How To Write A Dissertation Or Thesis

8 Straightforward Steps + Examples

By: Derek Jansen (MBA) Expert Reviewed By: Dr Eunice Rautenbach | June 2020

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Writing a dissertation or thesis is not a simple task. It takes time, energy and a lot of will power to get you across the finish line. Itโ€™s not easy โ€“ but it doesnโ€™t necessarily need to be a painful process. If you understand the big-picture process of how to write a dissertation or thesis, your research journey will be a lot smoother.

In this post, Iโ€™m going to outline the big-picture process of how to write a high-quality dissertation or thesis, without losing your mind along the way. If youโ€™re just starting your research, this post is perfect for you. Alternatively, if youโ€™ve already submitted your proposal, this article which covers how to structure a dissertation might be more helpful.

Start writing your dissertation

Step 1: Understand exactly what a dissertation is

This probably sounds like a no-brainer, but all too often, students come to us for help with their research and the underlying issue is that they donโ€™t fully understand what a dissertation (or thesis) actually is.

So, what is a dissertation?

At its simplest, a dissertation or thesis is a formal piece of research, reflecting the standard research process. But what is the standard research process, you ask? The research process involves 4 key steps:

  1. Ask a very specific, well-articulated question(s) (your research topic)
  2. See what other researchers have said about it (if theyโ€™ve already answered it)
  3. If they havenโ€™t answered it adequately, undertake your own data collection and analysis in a scientifically rigorous fashion
  4. Answer your original question(s), based on your analysis findings
 A dissertation or thesis is a formal piece of research, reflecting the standard four step academic research process.

In short, the research process is simply about asking and answering questions in a systematic fashion. This probably sounds pretty obvious, but people often think theyโ€™ve done โ€œresearchโ€, when in fact what they have done is:

  1. Started with a vague, poorly articulated question
  2. Not taken the time to see what research has already been done regarding the question
  3. Collected data and opinions that support their gut and undertaken a flimsy analysis
  4. Drawn a shaky conclusion, based on that analysis

If you want to see the perfect example of this in action, look out for the next Facebook post where someone claims theyโ€™ve done โ€œresearchโ€โ€ฆ All too often, people consider reading a few blog posts to constitute research. Its no surprise then that what they end up with is an opinion piece, not research. Okay, okay โ€“ Iโ€™ll climb off my soapbox now.

The key takeaway here is that a dissertation (or thesis) is a formal piece of research, reflecting the research process. Itโ€™s not an opinion piece, nor a place to push your agenda or try to convince someone of your position. Writing a good dissertation involves asking a question and taking a systematic, rigorous approach to answering it.

If you understand this and are comfortable leaving your opinions or preconceived ideas at the door, youโ€™re already off to a good start!

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Step 2: Find a unique, valuable research topic

As we saw, the first step of the research process is to ask a specific, well-articulated question. In other words, you need to find a research topic that asks a specific question or set of questions (these are called research questions). Sounds easy enough, right? All youโ€™ve got to do is identify a question or two and youโ€™ve got a winning research topic. Well, not quiteโ€ฆ

A good dissertation or thesis topic has a few important attributes. Specifically, a solid research topic should be:

  1. Clear
  2. Unique
  3. Important

Letโ€™s take a closer look at these:

Attribute #1: Clear

Your research topic needs to be crystal clear about what youโ€™re planning to research, what you want to know, and within what context. There shouldnโ€™t be any ambiguity or vagueness about what youโ€™ll research.

Hereโ€™s an example of a clearly articulated research topic:

An analysis of consumer-based factors influencing organisational trust in British low-cost online equity brokerage firms.

As you can see in the example, its crystal clear what will be analysed (factors impacting organisational trust), amongst who (consumers) and in what context (British low-cost equity brokerage firms, based online).

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Attribute #2: ย Unique

Your research should be asking a question(s) that hasnโ€™t been asked before, or that hasnโ€™t been asked in a specific context (for example, in a specific country or industry).

For example, sticking organisational trust topic above, itโ€™s quite likely that organisational trust factors in the UK have been investigated before, but the context (online low-cost equity brokerages) could make this research unique. Therefore, the context makes this research original.

