怎么写Dissertation？留学生Dissertation结构之Dissertation写作研究-Research

怎么写Dissertation？留学生Dissertation writing结构之Dissertation写作研究Research Briefing
1，dissertation结构如下：
Introduction (about 10 pages)
Literature Review (about 20-30 pages)
Research Methodology (about 6-10 pages)
Results (about 10 pages)
Analysis and Discussion (about 15-20 pages)
Conclusion (about 3-8 pages)
Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research (about 1-5 pages)
Reference List (or Notes List)
Bibliography (my minimum expectation is 100 references – or 7-8 pages)
Appendices (any number of pages – these are not included in the total
The REME Submission 2

First, decide on the Type of Research you want to do. 2
Second, produce your Project Outline. 2
1. Set your Research Objectives and outline Research Questions relating to this objective. 2
2. Decide on a Project Title. 3
3. Background Reading 3
4. Research Methodology / Research Design 3
5. Resource Requirements 3
6. Project Plan 3
7. Dissertation Structure 4Scoping the Literature Review 4
Writing Your Dissertation 5
Contents of Each Chapter 6
Introduction 6
Literature Review 6
Research Methodology 7
Results 7
Analysis and Discussion 8
Conclusion 8
Limitations of This Study and Suggestions for Further Academic Research 8
Reference List 9
Bibliography 9
Guidelines for Referencing 9
RESEARCH OUTLINE 11

Research Briefing

The REME Submission-

I expect you to attend the REME module on 08-12 December 2008. Your REME submission is a PROJECT OUTLINE. You will submit this to me – your project supervisor – not to Dr Tina Barnes, REME module tutor. The earlier you make this submission, the earlier you can start. I suggest you make this submission to me sometime in January 2008 and use the information you get during the REME module to refine your outline as you go along.

Your PROJECT OUTLINE must be structured in this way:

1. Project Title (tentative)---关于female leadership的
2. Research Objective and Research Questions------关于female leadership的领导方式和领导领导魅力以及女性领导者从何获得power然后如何进行领导的
3. Background Reading
4. Research Methodology /Design (including data collection and data analysis---要写出你会收集和选择什么样的date和information，为什么要收集和选择他们而不选择其他以及为什么你认为你准备收集和选择的这些是对你的dissertation是最好的)
5. Resource Requirements
6. Dissertation Structure

First, decide on the Type of Research you want to do.

Exploratory: “new” area where little or no studies have yet been done.#p#分页标题#e#

Descriptive: studying a subject in depth and looking at it as it exists in its natural state, rather than introducing any experimental interventions.

Analytical: increasing understanding of a subject by investigating and comparing factors affecting the subject or measuring relationships between/among these factors.

Predictive: studying relationships among factors and using this analysis to project what will happen in the future.

Second, produce your Project Outline.

1. Set your Research Objectives and outline Research Questions relating to this objective.

Make sure your objective is wide enough to meet academic requirements and that your objective is relevant to your degree, but also make sure that your objective is narrow enough for you to be able to meet it in 9 months.

Draft specific research questions – maximum of 3 main questions. More than that would make your dissertation lose focus. Note that each research question can contain sub-questions.

It is critical for you to decide you the research questions your project is aimed at answering because these questions will, to a large extent, determine the variables you will study and the kind of methods you will use to study them.

2. Decide on a Project Title.

It is good to always have a focus and a title helps to maintain this focus. If, in the course of your research you decide that this title is not right because your research is moving in another direction for whatever reason, you can always change the title.
3. Background Reading

This is a list of authors and book titles, journals, web pages and any other references you plan to read. Note that web pages must be academically acceptable – if in doubt, ask. An example of an acceptable website would be the Harvard Business Review Online website. Consultants’ websites are not acceptable unless articles there are published in a reputable journal or book. Wikipedia and other people’s blog pages are not acceptable references.
4. Research Methodology / Research Design

This section is about your strategy and process of collecting and analysing the information. You must briefly outline how you will conduct your research and where you will conduct it, your sample size, how you will select your sample, questionnaire or interview design, what kind of data you will gather and how you will analyse it. You may decide to use case studies and qualitative analysis or alternatively, you may decide to gather specific information from randomly selected subjects and do statistical comparisons between groups. There are many possible research designs you could use. It is important you choose the one that best suits your research objective and questions. You will have to do your own reading on research methods.
5. Resource Requirements

Identify resources you will need to meet your objective. Resources could be specialist equipment or experts in the subject you will need to meet. If possible, list any materials or activities for which you might require reimbursement later on. Please note that flights home are extremely unlikely to count as a reimbursable expense. The purchase of reference material is not reimbursable – if you find (but have to buy) reference material, ask me – I might have it or I might want to buy it myself. If not, the library can get most books and journals for you.#p#分页标题#e#
6. Project Plan

