“Dissertation,” “thesis,” “research project” and “extended essay” are terms variously applied to a major undergraduate submission, usually completed in the final year of a degree course. The objective is to test a wide range of academic skills by providing the student with the opportunity to undertake an in-depth examination of some relevant area of knowledge. Most estate management courses now require some form of extended essay, usually referred to as a dissertation. This can have a major bearing on the final classification of the award and in some cases is the main distinguishing feature between honours and non-honours candidates.
The terminology applied to this exercise tends to be applied indiscriminately. Dissertation is defined as “a written discourse treating a subject at length”, whereas thesis has the more specific meaning of “a proposition laid down or stated, as a theme to be discussed and proved”. It follows that a dissertation should contain a thesis or indeed several theses.
Whatever title is formally adopted, it is clear that what is intended is a piece of work which is well studied, well written, has purpose, organisation and consistency. It should have a sound theoretical framework and demonstrate established principles of evaluation. It may have some novelty and interest value in the issues addressed and the treatment of data and information, though not necessarily original research. It should be explicit in showing how theory is related to the data considered and should draw conclusions which relate to the issues addressed and the material under investigation.
It is important to distinguish the undergraduate dissertation from the PhD thesis, a much longer piece of work both in terms of time and length — several years and 100,000 words or more — but also expected to be more or less original and probably worthy of publication; whereas the undergraduate thesis may be little more than a synthesis of existing knowledge. Even so, despite these important differences, there are some basic principles which apply to all levels of academic writing. The undergraduate dissertation will be the written report of some form of investigation and that report should be presented in a way which adheres to certain established rules of presentation and scholarly quality.
Setting the task of writing a dissertation may have a number of laudable objectives but, above all, provides the student with the opportunity to examine some topic, usually his or her own choice, in greater depth than would normally be possible. It encourages independence of thought, should help to develop the habit of systematic study, as well as the ability to find information and communicate that information clearly and concisely in written form. Properly organised and undertaken it can be an intensely valuable, even enjoyable, exercise; tackled half-heartedly it can become a burden, weighing down the student and adversely affecting performance elsewhere. It is not to be undertaken lightly.
The prospect of writing 10,000 to 15,000 words of more or less original prose can be daunting to the student who has never been required to write more than a 2,500-word essay. In fact the act of writing is only the tip of the iceberg and it will normally present relatively few problems if careful consideration is given at the outset to the choice of topic and the planning and organisation of the exercise as a whole.
The topic
It is normal these days for the student to be given a relatively free hand in choosing a dissertation topic. This is the first and major decision, which needs a great deal of careful thought. It represents an enormous personal responsibility and making the wrong choice at this stage can have disastrous consequences. Get it right and things should progress smoothly to a satisfactory conclusion.
A number of basic considerations come into play here. First, it is essential to choose something which will be of interest generally but will also be of interest to the writer and capable of sustaining that interest over a long period. It must, of course, be a topic which is suitable for this type of treatment. One of the greatest dangers is selecting a topic that will merely produce an interesting but purely descriptive piece of writing. To be successful, the undergraduate dissertation needs some theoretical underpinning. The best way of testing this is to pose a series of questions about the topic which will lead to a thesis or proposition which is capable of examination.
Having selected a suitable topic area, further critical examination should be undertaken to ensure that this will not prove too large or too complex for the length of the dissertation and the length of time available. The dissertation length is usually quite strictly predetermined by a word limit and the length of time available will be, at most, 12 months and, in practice, often a lot less. It is all too easy to discover, at too late a stage, that you have bitten off more than you can chew. Finally, it is important to determine whether the necessary information will be available and, if available, can be used. It will be a source of extreme frustration to find that essential data does not exist, or that where it does exist it is not accessible for reasons of confidentiality. This is a common problem in topic areas concerned with the notoriously secretive world of property and valuation.
Once the topic has been identified and examined critically, detailed research can begin. It is likely that some preliminary reading will have been undertaken in determining the choice of topic, for it is unlikely that a proper appraisal can be undertaken to determine its suitability without some outline research.
Literature searching
You will need information on a particular topic or range of topics. A literature search is a systematic way of searching for and recording such information, and this needs to be approached strategically to save time and effort and to ensure that the fullest sources of information are identified. Remember that bibliographies dealing with the type of information which interests you may already exist and offer the most logical starting point.