One caveat when using context as the basis for originality – you need to have a good reason to suspect that your findings in this context might be different from the existing research โ€“ otherwise, thereโ€™s no reason to warrant researching it.

Attribute #3: Important

Simply asking a unique or original question is not enough โ€“ the question needs to create value. In other words, successfully answering your research questions should provide some value to the field of research or the industry. You canโ€™t research something just to satisfy your curiosity. It needs to make some form of contribution either to research or industry.

For example, researching the factors influencing consumer trust would create value by enabling businesses to tailor their operations and marketing to leverage factors that promote trust. In other words, it would have a clear benefit to industry.

So, how do you go about finding a unique and valuable research topic? We explain that in detail in this video post โ€“ How To Find A Research Topic. Yeah, weโ€™ve got you covered ๐Ÿ˜Š

Step 3: Write a convincing research proposal

Once youโ€™ve pinned down a high-quality research topic, the next step is to convince your university to let you research it. No matter how awesome you think your topic is, it still needs to get the rubber stamp before you can move forward with your research. The research proposal is the tool youโ€™ll use for this job.

So, whatโ€™s in a research proposal?

The main โ€œjobโ€ of a research proposal is to convince your university, advisor or committee that your research topic is worthy of approval. But convince them of what? Well, this varies from university to university, but generally, they want to see that:

  1. You have a clearly articulated, unique and important topic (this might sound familiarโ€ฆ)
  2. Youโ€™ve done some initial reading of the existing literature relevant to your topic (i.e. a literature review)
  3. You have a provisional plan in terms of how you will collect data and analyse it (i.e. a methodology)

At the proposal stage, it’s (generally) not expected that youโ€™ve extensively reviewed the existing literature, but you will need to show that youโ€™ve done enough reading to identify a clear gap for original (unique) research. Similarly, they generally donโ€™t expect that you have a rock-solid research methodology mapped out, but you should have an idea of whether youโ€™ll be undertaking qualitative or quantitative analysis, and how youโ€™ll collect your data (weโ€™ll discuss this in more detail later).

Long story short – donโ€™t stress about having every detail of your research meticulously thought out at the proposal stage โ€“ this will develop as you progress through your research. However, you do need to show that youโ€™ve โ€œdone your homeworkโ€ and that your research is worthy of approval.

So, how do you go about crafting a high-quality, convincing proposal? We cover that in detail in this video post โ€“ How To Write A Top-Class Research Proposal. We’ve also got a video walkthrough of two proposal examples here.

Step 4: Craft a strong introduction chapter

Once your proposalโ€™s been approved, its time to get writing your actual dissertation or thesis! The good news is that if you put the time into crafting a high-quality proposal, youโ€™ve already got a head start on your first three chapters โ€“ introduction, literature review and methodology – as you can use your proposal as the basis for these.

Handy sidenote – our free dissertation & thesis template is a great way to speed up your dissertation writing journey.

Whatโ€™s the introduction chapter all about?

The purpose of the introduction chapter is to set the scene for your research (dare I say, to introduce itโ€ฆ) so that the reader understands what youโ€™ll be researching and why itโ€™s important. In other words, it covers the same ground as the research proposal in that it justifies your research topic.

What goes into the introduction chapter?

This can vary slightly between universities and degrees, but generally, the introduction chapter will include the following:

  1. A brief background to the study, explaining the overall area of research
  2. A problem statement, explaining what the problem is with the current state of research (in other words, where the knowledge gap exists)
  3. Your research questions โ€“ in other words, the specific questions your study will seek to answer (based on the knowledge gap)
  4. The significance of your study โ€“ in other words, why itโ€™s important and how its findings will be useful in the world

As you can see, this all about explaining the โ€œwhatโ€ and the โ€œwhyโ€ of your research (as opposed to the โ€œhowโ€). So, your introduction chapter is basically the salesman of your study, โ€œsellingโ€ your research to the first-time reader and (hopefully) getting them interested to read more.

How do I write the introduction chapter, you ask? We cover that in detail in this post.

