Writing a Master’s Dissertation: Basic Guidelines for Novice Researchers
by Abla BENBELLAL, PhD student at Algiers 2 University (see the bottom of this page for Abla’s bio) Writing a dissertation is one of the most challenging tasks for the majority of students all over the world let alone novice researchers who have never done research before or written a paper of more than 50 pages. Thus, the aim of this short article is to provide graduate students with some basic guidelines on writing a master’s (MA) dissertation. It explicitly defines and describes the main components of the following sections and chapters in an MA dissertation: the abstract, the introductory section, the literature review chapter, the research design chapter, the results and discussion of the results’ chapter and the general conclusion. Abstract: This is generally the first section examiners read as it provides a short summary of the dissertation’s content. A good abstract consists of the following elements: A short background: here the writer needs to describe the problem under investigation briefly Purpose of the study: it answers the question (WHAT did the researcher do?) by stating the aim of the whole study in one or two sentences. Methods: it answers the question (HOW did the researcher do it?) by briefly stating the research design used, the target population and the research setting (without excessive details) Findings: it answers the question (WHAT did the researcher find?) by briefly stating the major findings of the study (i.e. those results which answer the research question(s) Conclusions: it answers the question (WHAT did the researcher conclude?) by interpreting the results and drawing inferences (i.e. explaining what the results mean Introduction: The general introduction is one of the most important sections in a dissertation as It aims at grabbing readers’ attention and interest to carry on reading your work. Thus, writing the introductory section requires a careful consideration from the writer. This section should include the following major elements: Background to the study: in this section, the writer should establish context for his/her research by reviewing some related studies. To do so, the writer should answer the following questions: How did s/he become aware of the problem? Are there any related theories or concepts that might be unfamiliar to readers and require further explanation? Are there any previous studies that should be shared to provide context on why the current issue emerged? Statement of the problem: In this section, the problem being studied should be described and explained as clearly as possible. The statement of the problem should be clear and concise. It should include all the variables to be considered (if it is a quantitative study) and state the central idea/concept of the research (if it is qualitative). In addition, it should provide information about the research setting and the target population. The research rationale (significance of the study): In the section, the writer should explain why his/her research is important by providing valid argument. Also, s/he should identify the gap in the literature and show how her/his study could fill that gap and contribute to the development of knowledge in the area of interest. Purpose of the study (or purpose statement): In this section, the writer states the overall aim of the study (i.e. what does s/he intend to do?). the following are some common introductory phrases for purpose statements: The current study investigates the relationship between…………… The main purpose of this study is…………………….. The present study is designed to examine…………………. The primary concern of this research is……………………… The purpose of this study is to address the problem of ……….. The purpose of this study is to advance understanding of………….. Research question(s): A good research question(s) should be: Clear: in order to help the researcher direct his/her research Focused and specific: in order to be well covered in the space provided Appropriately complex: that is, it should not be that simple but rather it should be a question that requires research and analysis Definitions of key terms: In this section, the writer defines the most important concepts and terms in his research to avoid ambiguity. Layout of the dissertation: In this section, the writer presents the structure of the dissertation by telling, briefly, the content of each section and chapter in the dissertation. The literature review chapter: This chapter should describe and synthesize the main theories and major studies related to the topic being studied. In this chapter, the writer should: Focus on addressing the key issues and concepts related to his/her topic. Report on the major findings of the studies and provide details about the researchers (who), the methods used (how) and the context (where). Comment critically on the benefits and major flaws of the studies being reviewed. The research design chapter: In this chapter, the writer needs to provide information about the following elements: The research design: the writer should identify and define the research design adopted (qualitative, quantitative or mixed-methods), and provide valid arguments on why a particular type of design is appropriate to reach the objectives of the study. Sampling techniques: the writer should provide a detailed description of the participants who took part in the research and how they were selected (i.e. randomly or non-randomly) Data collection instruments: the writer should describe, in details, the tools research s/he used (i.e. questionnaires, interviews, experiments…etc) how they were used to collect data and how issues of validity and reliability were addressed. Data analysis procedures: the writer should explain the procedures s/he followed to treat and analyze qualitative and quantitative data. The results and discussion chapter: This chapter involves three main sections: Data presentation: the writer presents all the findings of the study. These findings are presented using descriptive summaries (for qualitative data) and tables and figures (for quantitative data). Data discussion: in this section, the writer comments on the results by linking the study’s findings to the previous literature in the field and research question(s) investigated. S/he can also evaluate the results of the study by stating the strengths and weaknesses and assessing their generalizability to others
How to select your research topic?
