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HALLAM INSIDERS

12 tips for completing your dissertation.

I loved doing my dissertation. Okay so, at the time I wasn’t sat there thinking, “this is so much fun” but, the more I researched into my topic and the more I put down my key arguments in writing, the more I enjoyed what I was doing.

Lots of Sheffield Hallam students will now be getting started on their final projects and dissertations ready for submission before the summer.

So, here are some of my tips for writing your dissertation, from planning, to doing, taking breaks to compiling research. Everyone is different, every project is different, and every course is different, these aren’t universal, but hopefully there’s something that’s useful!

And don’t forget to check out my Dissertation Tips Moment on my Twitter – @lburdenmedia

• Be patient – with yourself and with others

People are going to ask about your project. They’ll want to know what you’re doing, and you’ll feel that you’ll have to say something clever sounding to impress them, and then they probably won’t understand what you’re on about anyway. Think of something concise to tell people that summarises your project. Also, be patient with your supervisor. This isn’t there only project, they’ll have their own research to do, classes, other work to supervise. Plan your time so that, if it takes them a few days to email you back, it’s not a big deal.

This one’s probably obvious but just in case. Try your best to plan out your time wisely. Remembering all the time that the sooner you start, the more time you’ll have. Setting preliminary deadline dates with your supervisor really helps, as does using a diary or your phone calendar to map out the free time you have and how long you have left until deadline day.

• Not just planning, but doing

Don’t spend all your time planning out when you’ll sit down and get some work done, you also need to sit down and get some work done. It’s all well and good looking in your diary and thinking, it’s okay I’ve got two whole days free next week, if you’ve got some free time this week, get some work done now, as well as later.

• Bitesize chunks

Break your project down into more manageable bitesize chunks. If you’re always thinking to yourself, oh my god, I’ve got to do a whole dissertation project, you’ll constantly be freaking out. Instead, open a blank document, and populate it with some preliminary subtitles – Introduction, Literature Review, Conclusion etc. Complete the project, section by section.

• Start early

Like I said above, the sooner you start, the more time you’ll have to finish. This one really is obvious and you’re probably rolling your eyes and scrolling past this right now but, it really is true. Don’t start when your dissertation module starts. You’ve got the summer before your third year, your whole degree to be thinking about what you want your project to be on and starting some casual research.

• What have you enjoyed at University?

I don’t mean Wednesday nights in Corp. Think back to which modules you’ve found interesting on your course, which assignments have captured your attention, what have you read or discussed that’s piqued your interest?

• You won’t include all the interesting research you’ve done

When you’re really interested in and passionate about a project such as your dissertation, as soon as you read something relevant and interesting, you feel like you’ve struck gold. However, you always need to keep looking back at your dissertation title, abstract and methodology – is the information relevant, does it support or contradict your argument, does it say something new or support a point you’ve already made? You won’t include absolutely everything you read and find, this is how it should be. The trick is figuring out what’s important and what can be left as background reading. Always remember to include research you haven’t directly quoted or referred to, in your bibliography to show the full extent of your research.

• Edit, edit, edit

You will spend more time editing your project and trimming it down, than actually writing. The writing is the easy part. Making it more concise and to the point is the real challenge. My first full dissertation was about 12,000 words and I had a 6,000-word maximum word count! I had to change my project so that it was slightly more focused and really cut down on how I was making each point of my argument.

• Start with something juicy

You’ve done your literature review, abstract, methodology and introduction, now it’s time for the main event. Start your findings and discussion section with something interesting to hook the reader in. Make a bold statement, ask a question, get straight into the whole point of the dissertation, the focus for your research. It’s great to finish with a bang, but firstly, you need to start with one.

• What have YOU done, and why?

Your literature review focuses on what others have said about the topic you’re focused on. Your findings and discussion section will look at what you’ve done, and what you think, based on what you’re read and researched, so make sure this is clear from what you’re writing. Why is your research important? What have you added to the argument or topic?

• Back up EVERYTHING

Back up your project, and then backup your backup. Whether you use Dropbox, a dozen USB sticks, a fancy 2tb external hard drive, it doesn’t matter. Just always keep multiple copies of everything – all your research, project documents, everything. On different devices, different cloud services, different places.

• Read it through and read it again

When you think your project is finished, you’re within the word count, you’ve got all your references down, you’ve included all your research and main arguments, stop writing and start reading. Reading the whole project through, again and again. There will come a point where you won’t want to read through it again and you’re finally happy with it. But first, check your references, spelling, grammar, structure, layout and everything in between, you don’t want to lose out on marks for simple spelling mistakes or messing up your references.

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LibAnswers: Library Online

How do I find dissertations?

The library provides access to some previous students’ dissertations on Library Search. Looking at dissertations can be a useful tool to help you understand how you could structure and present your own work. 

