How to Write a Dissertation Introduction Outline

1. Choose Your Topic

The first thing to do is to select a topic that you understand. Now, choosing your topic depends on two factors. First of all, your school may give you a list of relevant topics to choose from. On the other hand, a school may give its students the freedom to create their topics. If you fall into the first category, it may be easy for you. However, if you fall into the second category, it may be harder. Now, do not rush to start crafting topics. What you should do first is create a theme that you would like to work on. Answer these questions: what interests you within your scope of the study? What problems can you identify from that? Do you have a proposed solution for these problems? When you can get a theme, crafting a topic will become easier. You can either introduce your topic at the middle or the end of your introduction chapter.

2. Give Reasons for Choosing Your Topic

Next, write down the reasons for selecting your topic. This matters a lot as your reader will want to know why you chose to carry out research in that particular area. So, make sure you give strong reasons.

3. Research Your Topic

The next thing to do after choosing a topic and giving reasons for choosing it is to do your research. You can use either a physical library, its online database, or even Google scholar for this. Also, do not limit your research to only written texts, videos can help you. Now, when you do your research, make sure you only do so within the scope of academics. This means, whatever sources you use must be academic or from authoritative sites. Avoid citing sources from random blogs and websites.

Be sure to read some representative introduction samples to get a better idea of how to they usually look. For example, have a look at this one:

Dissertation Introduction Sample

4. Read the Other Chapters

Ideally, even though your introduction will come first in your sample dissertation introduction structure, you should write it last. This is because you cannot properly introduce content that you have not written and understood. Now, in your introduction, you need to give an accurate overview of everything you will be doing in your other chapters. And how will you know what you will be doing in your other chapters if you do not write them first? So, write your literature review, methodology, analysis, and discussion chapters first before writing your introduction chapter.

5. Write Your Hook, Background, and Aims

The hook is the opener of your dissertation introduction samples and it can either arouse or kill the reader’s interest. You can use a controversial statement, a shocking question, or a bold declaration for your hook. After your hook, the next thing to do is to give a background story of your topic. This will allow the reader to understand the events that led up to you choosing that topic. After that, state what you hope to achieve from the dissertation. This is usually further broken down into aims or research questions.

6. Cite Your Sources: Examples of dissertation Introductions

Now, when writing your introduction, you are going to cite your sources. Usually, to cite a source, all you need to do is provide the author’s surname and the publication year in parenthesis. However, on some occasions, you do not have to do that. Examples of how to cite include:

• Author’s name and publication year in parenthesis: Darwin (2009) (Darwin, 2009).
• Mentioning the publication title along with the author’s surname: According to Darwin’s 2009 How to Write a Book.
• Mentioning only the author’s surname because you have mentioned it before: Darwin further asserts that not every writer should be an author.

7. Proofread and Edit

After writing your introduction, the next thing to do is proofread and edit for mistakes, wrong information, confusing statements, etc. You can also give a professor or an expert to proofread for you.

8. Use a Plagiarism Checker

Lastly, use a plagiarism checker to ensure your work is 100 percent original before you send it. There are many reliable free and premium scanners that will help you.

Conclusion

When you put these tips to work when writing the introduction for dissertation sample, it will be much easier for you to write a winning dissertation introduction.

PhD Thesis Outline

1. The Title Page

Although this is a full-page, its only content is the title of your thesis. While a title may seem easy to craft, a good title should be specific, straight to the point and linked to your research questions.

2. The Abstract/Overview

Although this chapter will come first before your chapters, it is always advisable to write last. This is because the abstract is a summary of your chapters. It lets the reader know what to expect from your thesis. As such, you must put these into consideration. Write out your research questions, methodology, findings, and conclusion. In your abstract, do not use verbose words — go straight to the point. The abstract usually does not exceed one page.

3. Acknowledgement

On this page of your PhD example, you show your appreciation to people who were helpful to you during your research. Your acknowledgement should not exceed one page so you have to make sure the names you put are those who were important to your research. Basically, this should include your thesis supervisor or the committee, any lecturer, professor, or senior who helped you, and any other researcher who helped you. You should also include your family and friends in your acknowledgements.

