Beglar D., Murray N. Inside Track to Writing Dissertations and Theses

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1 Academic research: an overview

Think about your own personality, your needs and vulnerabilities, your strengths,

your personal circumstances, and the nature of the research you are intending to

undertake. Describe them as a series of bullet points below. Then, in light of the

information presented in this section, consider what type of supervisor would best

be able to support you during the course of your research, and why. If possible, try

also to think of a particular individual under whose guidance you might feel comfort-

able working.

My situation:

My ideal supervisor:

My reasons:

Name of supervisor:

Activity 1.4 Considering the best supervisor for you

THE UPGRADING PROCESS

If you are commencing a PhD, it’s very common for a university or individual depart-

ment to require you, initially, to register as an MPhil student. At a point in your

research, normally decided by you in consultation with your supervisor, you will

need to go through an ‘upgrading’ process. This involves being examined or inter-

viewed about your project by a small committee of academics, typically within the

same department. The interview is normally fairly informal and conducted in a con-

structive spirit and in the presence of your supervisor, who may contribute to the

discussion. When you choose to upgrade is normally determined by the stage you

have reached in your research. When you apply to upgrade you will normally be ex-

pected to have your project fully mapped out, to have made some progress in the

conduct of your research, and ideally (though not necessarily), have written some of

the thesis itself – on the understanding, of course, that this may well change before

the thesis is finally submitted in its full form.

The upgrading process exists primarily for your benefit. Most importantly, it forces

you to reflect on your project and consider whether your vision for it remains clear

and focused, and whether you are happy with the direction it is taking and the

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The upgrading process

progress you have made. During the interview, you will be asked about the project

and alerted to potential problems and weaknesses. The purpose here is to check

whether you have a good grip on the project, to highlight its strengths and to offer

advice about how you can improve it and avoid potential pitfalls. The discussion that

takes place can, therefore, be very useful not only to you personally but also to your

supervisor, who may also benefit from issues raised and, as a result, be even better

placed to support you subsequently. In essence, then, upgrading is a way of evaluat-

ing your progress to date and your ability to see the project through to a successful

conclusion. This is important for both you and your supervisor and department. For

you, a well-received upgrade report on your research, along with a good interview,

can be very reassuring by confirming the direction in which you are heading and the

quality of the research so far. On the other hand, it can sound alarm bells by identify-

ing serious flaws in your project and/or by casting serious doubt on your ability to

conduct research at this level and to bring your thesis to fruition as required. The pos-

sibility that you will not be permitted to continue with your research is an essential

and valuable part of the process – if an unwelcome one – in that it can save you and

the department time and money by cutting losses at a fairly early stage in your

research, and spare you from even greater disappointment later on.

There are three possible outcomes of the upgrading process as shown in the

box.

Three possible outcomes of the upgrading process

1 The project is given a clean bill of health, along with suggestions for

improvements, alerts to possible weaknesses and ideas for addressing those

weaknesses. Upon the recommendation of the examiner, the university registry

will then enrol you as a PhD student.

2 There are major concerns expressed over the project and you are required to

address these as best you can and reapply for an upgrade once you feel

confident that the problems identified have been adequately addressed.

3 It is felt that the project is not salvageable and/or you are not capable of com-

pleting a PhD. However, this does not necessarily mean you go away empty-

handed, having achieved nothing. In these circumstances, rather than terminate

your enrolment altogether, the committee may well give you the opportunity to

recast your work as an M.Phil submission. It will then be examined according

to the criteria for M.Phil degrees. The conditions under which the upgrading

committee will offer this option are generally twofold:

■ The research project is reasonably sound conceptually but, in light of its initial

development, is seen as unlikely to have the scope and depth necessary to

justify the award of a PhD degree.

■ The project has the potential to produce a good PhD thesis, but it is felt that

the researcher lacks the ability to take it forward and develop it to the extent

required and expected of a PhD.

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1 Academic research: an overview

Following your interview, a report is submitted by the committee summarising key

issues discussed and recommending one of these three options.

Hopefully, you will successfully upgrade and your research will be the better for

having been subjected to close scrutiny. Having gone through the process, most

students experience an increased confidence and enthusiasm that helps carry them

through the following stages of their project.

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If you want to dip into this section Page If you want to try the activities Page

Familiarity with your university’s

rules and regulations 30

2.1 Rules and regulations governing

dissertations at your university 32

This chapter looks at a number of tasks that you will need to consider before

beginning to write your dissertation or thesis. Proper planning is the key to

avoiding unnecessary problems later on, enjoying the writing process and pro-

ducing a high-quality final product. The two primary aspects of proper planning

concern educating yourself about the university regulations that you must follow

and then carefully selecting a topic and a strategy for investigating that topic.

The chapter will cover:

■ familiarity with your university’s rules and regulations

■ ethical considerations

■ deciding on a research topic

■ identifying a gap in the literature

■ generating research questions and research hypotheses

■ deciding on the research approach.