If you are looking for Hallam students' work they are divided into the following categories:

Hallam undergraduate and taught post graduate courses

• Available in print only
• Located in Adsetts Library Stack (level 1)
• Collegiate Library Stack (Level 0)
• Not all courses provide dissertations for the library. If you can't find what you need on Library Search you should speak to your supervisor or module leader. 

Doctoral theses – Hallam students

• Available online only
• Use Library Search to locate

How to find dissertations and theses

1. On  Library Search , search for the name of the course, or a topic of interest

2. Use 'content type' to filter your search results to one of the following (you might have to select 'show more' to see these options:

• ‘Hallam Dissertations’ – print dissertations for undergraduate and taught postgraduate courses written by Hallam students
• ‘Hallam Theses’ – online theses from Doctoral courses (PhD, MPhil) written by Hallam students
• ‘ Dissertations/ Theses’ – this option includes both Hallam Dissertations and Hallam Theses. It also includes theses from students at other institutions.

If these content type options do not appear, it means there are no results that match the course or topic you have searched for.  

3. Click on the title of the dissertation or theses and either follow the link to 'available online' or ‘find in the library.

• For online theses you will need to login using your Hallam username and password. 
• For print dissertations you will need the thesis number to locate it on the shelf in the stack.  Print dissertations are for use in the library only. You will be unable to borrow or take them out of the library.

• Library resources
• Last Updated May 19, 2023
• Answered By Carl Lomax

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Dissertation planning

Information on how to plan and manage your dissertation project.

What is research?

A dissertation project is an opportunity to pursue your own ideas in an environment of relative intellectual freedom.

It also present a number of new challenges relating to the scale, scope and structure of a piece of work that is likely to be more substantial than any you have undertaken before.

These resources will help you to break the process down and explore ways to plan and structure your research and organise your written work.

A research-led university

Sheffield prides itself on being a  research-led university . Crucially, this means that teaching is informed by cutting-edge research in the academic field.

It also means that you are learning in an environment where you develop and use research skills as you progress. The most successful students tend to develop research skills early and use them consistently.

Research in higher education

Research sometimes just means finding out information about a topic. However, in the HE setting, specific understandings of 'research' carry a lot of weight.

The classic definition is that research leads to an original ' contribution to knowledge ' in a particular field of inquiry by defining an important question or problem and then answering or solving it in a systematic way.

You will build this contribution on the foundation of a robust structure of primary and secondary sources and evidence.

Differences across disciplines

Depending on the discipline you work in, there will be different ways of designing and articulating a research problem and different methods for answering these problems.

Not everything about research is 'original'. Sometimes the majority (or even all) of a research project will involve documenting or summarising information or ideas that are already available.

Not all research leads to answers. Sometimes research produces unusable results, or the inquiry leads to only more questions. Sometimes the originality of a research project is that it straddles more than one field of inquiry.

Some examples of approaches to research and what that contribution to knowledge might look like include:

• Explore an under-researched area
• Develop or test out a new methodology or technique
• Extend or develop a previous study
• Review the knowledge thus far in a specific field
• Makes connections between disciplines
• Replicate an existing study/approach in a different setting
• Apply a theoretical idea to a real world problem

This all adds up to the fact that research is a complicated topic that seems to mean a lot to academic experts but is very difficult to understand intimately when you are a novice.

As someone new to research, you will need to do some work to find out how research is conceived of and done in your discipline.

301 Recommends:

Our Dissertation Planning Essentials workshop will look at the initial stages and challenges of preparing for a large-scale dissertation project.

Our Dissertation Writing workshop will break down the process of writing a dissertation and explore approaches to voice and style to help develop a way of writing academically.

Our Creativity and Research interactive workshop looks at how to identify, develop and apply your creativity and innovation skills to the research process, whatever stage you're at. In our Creativity and Problem Solving interactive workshop you'll learn how to identify and develop your creativity and innovation skills, address problems and challenges, explore creative models and strategies, and look at how you can apply this to your academic work.

Our Part 1 workshop on Setting Research Priorities will help to break down the research process by identifying the key information that you need to have in place to develop your project. It will help you to prioritise key tasks and create a project workflow to set targets, track progress and reach key milestones. Part 2 will revisit that workflow to assess progress. It will encourage you to reflect on your project so far, identify opportunities for feedback and review your intermediate targets to ensure that you stay on track towards your deadline.

Explore this Illustrated Guide to a PhD  by Matt Might as a visualisation of research to help you identify how you can develop your research ideas.  

Our Video Dissemination workshop will give you an insight into the best practices for using video to disseminate research and communicate your ideas. It will look at styles, common communication techniques and the pedagogy of visual mediums, as well as top production tips for making your content engaging, informative and professional.

Research proposals

A research proposal often needs to encompass many things: it is part description, part analysis, part review, part guesswork, part advert, part CV.