4. Table of Contents

The table of contents is a list of all the pages and their page numbers in your thesis. This helps a reader to easily identify which page a chapter or a section is in your thesis. You can use a Word processor to automatically create one for you. Make sure that the content of your table of content is in order according to the way they appear in your entire thesis.

5. Chapter One: Introduction

The introduction is where you will introduce your topic, a background story to the topic, why you have chosen your topic and the aims or research questions of your thesis. Also, in this chapter, you will introduce your other chapters to this reader. These chapters include your chapter two to chapter five or chapter six. Now, it is important to note that your reader must be able to have a clear understanding of your thesis from your introduction. So, when writing your introduction, you must put some things into consideration. First of all, what are you researching? Secondly, why is it important for you to research your chosen topic? Thirdly, how important is your research to your course of study? Is your thesis original research?

6. Chapter Two: Literature Review

In this chapter, you will talk about other literature that you used during your research. You will analyze this literature and point out the research gaps in them. Furthermore, you will show how although they helped you, your thesis differs from them.

7. Chapter Three: Methodology

This chapter is where you will discuss how exactly you carried out your research and why you chose your research design. You may need to use charts, graphs, or tables to demonstrate this. You will also show any problems/challenges that you may have experienced during your research.

8. Chapter Four: Analysis, Results, and Discussion

For some students, this chapter may be in two chapters, four and five. Also, analysis, results, and discussion may be called the personal reflection chapter. In this chapter, you will present the raw data of your findings and also their interpretation.

9. Chapter Five: Conclusion

This may also be chapter six for some students. In this PhD dissertation example, you will give a summary of all you have done and show if your research aims have been achieved. Also, you will leave recommendations/suggestions for future researchers who may want to use your thesis for their research.

10. Write the Last Pages

These comprise your bibliography/references, appendices, and ethical form. Your bibliography/references is a list of all the sources you cited in your thesis and you should list them in alphabetical order. After that, add your appendices which could be questionnaires, and then your ethical form.

Conclusion

Writing a PhD thesis example does not have to be difficult as long as you have an outline. So, follow the guide in this article to help you as you write yours.

Guide to Writing Master Research Paper Sample

1. Research Your Topic

There are two ways a master’s student gets the topic for their research. First of all, a school may give the student a list of topics to choose from. Secondly, a school may give their student the freedom to create their own topic. Whether you fall into the first or second category, you must research your topic and read the examples.

Masters Dissertation Example #1

Masters Dissertation Example #2

You can choose to go to a physical library or use its online database. Your research may include either videos or written texts or both. However, make sure that whatever materials you are using are academic or from authoritative sources. Do not pick materials from random blogs or websites as this could cost you marks.

After research, make sure you gather your sources of information in one document as you will need them. Also, it is important to note that as you write your dissertation, you may still need additional sources for inspiration. Similarly, you may need to take away some sources as you may find more authoritative ones.

Another thing to do is list out important information from the sources. These include the author’s name, publication year, publication title, publication volume, edition, location of publisher, and a link if it is an e-publication. Why is this necessary? After writing your dissertation, you will need to create a bibliography of your sources in alphabetical order. When you already have your sources listed out, it becomes easy to create your bibliography.

2. Write a Rough Draft

Before writing your dissertation, you must have first submitted and gotten approval for your masters dissertation proposal sample. This means you may not have to write much in your first two chapters, you may only have to make edits.

So, with what you have researched, write down a rough draft for your chapter four, which is usually the analysis and discussion chapter. A rough draft happens when you write your thoughts and ideas as freely as they come. It is also called a rough draft because you are not pressured into giving your work a structure yet. The pressure of structuring your work immediately may cause you to miss out on useful ideas. However, writing a rough draft gives you the freedom to write as freely as you can. You can either choose to use a paper or write your first draft on your laptop.

3. Write Your Dissertation Chapters

After writing your rough draft, the next thing to do is give it a structure. The structure of a masters dissertation example dissertation consists of chapters. Chapter one is the introduction of your dissertation and it is here that you will introduce your topic, the aims, or the research questions of your dissertation.

Your reader should be able to tell what the content of your dissertation will be from just reading your introduction. The next chapter is the literature review chapter which comprises selected materials relevant to the topics that you researched yet found open to further research.