The introduction chapter is where you set the scene for your research, detailing exactly what youโ€™ll be researching and why itโ€™s important.

Step 5: Undertake an in-depth literature review

As I mentioned earlier, youโ€™ll need to do some initial review of the literature in Steps 2 and 3 to find your research gap and craft a convincing research proposal โ€“ but thatโ€™s just scratching the surface. Once you reach the literature review stage of your dissertation or thesis, you need to dig a lot deeper into the existing research and write up a comprehensive literature review chapter.

Whatโ€™s the literature review all about?

There are two main stages in the literature review process:

Literature Review Step 1: Reading up

The first stage is for you to deep dive into the existing literature (journal articles, textbook chapters, industry reports, etc) to gain an in-depth understanding of the current state of research regarding your topic. While you donโ€™t need to read every single article, you do need to ensure that you cover all literature that is related to your core research questions, and create a comprehensive catalogue of that literature, which youโ€™ll use in the next step.

Reading and digesting all the relevant literature is a time consuming and intellectually demanding process. Many students underestimate just how much work goes into this step, so make sure that you allocate a good amount of time for this when planning out your research. Thankfully, there are ways to fast track the process โ€“ be sure to check out this article covering how to read journal articles quickly.

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Literature Review Step 2: Writing up

Once youโ€™ve worked through the literature and digested it all, youโ€™ll need to write up your literature review chapter. Many students make the mistake of thinking that the literature review chapter is simply a summary of what other researchers have said. While this is partly true, a literature review is much more than just a summary. To pull off a good literature review chapter, youโ€™ll need to achieve at least 3 things:

  1. You need to synthesise the existing research, not just summarise it. In other words, you need to show how different pieces of theory fit together, whatโ€™s agreed on by researchers, whatโ€™s not.
  2. You need to highlight a research gap that your research is going to fill. In other words, youโ€™ve got to outline the problem so that your research topic can provide a solution.
  3. You need to use the existing research to inform your methodology and approach to your own research design. For example, you might use questions or Likert scales from previous studies in your your own survey design.

As you can see, a good literature review is more than just a summary of the published research. Itโ€™s the foundation on which your own research is built, so it deserves a lot of love and attention. Take the time to craft a comprehensive literature review with a suitable structure.

But, how do I actually write the literature review chapter, you ask? We cover that in detail in this video post.

Step 6: Carry out your own research

Once youโ€™ve completed your literature review and have a sound understanding of the existing research, its time to develop your own research (finally!). Youโ€™ll design this research specifically so that you can find the answers to your unique research question.

There are two steps here โ€“ designing your research strategy and executing on it:

1 โ€“ Design your research strategy

The first step is to design your research strategy and craft a methodology chapter. I wonโ€™t get into the technicalities of the methodology chapter here, but in simple terms, this chapter is about explaining the โ€œhowโ€ of your research. If you recall, the introduction and literature review chapters discussed the โ€œwhatโ€ and the โ€œwhyโ€, so it makes sense that the next point to cover is the โ€œhowโ€ โ€“thatโ€™s what the methodology chapter is all about.

In this section, youโ€™ll need to make firm decisions about your research design. This includes things like:

If these words have got your head spinning, donโ€™t worry! Weโ€™ll explain these in plain language in other posts. Itโ€™s not essential that you understand the intricacies of research design (yet!). The key takeaway here is that youโ€™ll need to make decisions about how youโ€™ll design your own research, and youโ€™ll need to describe (and justify) your decisions in your methodology chapter.

2 โ€“ Execute: Collect and analyse your data

Once youโ€™ve worked out your research design, youโ€™ll put it into action and start collecting your data. This might mean undertaking interviews, hosting an online survey or any other data collection method. Data collection can take quite a bit of time (especially if you host in-person interviews), so be sure to factor sufficient time into your project plan for this. Oftentimes, things donโ€™t go 100% to plan (for example, you donโ€™t get as many survey responses as you hoped for), so bake a little extra time into your budget here.

Once youโ€™ve collected your data, youโ€™ll need to do some data preparation before you can sink your teeth into the analysis. For example:

  • If you carry out interviews or focus groups, youโ€™ll need to transcribe your audio data to text (i.e. a Word document).
  • If you collect quantitative survey data, youโ€™ll need to clean up your data and get it into the right format for whichever analysis software you use (for example, SPSS, R or STATA).