PREPARING YOUR RESEARCH

USING THIS CHAPTER

Deciding on a research topic 36

2.3 Identifying the gaps 35

Ethical considerations 32 2.2 Research ethics policies at

your university 34

Identifying a gap in the literature 34

2.4 Analysing controversy 36

2.5 Rating five possible research

topics 37

2.6 Refining your top two topics 38

Deciding on the research approach 41

Generating research questions

and research hypotheses 38

2.7 Generating research questions 39

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2 Preparing your research

INTRODUCTION

Many dissertation and thesis writers are so focused on conducting their study and

writing up their results that they fail to pay attention to what is arguably the most

important part of the entire process: the planning, thinking and preparation that

should be devoted to designing a worthwhile study. Careful and detailed planning is

an integral part of any professional research endeavour, because to do otherwise is

to rely on either good fortune or the skills of another person, and neither of those

options will allow you to maximise your learning. The main purpose of this chapter is

to get you thinking about issues that will exert a powerful influence on the quality

and value of your project and that should be understood and/or decided before you

begin gathering data.

FAMILIARITY WITH YOUR UNIVERSITY’S RULES

AND REGULATIONS

It is important that you become familiar early on with the rules and regulations of the

university or institution in which you are studying because obeying the rules will help

ensure a smooth and trouble-free experience, while wittingly or unwittingly breaking

these rules can result in unnecessary problems that can take your attention away

from where it should be – on your dissertation or thesis. It’s important to understand

that the rules and regulations are rarely just the creation of some administrator’s

mind – quite the contrary – they are nearly always based on years of experience

working with many professors and students, and are generally designed to keep

students on track, minimise unnecessary problems and keep the quality of the final

product at a professional level.

Rules and regulations often cover the following issues:

■ who can act as your supervisor

■ when you should choose a supervisor

■ when to form a proposal committee

■ who can serve on the proposal committee

■ examinations (e.g. oral preliminary examinations) that must be taken

■ when and to whom a research proposal should be submitted

■ when and where to present your thesis for your oral defence (viva)

■ the amount of time you have to complete any rewrites specified by your

committee

■ formatting rules for all written products, but especially for the thesis (e.g. the

width of margins, the formatting of headings, referencing style, page numbering,

figures and tables).

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Once you’re accepted into a programme, be sure to inquire about your

university’s rules and regulations for dissertation and thesis writers. Get a copy of

the rules and regulations, read them and ask about any areas that are unclear.

Familiarity with your university’s rules and regulations

Let’s look at two short examples to see what form these rules can take. The Univer-

sity of London regulations for a BA degree in Philosophy state that:

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The dissertation to be normally of 5,000 words in length, with a maximum of

7,500 words. It is to be on a subject selected by the candidate and approved by

his/her supervisor, and is to be written by the candidate in his/her final year.

Two copies should be submitted by the first Monday in the April preceding the

final examinations.

An important point to note here is that the dissertation topic must be approved by

the supervisor. As this regulation is virtually universal, it’s almost a certainty that you

will need approval for your topic. If you have adopted a topic proposed by your

supervisor, this step will be fast and smooth. However, if it’s your responsibility (or

you have the autonomy) to select a topic, you should start on this task right away

because identifying a topic that both you and your supervisor are satisfied with can

be time-consuming and include several failed attempts before you arrive at a

mutually-acceptable choice. Giving yourself plenty of time to identify a good topic is

also important because you have a greater chance of enjoying the dissertation-

writing process and producing a high-quality final product if you identify a topic that

truly captures your interest.

Let’s look at one more example. Cambridge University’s Department of Social

Anthropology summarises some of its key regulations as follows:

■ Be thinking about your plans for a dissertation during your Part IIA year

■ Topic: should not duplicate material on which you will be examined

■ Length: 10,000 words excluding footnotes, appendices and bibliography

■ Deadline for submission of title: last day of Full Michaelmas term of final

year

■ Final deadline for revised titles: last Faculty Board of the Lent term

■ Deadline for submission of dissertation: second Friday of the Easter term

As you can see from both of these examples, a number of important issues, such as

when to seriously consider a topic, permissible topics, dissertation length and

deadlines for submission, are clearly stated. It’s crucial that you’re aware of these

rules and that you follow them because failure to do so can jeopardise all of your

hard work and effort.

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2 Preparing your research

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Ethical issues are an important part of conducting research and cannot be ignored.

Your participants have rights that must be protected and you can best do this by

consulting the guidelines for the ethical treatment of research participants that

are enforced by the human subjects committee at the university you’re attending.

The following are general guidelines that are applied at most institutions, so they will

give you an idea of some of the issues you may need to consider:

■ Obtain permission from appropriate people in order to gain access to your par-

ticipants. For instance, minors will probably need parental consent to participate

in your study.

■ Let the participants know that their participation is voluntary and that they have

a right not to participate.

■ Let the participants know that they have the right to ask questions about the

study and their role in the study.

■ Inform your participants about the purposes of the study.

