The Complete Guide To Writing Your Dissertation

Expert writing advice from the editor of the Boston Globe best-seller, The Writer's Home Companion Dissertation writers need strong, practical advice, as well as someone to assure them that their struggles aren't unique. Joan Bolker, midwife to more than one hundred dissertations and co-founder of the Harvard Writing Center, offers invaluable suggestions for the graduate-student writer. Using positive reinforcement, she begins by reminding thesis writers that being able to devote themselves to a project that truly interests them can be a pleasurable adventure. She encourages them to pay close attention to their writing method in order to discover their individual work strategies that promote productivity; to stop feeling fearful that they may disappoint their advisors or family members; and to tailor their theses to their own writing style and personality needs. Using field-tested strategies she assists the student through the entire thesis-writing process, offering advice on choosing a topic and an advisor, on disciplining one's self to work at least fifteen minutes each day; setting short-term deadlines, on revising and defing the thesis, and on life and publication after the dissertation. Bolker makes writing the dissertation an enjoyable challenge.

This essential guidebook takes readers step-by-step through the dissertation process, with checklists, illustrations, sample forms, and updated coverage of ethics, technology, and the literature review.

If you are studying at undergraduate or masters level it's likely that you will have to write a dissertation, critical essay or project report before you can graduate. Unfortunately, many good pieces of student research and inquiry are devalued - and sometimes even fail - because they are badly planned, structured or written. Make all that hard work count! This new guide looks directly at the processes, techniques and objectives of writing the dissertation itself. It covers longer term aspects - such as planning, scheduling, structuring - and more immediate ones - such as style, detail and managing the length. - Learn how to understand and decode the academic language of research questions, learning outcomes, objectives and assessment criteria, and translate them into the right form of words. - Discover how to maintain that essential focus on your objectives and research question or hypothesis, and their connection to your discussion and eventual conclusions. - Develop a schedule, identifying the tasks and milestones that will keep you on track, and update the plan as you go. - Find a style and structure that will help shape your writing to satisfy the examiners. - Manage the overall length and chapter lengths, and learn how to cut excess content and avoid repetition. - Master the technicalities of dissertation writing, such as methodologies, literature reviews, note systems, referencing...- Learn to how to transform an adequate dissertation into a good one by attending to fluency and detail - grammar, accuracy, consistency, punctuation - and the controlled use of aids such as spellcheckers and style checkers. - Avoid plagiarism and other evils. How can you avoid falling into cheating, either by accident or by carelessness under pressure? With examples and self-checking exercises to help you to stay on the right track, this essential guide will also serve as a valuable aid to all types of academic writing.

Click here for an updated 2nd Edition. Enjoy Writing Your Science Thesis or Dissertation! is a complete guide to good dissertation and thesis writing. It is written in an accessible style with cartoons and real-life anecdotes to liven up the text. It outlines the rules and conventions of scientific writing — particularly for dissertations and theses — and gives the reader practical advice about planning, writing, editing, presenting, and submitting a successful dissertation or thesis. Enjoy Writing Your Science Thesis or Dissertation! can be used as either a guide from day one of the degree course or as a quick reference life-jacket when deadlines are looming.

Increasing numbers of adults are enroling in doctoral programmes, but their earlier college lives often do not prepare them for the rules of the academic game. Many have no idea what a dissertation looks like, how it gets that way, or what options are available to them. This book is a practical guide for students who need help in progressing from the decision to write a dissertation to the planning, writing and defending of it. It includes samples of proposals and dissertations that have been accepted and data drawn from a number of sources, including focus groups with doctoral students and graduates and responses to an open-ended questionnaire from doctoral students across the United States.

This book provides masters and doctoral students with an in-depth and comprehensive guide to the process of writing a thesis or dissertation. It breaks down this often foreboding and overwhelming goal into achievable steps, presenting models that prepare readers for each stage of the process. Within each step, the authors supply all the tools and detailed instructions necessary for the successful completion of a thesis or dissertation. Along the way, the book offers readers skills and techniques that can help them cope more effectively with the psychological or emotional blocks that often get in the way of accomplishing their goal.

Updated Edition of Bestseller! The classic for masters and doctoral students--newly revised and updated! Writing your masters thesis or doctoral dissertation can be a daunting task. Writing the Winning Thesis or Dissertation, Second Edition demystifies the process, helping you prepare your scholarly work. This experience-based, practical book takes you through the process one step at a time! Newly revised and updated, this edition uses a step-by-step approach, providing specific models and examples that will take you through the complex writing process. Included are chapters on: Laying the groundwork for the thesis or dissertation Organizing and scheduling your work Peer collaboration Using technology Developing and defending your work Conducting quality research and writing a winning report Defending and publishing your dissertation Solving problems throughout the dissertation process This excellentresource, used in its first edition by tens of thousands of students, will provide you with clear direction for structuring a winning thesis or dissertation.

A long-term bestseller, this book is a pragmatic step-by-step guide to completing you dissertation or thesis during two semesters, in fifty workdays or less. It covers advisor and topic selection, proposal development, data collection and organization, available assistance, writing, and defense. The author demystifies the process and provides you with essential guidance through the rites of passage that are an integral part of completing your degree.