Writing a research proposal that can achieve all these things is an important first step towards realising your project idea. Your research proposal will allow you to receive some early feedback on your ideas and will act as a guide as you plan and develop your project more fully.

But how can you explain what you hope to discover in the project before you’ve done the research?

There are a number of things that you can do to make sure that your research proposal is professional, realistic and relevant:

• Read around your topic of interest as much as possible. Getting a feel for what other kinds of research have been done will give you a much clearer idea of where your project might fit in. 
• Create a mind map of relevant topics to explore the links and connections between themes. Which branches of your mind map seem most promising as an area for enquiry?
• Be realistic. You may dream of making the next big breakthrough in the field, but this is probably unlikely! Set your self aims and objectives that are realistic within the timescales of your project. 
• Finally, make sure you follow your department guidelines and include everything that you need to in your proposal. 

301 Recommends: Research Project Design Template

Make a copy of this Research project design template (google doc) to capture the key information you need to complete your research proposal.

Research ethics

Whenever you undertake research, no matter what level you are working at, it is always important to consider the immediate and continued impact of your project.

All research should be designed to ensure that individuals involved in the project as subjects or participants are treated with respect and consideration. In practice, this means that:

• Participants have a right to full knowledge about the project and what its results will be used for.
• You should also be mindful of an individual's rights to privacy and confidentiality.
• You should consider the issue of data protection, how you will store project data safely and how long you will need to retain the data
• The physical, emotional and psychological well-being of participants and researchers should be prioritised in your research design.
• Environmental impacts of the research should be considered and mitigated where possible.
• Longer-term impacts, for example, if you are planning to publish findings from the project, should also be considered. 

It is perhaps easy to think that working directly with living participants raises the most pressing ethical questions.

However, you equally need to give very important consideration to the ethics of working in text-based subjects, especially when considering unpublished material (see also copyright).

Your department will have its own guidelines on the area of research ethics and you should certainly consult your tutor or supervisor as s/he will be able to give you detailed topic-specific guidance. More more guidance on ethics in research, visit Research Services Ethics and Integrity pages here . 

Project management

The key to completing a research project successfully is to invest time in planning and organising your project.

A student research project, whether a dissertation or a research placement, will usually involve tight timescales and deadlines. Given the wealth of tasks involved in a typical dissertation project, this can seriously limit the time available for actual data collection or research. 

Setting yourself clear and achievable aims and objectives will help to ensure that the project is manageable within the timeframe available.

As an early stage of the planning process, have a go at breaking your project down into its constituent parts: i.e. all of the tasks that you will need to complete between now and the deadline. How long will each of them take? For example:

Every project will have its own specific tasks, but breaking them down in this way will allow you to start planning ahead, adding milestones to your calendar and chipping away at the project task by task. 

301 Recommends: Trello

Trello is an online planning tool that allows you to create a project workflow. It is a simple and accessible tool that allows you to set yourself deadlines, colour code tasks and share your project plan with collaborators. View our example Dissertation Planning Trello board here and some guidance for students on using Trello (Linked In Learning) .

Working with your supervisor

Your supervisor will be your first point of contact for advice on your project and to help you to resolve issues arising. 

Remember, your supervisor will have a busy schedule and may be supervising several students at once. Although they will do their best to support you, they may not be able to get back to you right away and may be limited in their availability to meet you. 

There are a number of things that you can do to make the most out of the relationship. Some strategies to consider include:

• Share plans/ideas/work-in-progress with your supervisor early 
• Plan for meetings, sketch out an informal agenda 
• Write down your main questions before the meeting. Don’t leave without answers!
• Be receptive to feedback and criticism
• Take notes/record the meeting on a smartphone with your supervisor’s permission!)

301 recommends: Supervisor and supervisee relationships interactive digital workshop

This interactive resource will help you to develop a positive and productive working relationship with your supervisor. 

Top Tips and resources

• Read other dissertations from students in your department/discipline to get an idea of how similar projects are organised and presented. 
• Break your project down into its constituent parts and treat each chapter as an essay in its own right.
• Choose a topic that interests you and will sustain your interest, not just for a few days, but for a few months!
• Write up as you go along - writing can and should be part of all stages of the diissertation planning and developing process. 
• Keep good records – don’t throw anything out!
• If in doubt, talk to your supervisor.

Internal resources

• Library -  Research and Critical Thinking Resources
• Library –  Digital Skills for Dissertations : Information, resources and training on developing your dissertation projects, including finding and referencing sources, your literature review and creating and using images and infographics.
• ELTC -  Writing Advisory Service
• 301 -  Dissertation Essentials lecture recording
• 301 -  Dissertation Writing lecture recording

External resources

• The Theis Whisperer -  Writing Blog
• Gradhacker -  When it comes to dissertations, done is best

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Dissertations and research projects

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