Once youโ€™ve completed your data prep, youโ€™ll undertake your analysis, using the techniques that you described in your methodology. Depending on what you find in your analysis, you might also do some additional forms of analysis that you hadnโ€™t planned for. For example, you might see something in the data that raises new questions or that requires clarification with further analysis.

The type(s) of analysis that youโ€™ll use depend entirely on the nature of your research and your research questions. For example:

  • If your research if exploratory in nature, youโ€™ll often use qualitative analysis techniques.
  • If your research is confirmatory in nature, youโ€™ll often use quantitative analysis techniques
  • If your research involves a mix of both, you might use a mixed methods approach

Again, if these words have got your head spinning, donโ€™t worry! Weโ€™ll explain these concepts and techniques in other posts. The key takeaway is simply that thereโ€™s no โ€œone size fits allโ€ for research design and methodology โ€“ it all depends on your topic, your research questions and your data. So, donโ€™t be surprised if your study colleagues take a completely different approach to yours.

The research philosophy is at the core of the methodology chapter

Step 7: Present your findings

Once youโ€™ve completed your analysis, itโ€™s time to present your findings (finally!). In a dissertation or thesis, youโ€™ll typically present your findings in two chapters – the results chapter and the discussion chapter.

Whatโ€™s the difference between the results chapter and the discussion chapter?

While these two chapters are similar, the results chapter generally just presents the processed data neatly and clearly without interpretation, while the discussion chapter explains the story the data are tellingย  – in other words, it provides your interpretation of the results.

For example, if you were researching the factors that influence consumer trust, you might have used a quantitative approach to identify the relationship between potential factors (e.g. perceived integrity and competence of the organisation) and consumer trust. In this case:

  • Your results chapter would just present the results of the statistical tests. For example, correlation results or differences between groups. In other words, the processed numbers.
  • Your discussion chapter would explain what the numbers mean in relation to your research question(s). For example, Factor 1 has a weak relationship with consumer trust, while Factor 2 has a strong relationship.

Depending on the university and degree, these two chapters (results and discussion) are sometimes merged into one, so be sure to check with your institution what their preference is. Regardless of the chapter structure, this section is about presenting the findings of your research in a clear, easy to understand fashion.

Importantly, your discussion here needs to link back to your research questions (which you outlined in the introduction or literature review chapter). In other words, it needs to answer the key questions you asked (or at least attempt to answer them).

For example, if we look at the sample research topic:

An analysis of consumer-based factors influencing organisational trust in British low-cost online equity brokerage firms.

In this case, the discussion section would clearly outline which factors seem to have a noteworthy influence on organisational trust. By doing so, they are answering the overarching question and fulfilling the purpose of the research.

Your discussion here needs to link back to your research questions. It needs to answer the key questions you asked in your introduction.
For more information about the results chapter, check out this post for qualitative studies and this post for quantitative studies.

Step 8: The Final Step
Draw a conclusion and discuss the implications

Last but not least, youโ€™ll need to wrap up your research with the conclusion chapter. In this chapter, youโ€™ll bring your research full circle by highlighting the key findings of your study and explaining what the implications of these findings are.

What exactly are key findings? The key findings are those findings which directly relate to your original research questions and overall research objectives (which you discussed in your introduction chapter). The implications, on the other hand, explain what your findings mean for industry, or for research in your area.

Sticking with the consumer trust topic example, the conclusion might look something like this:

Key findings

This study set out to identify which factors influence consumer-based trust in British low-cost online equity brokerage firms. The results suggest that the following factors have a large impact on consumer trust:

  1. Factor X
  2. Factor Y
  3. Factor Z

While the following factors have a very limited impact on consumer trust:

  1. Factor E
  2. Factor H

Notably, within the 25-30 age groups, Factors E had a noticeably larger impact, which may be explained byโ€ฆ

Implications

The findings having noteworthy implications for British low-cost online equity brokers. Specifically:

The large impact of Factors X and Y implies that brokers need to considerโ€ฆ.