Define your topic. Limit the search in terms of the time available and the scope of the topic. Do not waste time reading things which are unlikely to be of use. Evaluate all the material you come across to assess its utility and validity — the type of book, the author, bias and point of view. Look especially at the title and the contents list to give an indication of scope and depth as well as at the introduction and preface, date and edition. “It is one of the essential arts of scholarship to learn how to quarry a book efficiently for what one wants to learn from it.”(1)
Start with the latest information on a topic and work back. Use lists in books or articles such as references and bibliographies. Keep notes of your searches and your findings. These will serve as a point of reference and will save time in the future. Information needs to be recorded accurately and one of the more appropriate methods is the use of a card index. This will identify the source of every piece of information considered, as well as a detailed summary of the contents. A card index has the advantage of being arranged in different ways to facilitate the organisation and reorganisation of the material which will assist in both writing and referencing at a later stage.
It is likely with most topics that detailed written information already exists and you should start your search by examining these major sources. Bibliographies are lists of books, journals, articles etc, compiled by someone else. Look for bibliographies dedicated to particular subjects as well as those contained in other books. There may also be specific catalogues, guides to literature, bibliographic indexes and reference books related to your topic areas. Examine research in progress and unpublished theses, not forgetting to consider whether there might be unwritten sources, people working in particular areas of practice who may have detailed knowledge which does not appear in written form.
Management
Always work to an outline. It may be very broad and general at first, but it will help to direct your research if you have a rough idea of where you are going.
The initial plan may simply contain a statement of the issues or questions to be examined and a broad outline of chapter headings and subheadings. It should be flexible enough to be adjusted as more material is examined and should be kept under constant review. If properly thought out it will provide an early warning of any problem that may arise.
As well as working to an outline of content it is wise at an early stage to set a time plan, working back from the submission date and allowing adequate time for binding, typing, final proofreading and correction. Set out a series of intermediate targets and aim to stick to them. This could define the time available for research and the progress expected in the actual writing. It may be necessary to revise this from time to time, but its existence will provide a degree of discipline and will identify any shortcomings, alerting the writer when falling behind schedule.
It is normal practice for institutions to allocate a supervisor for the work to be undertaken and these preliminary issues should be discussed with the supervisor.
An agreed mode of operation should be established and the student should look to the supervisor for support and general guidance and as a sounding board for ideas. Do not expect the supervisor to write the dissertation for you or to undertake the research! As well as a supervisor it is useful to have someone available to check final proof-reading, as it can be very difficult to proofread your own writing objectively. It is likely that a third person will pick up things you might miss.
Writing
Many students feel intimidated by the writing of a dissertation. At the outset it can seem a daunting task to produce several thousand words. However, provided all the research and organisation has been undertaken thoroughly beforehand, this should be perfectly manageable. It is not necessary to write the dissertation as it will be finally presented and it is a good practice to break it down into smaller sections and start by tackling the areas with which you feel most confident: background information, a case study perhaps or a summary of existing theory. Provided you are working to a plan, these can then be slotted into place at a later stage and it is surprising how confidence grows once thoughts are committed to paper; then more difficult issues can be tackled.
Many students approach writing with a sense of awe because of a feeling that the dissertation requires some elevated form of prose style. Actually, you should not lose sight of the fact that this, above all, is an exercise in communication and the normal rules of style apply. A dissertation should, of course, be well written, with no errors of grammar, spelling or punctuation. The appropriate style is formal in that it is restrained and objective, but students should recognise that they are being asked to do nothing more here than applies to any formal writing. Clarity and conciseness are all-important. Identify the relationship with the reader, who should be assumed to have some knowledge but will not necessarily be an expert.
The mechanics of writing an extended piece of work are no different either, it just requires a good deal of organisation. In drafting, write on one side of the paper with double spacing. This will facilitate reorganisation and correction later. If available, use a word processor, which will take away much of the physical effort, but remember the golden rule: always back up and keep hard copies as well.
Structure
Without doubt, the introduction is the single most important part of the written dissertation. This has to fulfil a number of objectives and, as it is the first part of the written material which the reader will encounter, it may turn out also to be the last if it is not well written.
As you research you will become quite adept at looking at the merest outline of a book or article to decide whether to invest valuable time in reading it. The reader of an introduction to your dissertation will have the same question in mind: does this really tell me what I am interested to know?