Refer to your timetable (separate file) and to the Dissertation Structure below. The number of pages you will need for each chapter should give you an idea of how much time you will need to spend completing it.
7. Dissertation Structure

The dissertation structure in your Project Outline should include the following chapters:

Introduction (about 10 pages)
Literature Review (about 20-30 pages)
Research Methodology (about 6-10 pages)
Results (about 10 pages)
Analysis and Discussion (about 15-20 pages)
Conclusion (about 3-8 pages)
Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research (about 1-5 pages)
Reference List (or Notes List)
Bibliography (my minimum expectation is 100 references – or 7-8 pages)
Appendices (any number of pages – these are not included in the total word count.)

NOTE: The estimated number of pages is a VERY rough guideline. The expectation is that an MSc dissertation should be around 20,000 words（不包括research outline表格中的字数）.

Your REME submission should indicate headings indicating the tentative content of each chapter.

怎么写Dissertation？留学生Dissertation writing结构之Dissertation写作研究以下部分为毕业dissertation内容的一些详细说明
Scoping the Literature Review

My suggestion (which you don’t have to follow if you don’t like it): Draft your Introduction while reading your literature. It is useful to write your Introduction first because it sets the boundaries for your research. I suggest you write your Research Methodology next because this can serve as a ‘project plan.’ You can always edit both later if your dissertation moves in a different direction from your original plan.

The Literature Review is the longest and arguably the most difficult part of your dissertation. In the Literature Review, you need to demonstrate that you have read all existing research that is relevant to your project. It is unlikely that you will actually read ALL existing literature, but you need to show that you are familiar with the most current and the most relevant material. You will need to demonstrate your knowledge of theories and models and theorists who have made significant contributions to the field of study.

I suggest you use the mind mapping technique to scope your literature review. See the diagram below.
This exercise gives you an idea of how big or small your research area is. If too big, you can narrow down your research objective. If to small, you can broaden it.

The mind map also gives you an idea of exactly what topics you will need to read about and how much time you will need.

Between now and the completion of your Literature Review, I suggest you READ, READ, READ! Keep a record of what you read (author, title, publication date, publisher or web page) and take notes on the specific parts of the references you want to quote or use as an argument in your project. This way, you don’t have to keep going back to the references all the time while you are writing your dissertation. #p#分页标题#e#
Writing Your Dissertation

It sometimes helps to view your dissertation as not just an academic exercise but also as an exercise in persuading a reader to buy into your ideas. Remember that you are not writing for yourself – you are writing this for someone else to read. I suggest that before you begin to write, you determine who your audience is. Who are you writing this dissertation for? Your writing should address the needs and concerns of this audience. For example, your introduction should give this audience a reason to read through the rest of your project.

Contents of Each Chapter
Introduction
Must include:

 A brief description of any relevant history of any or all concepts, company situations or internal/external issues (like legislation, customer demands, business needs) that led you to do this particular research.

 A statement and description of your research problem and your motives for conducting this research.

 A statement of your research objective and specific research questions this report will answer.

 A statement of your research hypotheses (your answers to your research questions), that is, what you want to prove. Note that if you are doing exploratory research, you do not need to set any research hypotheses because you are exploring the area of study and not seeking to prove anything.

 A statement of the contribution you expect your project to make to the field of study.

It is very useful for you to think of a target audience you believe this research will assist – this helps you focus your arguments and discussion.
Literature Review
Must include:

 theoretical models that will serve as the foundation for your research.

 other relevant research possibly with flaws that you will comment upon.

 concepts that support or contradict your hypothesis (citing both sides adds to the objectivity of your report.)

 a variety of previous approaches to your research topic.

 linking of theoretical models or comparisons among previous research studies done. (This is very important!)

Literature reviews usually include quotes from other people’s work. Please quote correctly and make sure you cite the sources of these quotes (see “Guidelines for Referencing.”)

Literature reviews are about your critical assessment of other people’s ideas. The only time your ideas count in this chapter is when you are comparing the views of other researchers or when you are looking for critical relationships among models.

Research Methodology
Must include:

 A restatement of your research objective and your research hypotheses.

 A statement and description of the variables you will be observing or measuring, as well as variables you will not be studying which may have some impact on your results. Outline how you plan to control these extraneous variables.