The limited impact of Factor E implies that brokers need toโ€ฆ

As you can see, the conclusion chapter is basically explaining the โ€œwhatโ€ (what your study found) and the โ€œso what?โ€ (what the findings mean for the industry or research). This brings the study full circle and closes off the document.

In the final chapter, youโ€™ll bring your research full circle by highlighting the key findings of your study and the implications thereof.

Letโ€™s recap โ€“ how to write a dissertation or thesis

Youโ€™re still with me? Impressive! I know that this post was a long one, but hopefully youโ€™ve learnt a thing or two about how to write a dissertation or thesis, and are now better equipped to start your own research.

To recap, the 8 steps to writing a quality dissertation (or thesis) are as follows:

  1. Understand what a dissertation (or thesis) is โ€“ a research project that follows the research process.
  2. Find a unique (original) and important research topic
  3. Craft a convincing dissertation or thesis research proposal
  4. Write a clear, compelling introduction chapter
  5. Undertake a thorough review of the existing research and write up a literature review
  6. Undertake your own research
  7. Present and interpret your findings
  8. Draw a conclusion and discuss the implications

Once you’ve wrapped up the core chapters, all that’s typically left is the abstract, reference list and appendices. As always, be sure to check with your university if they have any additional requirements in terms of structure or content.

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21 Comments

  1. Romia

    thankfull >>>this is very useful

    Reply
    • Madhu

      Thank you, it was really helpful

      Reply
  2. Elhadi Abdelrahim

    unquestionably, this amazing simplified way of teaching. Really , I couldn’t find in the literature words that fully explicit my great thanks to you. However, I could only say thanks a-lot.

    Reply
    • Derek Jansen

      Great to hear that – thanks for the feedback. Good luck writing your dissertation/thesis.

      Reply
  3. Writer

    This is the most comprehensive explanation of how to write a dissertation. Many thanks for sharing it free of charge.

    Reply
  4. Sam

    Very rich presentation. Thank you

    Reply
  5. Hailu

    Thanks Derek Jansen|GRADCOACH,
    I find it very useful guide to arrange my activities and proceed to research!

    Reply
  6. Nunurayi Tambala

    Thank you so much for such a marvelous teaching .I am so convinced that am going to write a comprehensive and a distinct masters dissertation

    Reply
  7. Hussein Huwail

    It is an amazing comprehensive explanation

    Reply
  8. Eva

    This was straightforward. Thank you!

    Reply
  9. Ken

    I can say that your explanations are simple and enlightening – understanding what you have done here is easy for me. Could you write more about the different types of research methods specific to the three methodologies: quan, qual and MM. I look forward to interacting with this website more in the future.

    Reply
    • Derek Jansen

      Thanks for the feedback and suggestions ๐Ÿ™‚

      Reply
  10. Osasuyi Blessing

    Hello, your write ups is quite educative.
    However, l have challenges in going about my research questions which is below;
    *Building the enablers of organisational growth through effective governance and purposeful leadership.*

    Reply
  11. Dung Doh

    Very educating.

    Reply
  12. Ezra Daniel

    Just listening to the name of the dissertation makes the student nervous. As writing a top-quality dissertation is a difficult task as it is a lengthy topic, requires a lot of research and understanding and is usually around 10,000 to 15000 words. Sometimes due to studies, unbalanced workload or lack of research and writing skill students look for dissertation submission from professional writers.

    Reply
  13. Nice Edinam Hoyah

    Thank you ๐Ÿ’•๐Ÿ˜Š very much. I was confused but your comprehensive explanation has cleared my doubts of ever presenting a good thesis.
    Thank you.

    Reply
  14. Sehauli

    thank you so much, that was so useful

    Reply
  15. Daniel Madsen

    Hi. Where is the excel spread sheet ark?

    Reply
  16. Emmanuel kKoko

    could you please help me look at your thesis paper to enable me to do the portion that has to do with the specification

    Reply
  17. Emmanuel kKoko

    my topic is “the impact of domestic revenue mobilization.

    Reply
  18. John McFarlane

    Excellent

    Reply

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