■ Don’t allow your participants to experience physical or emotional distress as a

result of participating in your study.

■ Protect the confidentiality of all data that you gather.

■ Don’t divulge the identity of anyone in your study. Use pseudonyms or identifica-

tion numbers rather than the participants’ real names.

■ Offer to inform the participants of the results of the study.

If you use a written consent form, consider placing a copy in an appendix to your

dissertation so that readers can see exactly what the participants agreed to. If you

Gather information about the regulations governing dissertations and theses in your

major field of study. Then, summarise your answers to the following questions on a

separate piece of paper.

■ When should you begin to focus on your dissertation?

■ What topics are permissible?

■ How can you select an advisor?

■ Do you need to submit a proposal? If so, when?

■ What is an acceptable length for the dissertation?

■ When must you submit the final dissertation?

■ What formatting style is appropriate?

■ What are the other important issues?

Activity 2.1 Rules and regulations governing dissertations

at your university

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You should find out whether your university has a human subjects com-

mittee and what ethical guidelines you need to follow early in the research

process. In many institutions, you cannot conduct your study until the human

subjects committee has given you a green light to proceed.

Ethical considerations

don’t have a written consent form, describe what you told the participants verbally.

This information is usually placed in the Participants section of your dissertation

or thesis.

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In general, the safest approach is to produce a consent form and have your partici-

pants read and sign that form before beginning to gather data. In this way, there will

be no question whether the participants understood their rights and the nature of

your study from the outset. This can protect you, your supervisor and your university

from future problems. Some basic aspects of a consent form are as follows:

■ Briefly describe your study in easy-to-understand terms that will make sense

to your participants.

■ Summarise the objectives of the study.

■ Describe the procedures you will use.

■ Explain any physical or psychological discomfort that the participants may

experience.

■ Explain how you will keep their participation confidential.

■ Inform them about what will happen to their data once the study is finished.

■ Explain the benefits they will receive by participating (e.g. monetary payment

and/or a copy of the results of the study).

■ Verbally ask if they have any questions or concerns.

■ Indicate where the participants can direct any questions or concerns that they

feel have not been satisfactorily addressed by you. This will usually be the univer-

sity human subjects committee or your advisor.

■ If the person agrees to participate, have them sign and date the consent form.

When writing the consent form, it’s a good idea to check the readability of

the form using the readability statistics option built into many modern word-

processing software programs. Remember that the consent form is not supposed

to be an impressive-sounding academic document. Its purpose is to inform your

participants of the nature of your research in a simple and comprehensible way.

When dealing with adults, you should aim to write at a level that a GCSE (or sim-

ilar level) student would understand. (Remember that the readability statistics will

provide you with the reading grade level of your document.) This will permit all of

the participants to comprehend quickly and easily the information on the form and

will therefore minimise misunderstandings and possible problems as the study

unfolds.

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2 Preparing your research

IDENTIFYING A GAP IN THE LITERATURE

After familiarising yourself with your institution’s rules and regulations for dissertation

and thesis writers and learning about the ethical considerations that you must

employ, you’ll be in a good position to begin thinking about the study itself. While

reading the literature in your field of study – and you should read widely – you should

be searching for areas in need of further study. Because the value of any study lies in

its contribution to our knowledge of a particular area, you should strive to show clearly

how the previous research is conflicting or lacking in some way. This lack is commonly

called a ‘gap’ in the literature. The gap should flow naturally and clearly from your

understanding of the literature and the current state of knowledge about the topic. As

you identify gaps in the literature, ask yourself how important they are, why they are

important and worthy of investigation, and the benefits of studying that area further.

You will need to make a persuasive argument for the importance of the issue that you

have decided to study, as it will become the raison d’être for your study.

The following are five types of gaps that you can look for:

1 Knowledge-based. This is the most common type of gap. It occurs when we

don’t know about a phenomenon or don’t know enough about it.

2 Relationship-based. This type of gap occurs when we know about certain issues

or variables reasonably well, but we are unsure of their relationships to one

another.

3 Theory-based. In this type of gap, a theory or an aspect of a theory has not been

investigated thoroughly, or the theory has not been tested in a particular context

or with a particular group of individuals.

4 Methodological. In this type of gap, previous researchers have not applied a

particular research design or research methodology in their investigations of a

Gather information about the research ethics committee at your university and the

policies for protecting research participants that are used in your major field of

study. On a separate piece of paper, summarise the key policies as they apply to

you in the left-hand column of a copy of the table below. Add your comments in the

right-hand column.

Activity 2.2 Research ethics policies at your university

When I conduct my study I need to . . . Comments

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Although identifying a gap is desirable, basing your study entirely on a per-

ceived gap in the literature cannot be the only criterion you use, as there is

always the danger that you design a study that addresses a relatively trivial gap.

As a result, any gaps in the literature that you identify must be evaluated in terms

of their importance to theory and/or practice, their meaningfulness to others in

the field, and their applicability to other contexts (

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