 A description of your research instruments and tools (questionnaires, interview plans, case studies, surveys, for example) and other sources of data (for example, performance measurement data, sales data, production data, etc).#p#分页标题#e#

 Why you selected these instruments, tools and sources of data: justify why they would enable you to take the most valid measures and draw the most valid conclusions, given your limitations of time and/or the availability of people to sample.

 a statement about validity and reliability of your data and research methods. (I will give you another briefing on these later.)

 If using questionnaires, interviews or surveys, you must state your sample size (how many people). I found a useful sample size calculator on the internet. Web address: http://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm

 A statement of whether you will do qualitative or quantitative analysis, or use a mix of analytical methods. If doing quantitative analysis, indicate what kind of statistics or statistical tests you will use. (I will advice you on this when we know what it is you want to measure.)
Results
Must include:

 A presentation of all your analysed data and any other systematically obtained but incidental data that may add value to your research.

 Any relevant explanation that clarifies or qualifies your results.

It helps to use visual presentations (like charts, graphs, tables) to present your results.

Please put all raw data in an appendix at the back of your project or on a CD-ROM (if you have a large sample and a lot of quantitative data) attached to your project. Examples of raw data are completed questionnaires or tabled raw scores, statistical analyses and interview transcripts.

Analysis and Discussion
Must include:

 a thorough explanations of your results.

 linkages among sets of data in the Results chapter and rationales you suggest for these links.

 application of Literature Review models to your research findings: show why these models can be applied or show why some models are applicable and others are not.

 discussion of the positive and/or negative implications of your results.

 if analysing a company, map out how this company could move forward or how they could use your data to improve their performance or develop a strategy.

 if your research objective is to produce a model, programme or a project plan for some activity, then this should be contained in the Analysis and Discussion chapter.

In this chapter, you will be expected to demonstrate your own critical thinking abilities. Do not make the mistake of quoting other people heavily!
Conclusion
Must include a summary of:

 your research objectives and hypotheses.

 your methodology

 your results

 key points of your analysis and critical implications of your study – contributions made to the field of study.

While writing, your conclusion, keep a copy of your Introduction in front of you because these 2 chapters have to match up.

Limitations of This Study and Suggestions for Further Academic Research
Must include:

 a statement of the limits of where the findings of this research can be validly used.

 a statement of interesting areas for further research that the findings of this study pointed towards, but because of the limits of this study you could not cover.

Please note that this last section is NOT your opportunity to make excuses for below- standard work. (For example, you should not say the limitations of this study are due to the fact that you had no time or that the company you studied is in your home country and you are in England or that your results were damaged because you have no experience doing research.)
Reference List

These are your footnotes. They should be listed chapter by chapter and numbered in the order in which you refer to them in the text.
Bibliography

This is a list of all the references you have read. Alphabetise the list according to the family names of the authors. Follow the university-prescribed method of citing your references. Include books, journals/trade magazines, in-company publications and web sources.

Guidelines for Referencing

Referencing a book

HART, C., 1998. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination. London: Sage Publications.

Referencing a journal article

BROADBRIDGE, A., SWANSON, V., 2005. Earning and learning: how termtime employment impacts on students' adjustment to university life. Journal of Education and Work, 18 (2) pp 235-249.

Correct format:
Author’s surname and initials (in CAPITALS) followed by a comma.
Publication year followed by a full stop.
Title of article (in italics) followed by a full stop.
Title of journal (in bold italics) followed by a comma.
Volume number
Issue number (in brackets)
Pages (indicated by ‘p’ for a single page; ‘pp’ for more than one page).

怎么写Dissertation？留学生Dissertation writing结构之Dissertation写作研究Referencing a web article

INSTITUTE OF HUMAN ORIGINS, 2005. Becoming Human [online]. Available from:
http://www.becominghuman.org/ [Accessed 4th October, 2005].

Correct Format:
Copyrighted author (in CAPITALS) followed by a comma.
Publication year followed by a full stop.
Title of the web article (in bold italics) followed by “[online]” and a full stop.
The words “Available from:” followed by the url.
The date you accessed this article (enclosed in brackets [ ]) followed by a full stop.
Citing a quotation or a paraphrasing of someone else’s ideas

A direct quote:

“In order to review research literature you must be able to understand the design issues, methodological traditions and the specifics of research itself.” (Hart, 1998)#p#分页标题#e#

A paraphrased idea:

A literature review requires an understanding of issues and methods by which they have been researched in the past (Hart, 1998).

OR

Hart (1998) considers an understanding of research issues and methods essential to any literature review.

RESEARCH OUTLINE

Working Project Title:

The Research Question/s:Background ReadingReseResource Requirements:
Dissertation Structure: (Planned Chapters and Chapter Content)