Structure
The submitted dissertation will include 5 components:
Preliminaries
The body of
work
The
evaluation
End material
Mandatory
records
Preliminaries
Title Page
See format shown (Appendix A).
The title should be succinct yet clearly specify the
content of the dissertation. Twelve words is normally the maximum length. It
should be agreed and finalised as part of the final draft. It may be different from the original proposed title, but this must be
agreed with your supervisor.
Abstract
100 – 500 words. See format shown (Appendix B)
Acknowledgements (Optional)
The student may wish to thank those people who have been
particularly helpful in the preparation of the dissertation.
Declaration of
Authenticity
(See Appendix C)
Table of Contents
Glossary (optional)
If a dissertation contains unfamiliar abbreviations or
technical terms it is helpful to include a glossary at this point.
Body of Work
Usually presented as a series of chapters
A conventional form, suitable for many dissertations might
be:
· Introduction
· Aims
and Objectives
· Literature
Review
· Methodology
· Results
· Conclusions
Although all these
elements must be present in every
‘body of work’ it is not essential that
they are presented either under those headings or, necessarily, in that order. It will very much depend on your
subject and your approach – for example, for some topics it may be more
appropriate to combine literature review and results, while for dissertations
investigating how a topic might be
best investigated the methodology(ies) used may also be the results!
It is important to discuss your proposed structure with
your supervisor, especially if you feel the ‘conventional’ approach is not
appropriate.
Evaluation
You should, at some point in the work, comment on the
limitations of what you have done, and, if appropriate, indicate how
improvements might be achieved. This part may also include suggestions for
further work, recommendations etc as appropriate to the research questions
posed.
End Material
End material should include:
References:
Citations of specific works referred to directly in the text. Make sure you use a conventional referencing
system – Harvard or British Standard – for example, see the University
Publication Getting it Right! viewable on the MD4801 BlackBoard page.
Bibliography:
List of additional material consulted, but not directly cited in the text. Use Harvard system for this.
Appendices:
(optional) charts, graphs, additional data, photographs, videos, maps, sample
instruments etc which support the text, but are sufficiently marginal not to be
included in the body of the work. Appendices are usually labelled
alphabetically, although if there is little such material and it is all of a
similar nature, it may all be included in one appendix.