In your literature review, you will also show how your research work differs from previous research. In chapter three, you will write in detail the tools, methods, problems you encountered/used for your research. In chapter four, you will do an analysis of the raw work you got and then show the results. Finally, in chapter five or chapter six, which is the conclusion, you will give a summary of everything you have done and also give suggestions.

4. Edit and Check for Plagiarism

Next, edit your work for errors. You can use an online spellchecker to make it easier for you. After editing, you should use a plagiarism checker to check for plagiarism. Lastly, proofread your work to correct for any writing error, wrong information, or confusing statements. You can also give an expert to help you proofread before submitting.

Conclusion

With these master thesis examples, writing your dissertation should become much easier for you. So, put all the steps here to practice.

Dissertation Chapters Outline

1. Chapter One: Introduction

The dissertation chapter 1 outline basically comprises a hook, a background, the research aims/questions and the topic. In your dissertation chapter 1, the first thing you should write is the hook. The hook is what will determine whether the reader will be interested in further reading or get bored or confused with your dissertation. So, try to make your hook as interesting, controversial, or bold as possible.

After your hook, the next thing to do is write the background for your topic. This will let the reader relate to your topic as they can now understand what events led to it.

Next, state your research aims or questions. It is always best to break these into a list of numbered items.

Finally, introduce your topic and the other chapters. You may also choose to introduce your topic in the middle of the introduction or at the end of your dissertation chapter 1 example.

Note: Your reader must be able to fully understand the intent of your dissertation just by reading your introduction. What many students do not know is that the introduction, the methodology and the analysis chapters get the most points. So, you have to write them well.

2. Chapter Two: Review of Literature

In this chapter, you will discuss your sources and show how their information is relevant to your topic. The dissertation chapter 2 outline consists of showing the relevance of other literature to your research work, why you chose them, how your dissertation differs from them, and your theoretical framework.

In your dissertation chapter 2, you should also critique this literature and point out the research gaps in them.

Now it is important to mention that you should only cite academic materials in your literature review and your entire dissertation. Citing sources from random blogs or websites may cost you some marks. Also, you do not have to limit your sources to written texts, you can use videos but do not forget to cite according to your school’s reference system.

3. Chapter Three: Methodology

After writing your chapter two, the next chapter to write is your methodology chapter in your dissertation chapters structure. Here, you will explain your research design, the tools you use, and why you chose them. You will also mention if you encountered any challenges in the course of your research and what you did about them. Finally, you will write your ethical considerations. The ethical considerations usually entail proof that you did not force participants (if any) without their consent to fill questionnaires or partake in interviews. Also, you will mention if you employed the help of other researchers during your research.

Here, in your methodology chapter, you may need to use graphs, charts, tables, or any relevant image to give a visual representation of what you are explaining. Lastly, you will also tell if there is any new data or information you added to your research (that was not in your research proposal) and why you added them. Similarly, if you removed any data or information, you should state so in this chapter.

Now for some students, your methodology chapter may be as few as 1000 words while for some others, it may be as much as 3000 words. This depends on how much you have to write.

4. Chapter Four: Analysis

In this chapter, you will present the data you have gotten during your research. You will carefully analyze each one of them from relevant to irrelevant. You will also point out any flaws or perfection in the data you have written. Your analysis chapter has to be well-written, detailed, and easy to understand as it is this chapter that most markers usually award the most points.

It is also in this chapter that you may use the most word count. You may also use the most word count in your results and discussion chapter. However, this is not always the case.

5. Chapter Five: Results and Discussion

In this chapter, you present the results of your analysis and you discuss them. For some students, the results and discussion chapter may be merged with the analysis chapter to become one. In this chapter, you will discuss in detail the results you got from analyzing all the data you discovered. You will also point out research gaps, flaws, or perfection in your results. Make sure your interpretation of your analysis is broken down in a manner that your reader can understand.

6. Chapter Six: Conclusion

Lastly, write the conclusion of your dissertation. Your conclusion is almost like writing your introduction. However, you will show what you have done rather than what you will do. That means you may use more past tense. Here, you will start from the beginning of what your dissertation aimed to do. Next, you will summarize the literature review, your methodology, and your analysis chapters. You will also make recommendations to future researchers that may use your research work for reference.

Conclusion

Writing a dissertation chapter outline does not have to be confusing or terrifying to you. Simply follow the steps and instructions in this article and you will find it easier to write.