Introduction - Provide a series of "teasers" to
  highlight the importance of the
  problem/phenomenon under investigation and
  briefly describe the research questions that the
  dissertation attempts to answer.
• What is the orthodox understanding of the problem
  in your area, what is your dissertation bring to
  it?
• 5 ws and a h who, what, why, when, where,
  and how?
• Provide a description of the dissertation chapter
  by chapter.

5
Historical/political/theoretical background

• What is the background to your topic or what are
  the events that have led up to this point?
• Why has the issue become urgent/problematic/of
  interest now?
• Are there problems or patterns that are evident
  from the past which influence current events?
• What are these, and does your dissertation
  introduce a new perspective or identify a new
  direction in these phenomena?
• Note this kind of discussion is not necessary
  for all dissertations, and you may deal with such
  issues in other chapters such as introduction or
  theoretical/literature review.

6
Theoretical or analytical framework/literature
review

• Larger conceptual context for the issues under
  investigation,
• Exploration of the relevant theoretical debates,
• WHAT have previous studies said about the topic?
• What do the relevant theories say about the
  topic?
• What kind of concepts they use and which are the
  points of disagreement?
• What is the theoretical framework you are
  adopting i.e. within which paradigm/ within which
  -ism or combination of -isms the study is
  situated
• And why? What does the current literature in the
  field not tell us that you can?
• empirical and policy information on the issue
  under investigation
• legislative and general policy context in which
  the policy under consideration.
• End up with a set of research questions

7
Methodology

• Need not be separate from another chapter
• Description of how the concepts mentioned above
  are operationalised/measured (quantitative) or
  explored (qualitative).
• Description of the methods and techniques used
  in the study (examples)
• Interviews with key policy makers
• Documentary sources
• Questionnaires
• Sample
• Ethical or methodological problems or points of
  interest

8
Presentation and critical discussion of results
and findings

• for Qualitative research
• explore similarities and differences in the
  interview data
• explore patterns / common factors emerging in
  participants perception of the problem/issue
  under investigation
• Relate/compare these findings to your critical
  questions

9
Conclusion

• Assesses the contribution of your study in terms
  of theory, policy analysis and methodology
• Perhaps revisiting main critical points you
  originally raised
• Use this as basis to show your new findings
• State your conclusions clearly and unequivocally
• Appendices (no stuffing!)
• Bibliography - List of references (no padding!)
• You may choose to reference newspaper articles or
  TV/film texts separately from a bibliography

10
Last minute tips

• Everybodys dissertation is different, try not to
  compare your performance with that of others
• Write consistently every day break up writing
  with other activities
• Make sure you have completed all necessary tasks
  before Easter break (see powerpoint 2)
• Dont send Supervisors a deluge of drafts and
  give them reasonable turnaround time
• You must stick to the 10,000 word length
• Supervisors will NOT read drafts after the final
  drafts deadline of April 27 2005