An introduction, then, should identify the area of research, including a clear statement of the aims of the dissertation. It will explain why the research was carried out and draw attention to any findings or conclusions. The introduction will also identify the research methods used, even if this is simply a case of a literature search followed by personal interviews. Where more formal methods are used — statistical analysis or questionnaires, for example — the methodology should be fully outlined at this point.
The introduction will be followed by the main body of the dissertation, ordered logically in terms of the material under consideration, and containing a consistent thread of argument. The dissertation will end with a conclusion that will draw all the main points together.
Footnotes and references
Always indicate the exact source of all material which is not your own. This includes direct and indirect quotations, facts which might otherwise be disputed, opinions or authorities which you use in your argument, interpretations which are not your own, maps and statistics and anything else derived from other sources. This is a question of academic integrity but it will also serve to give the work authority and credibility. It seems that many students are not fully appreciative of this essential requirement until they have to submit a dissertation, whereas it is a discipline which should apply to even the humblest of essays.
It is important, therefore, that during the research stage the necessary information is recorded to enable the final work to be properly referenced. This is where the card index proves its worth and where the less diligent find themselves wasting time painstakingly retracing their steps through the literature search in a belated attempt to fill in the gaps.
It is essential that the form of referencing is decided at the outset, to identify precisely what information needs to be recorded. There are two basic approaches, the footnote system and the intext system, also known as the Harvard system. The in-text system includes the appropriate reference, including author’s name, publication title and date, in brackets, at the appropriate point of the text. This has the advantage of placing the reference details before the reader at the precise point where they are needed. For full details the reader can cross-refer to the bibliography at the end of the dissertation. In cases where there are a lot of references this can become unwieldy and a footnote system may be more appropriate. The point in the text to be referenced is identified by a superscript number which is cross-referenced to a numbered footnote containing all the relevant publication details. These references and other footnotes, such as cross-references and incidental comments, can appear at the bottom of the page or at the end of the chapter or the end of the dissertation, but in general it is easier for the reader if the footnote appears at the bottom of the relevant page. Here, as elsewhere, the writer should, of course, take note of any specific regulations that may be applied by the particular institution, as some insist on the use of a particular method.
Broadly speaking, the information to be included in the reference will be: author, title of work, publication date, publisher, place of publication and page number. Reference should be made to any of the standard texts on dissertation writing for specific information on this subject.(2)
Format
Some institutions issue detailed instructions as to the format of the dissertation. If this is the case it is important that they are followed carefully. In the absence of detailed instructions the writer is free to make his or her own decisions as to format, but there are certain generally accepted conventions and it is wise to be aware of these.
Note the deadline date and ensure that you comply with this. Check the number of copies required and note any specific typing instructions. It is normal to use international A4 size (297mm by 210mm), good-quality paper, typed on one side only with double-spaced typescript.
Allow minimum widths for margins, which normally will be:
- Left-hand margin 40mm
- Right-hand margin 15mm
- Top margin 15mm
- Bottom margin 20mm.
Pages should be numbered consecutively, the page number to appear at the same position, usually at the top centre of each page.
The title page will be the first page in the dissertation and will contain the following information: the full title, the full name of the student, the title of the degree for which the dissertation is submitted, the school and polytechnic/university titles and the date of submission.
The next page will contain the abstract, a summary of the dissertation indicating the main points and conclusions, if required. This should conform to any given word limit; if unspecified, 250 to 500 words is normal.
Following pages will be the contents page and lists of any tables, figures, maps, appendices and other material. These should be on separate pages, with each item listed in order with the relevant page numbers. Appendices will include all manner of information which is relevant but not appropriate for inclusion in the text. It is helpful to provide a bibliography, which is an alphabetical list of all written sources consulted, including all specific reference sources but also any other material which has been useful.
There is a wide range of published material giving instruction on the writing of dissertations. These should be consulted beforehand to provide a general overview of the task in hand, as well as providing detailed advice on references, layout of quotations, capitalisation, the form of headings and subheadings, the use of illustrations etc, enabling you to achieve the recognised and consistent standard expected right at the beginning. The single most important piece of advice remains — thorough preparation is essential to render this mammoth task manageable.
References
(1) Watson G (1987) Writing a Thesis: A Guide to Long Essays and Dissertations, London, Longmans.
(2) Turbian KL (1982) A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses and Dissertations, British ed, London, Heineman.
