What kinds of papers are known as thesis? What is a dissertation? Well, proposal and thesis writing are areas of research that have traditionally presented a lot of challenges to the students who are enrolled in universities for their Masters Degree or Doctorate Degree courses. A Dissertation or a research thesis is a written scientific report that deals with the concerns that are related to a problem that one needs to tackle in their area of research.
The above dissertation definition will suit all the kinds of research that students will do as part of their academic work so that they can fulfill the requirements for them to be awarded the masters degree programs in all the areas that they may be enrolled for. This means that one may do a research and finally write a dissertation for the courses that they are taking in university. It does not matter whether one is enrolled for a degree in medicine or a degree in Education.
So, how are you supposed to write a dissertation? What is the structure of the paper that you will write? Is there a universal formula of writing these papers? From the above definition of dissertation, we all get to know that this kind of a school paper will be lengthy in nature. As such, you will expect the paper to have a structure that will make it easy to understand and easy for the reader to go through. More so, the professor who will go over this paper will need to have it written in clear sentences and well constructed paragraphs that will make the paper to be cohesive.
Now, before one embarks in the writing of their dissertation, they will have to do what is known as a thesis proposal. This is an intention of the writer or the student to engage in the writing of a well researched dissertation. As such, the proposal that you will write is what will finally become the final dissertation. The dissertation will consist of the first three chapters of the proposal that you will have written; plus the research findings as well as the conclusions and the recommendations. In short, the dissertation will have the following sections:
- Chapter one: The Introduction
- Chapter two: The Literature Review
- Chapter three: Research Methodology
- Chapter four: Research Findings
- Chapter five: Summary, Conclusions and Recommendations
Now that you are conversant with the definition dissertation, you need to know how to start and conclude the paper. It will begin with the introduction of the subject matter that one is researching about. You will need to provide the background information to the kind of subject matter that you are researching about and briefly explain what has necessitated you to write this paper. The other chapters of the dissertation need to follow each other as explained above. A final dissertation can only be written when one has finalized data collection, data analysis as well as after you have made the conclusions and the recommendations.