(you can enrol in my self-study course on how to select a research topic here: https://www.udemy.com/dr-kriukows-dissertation-training-part-one/?couponCode=DISCOUNT) I get this question a lot in your messages through Facebook, so I compiled some advice on how to select your research topic. First, choose a topic that is interesting to you. It may seem obvious, but this will make the research process more fun and engaging for you, especially if you are undertaking a Doctoral degree which means that you will spend not between 3 and 12 months researching and writing about it (as would be the case if you were working on your master’s dissertation), but 3 to 5 years! I have said it many times before and will say it again – considering the amount of workload, stress and frustration that I experienced throughout the 3 years of working on my doctoral thesis, there is no way on earth that I would have completed it if I hadn’t been genuinely interested in what I was researching! I treated this whole process as a personal quest for answers to the questions I asked in my thesis, and this enabled me to move forward whenever I had any sort of doubts. “OK”, I can hear you asking, “but how do I know what topic is interesting to me?”. Well, there are most likely some general topics within your field that attract your attention more than the others. So, within the field of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), for example, you may enjoy learning about Second Language Acquisition (SLA) theories more than about Language Testing, or prefer reading about teaching speaking skills more than about teaching reading skills, and so on. To have this, no matter how vague or distant, idea about what you find more engaging to read/learn about within your field is, in fact, a very good starting point to continue researching the topic in order to narrow down the specific issues that you may want to research. The next step is to read, and read, and read… Read academic articles on the topic that interests you. Use your university’s online library resources, or Google search engines if you are not a university student, to access all kinds of articles that relate to your area of interest. Start with broad searches – if you are looking for articles on “teaching speaking skills in English”, you can initially use this very phrase in your searches. In the process of reading, you are likely to become interested in more and more specific aspects of this topic. You may find, for example, that you find the methodology of task-based teaching interesting, particularly because in your own educational contexts you have never come across it. Therefore, you decide to read on “the use of task-based methodology for teaching speaking skills to [Chinese, Spanish, Russian, etc.] learners”, as you wonder whether it has ever been attempted and with what results. You can now both narrow down your searches by typing this kind of phrase next time you look for more articles to read, and use the reference list at the end of each article to find other relevant published work. You can read books too, but I think that at this stage it is more time-efficient to focus on articles, as not only are they shorter and you can, therefore, read about more different issues within the topic, which are discussed by more authors who adopt different perspectives on it, but also academic articles usually tend to cite more sources, be more critical and more explicit about the existing gaps in knowledge. To determine these gaps in research/knowledge, is an important step in developing a research topic that will not only be interesting to you, but also, potentially, to the wider audience. This does not mean that you absolutely have to find a topic that has never been researched before. Instead, this could be something that needs further research, the claims that need more evidence, etc. You will know about this not only by just reading these various articles that are now becoming increasingly focused on the issue of your interest and noticing certain patterns in them, but also by the authors’ explicitly stating that a given issue calls for further investigation. The sections of academic articles to be closely analysed in this regard are the Literature Review and Implications/Further Research/Conclusions sections. The Literature Review section will not only give you plenty of ideas about the existing discussions within the field and send you directly to the sources that may be of interest to you, but it will also outline the topics that are controversial and/or under-researched. The concluding sections, in turn, are almost certain to be very explicit about further research that needs to be carried out – and this is precisely what you were looking for, isn’t it? If you would like to learn more about developing a research topic, I have a whole self-study course about it! (You can enrol here https://www.udemy.com/dr-kriukows-dissertation-training-part-one/?couponCode=DISCOUNT) The course follows the following topics: – What is a “good” research idea and how to develop it? – What to read? How do you know what topics you should start with? What kind of materials to focus on? Which sections of published work should you pay particular attention to? – Where to look? Where can you find the literature that is relevant? – How to read? What reading techniques should you use? – How to organise your reading sources? How to make sure that you are on top of your reading and don’t loose these valuable sources and quotations? – When should you start writing? – What to write and when? – What is free writing and how is it going to help you? – Is Thinking just a waste of time, or is it just as important an activity as reading and writing? – How to come up with research questions? – What types of research questions are there? – What is a “good” research question? – How to incorporate your idea and research questions into the Literature Review chapter?