Writing Successful Undergraduate Dissertations in Social Sciences

A Student's Handbook

Francis Jegede, Charlotte Hargreaves, Karen Smith, Philip Hodgson, Malcolm Todd, Julia Waldman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000033700
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

A practical guide for students undertaking their dissertation, Writing Successful Undergraduate Dissertations in Social Sciences uses a mixture of exercises, strategies, case study material and further reading to give hints and tips on beginning and managing a research project and working with supervisors.

Providing an accessible overview of the essential steps in conducting research and writing dissertations, this fully updated edition contains new sections on:

• The varied sources of support for students and how to make use of them

• The use of modern technologies, and digital platforms in data collection, storage and processing

• The important issues relating to ethnographic and feminist research

• How to publish through peer review publications or using self-publishing platforms

• The General Data Protection Regulation and legal issues relating to collection, storage and use of personal data

• The skills that students have acquired through writing dissertations and how those skills could become useful for future career and employability

• How students can relate their dissertations to existing theories and concepts in social sciences that relate to their dissertation.

Packed with proven practical advice from 'real-life' data, case studies and examples, Writing Successful Undergraduate Dissertations in Social Sciences is an essential and dependable starting point and guide for any student beginning their dissertation journey in the social sciences.

Chapter 1

What is a dissertation?

Introduction

This chapter explores what a dissertation or final-year project is, in order to better understand the distinctive features of this form of assessment within the undergraduate degree programme. It explains why a dissertation is required in undergraduate study and highlights the ways in which the dissertation differs to other modules you may have taken previously due to the emphasis it places upon you to take much more responsibility for your own learning. Ultimately, it provides an opportunity for you to produce your own unique piece of work. Some dissertations can even be published and start you on your own academic career. By the end of this chapter, you will have a better understanding of the following:

• What a dissertation is
• Why the dissertation is essential to your undergraduate degree programme
• What makes a dissertation special
• What a dissertation may look like
• How to prepare for and approach a dissertation.

Definitions of the dissertation

For many undergraduate social science degree students, a significant element of final-year study is an independent learning project, generally known as a dissertation. A dissertation has been defined in different ways by different people as shown in Figure 1.1. In this book we call the project a ‘dissertation’, but other terms, including ‘extended essay’, ‘thesis’, ‘independent learning project’, ‘capstone project’, ‘senior paper’ or ‘final-year project’ are also used.

Figure 1.1 What is a dissertation?

While these projects may vary greatly in scope and nature (e.g. a large-scale written assignment such as a dissertation or extended essay or the design and production of some type of artefact, posters, exhibitions etc.), most share a number of key characteristics (Todd et al. 2004).

1. The learner determines the focus and direction of their work.
2. This work is carried out on an individual basis – although usually with some tutor support and direction provided.
3. There is typically a substantial research component to the project, requiring the collection of primary data, the analysis of existing/secondary data or both.
4. Learners will have a more prolonged engagement with the chosen subject than is the case with ‘standard’ coursework assignments such as essays or reports, with the work consequently expected to be more in-depth.

Purpose of a dissertation

In many universities, the dissertation project can be a significant influencing factor in determining students’ final degree classification as it often carries more weighting than a traditional module. Although undertaking a dissertation is an essential requirement of most undergraduate degrees, the choice of subject covered by the dissertation can be influenced by different reasons. For example, people may choose specific topics or areas because of their curiosity, personal experience or circumstances. Ultimately, however, the purpose of undertaking a dissertation can generally be summarised as the desire to:

1. Undertake a scientific enquiry or investigation into something with a view of discovering new facts or ideas
2. Evaluate the impact or effect of something or a particular phenomenon
3. Establish the truths in or validity of a claim or theories or laws
4. Find out if and how something works by collecting relevant information about a particular subject
5. Improve personal or professional skills and development in social research and investigation
6. Develop your subject expertise and intellectual and organisational skill
7. Provide a scoping exercise for post graduate study.

Depending on the purpose, key types of questions that dissertations tend to answer are:

1. What is the situation with a particular social, economic, political or cultural issue?
2. How are things related in terms of structures, connections and relationships?
3. What happens why, when, where and how?

Once the topic of investigation is decided and the purpose of doing your dissertation is established, your ideas need to be shaped into a more specific research question(s). These questions need to be clearly stated in terms of aims and objectives. The more specific your research questions, the more focused your study will be and therefore it will be easier for you to reach conclusions based on the analysis of your data.

What distinguishes the dissertation from other work?

More than any other undergraduate assessed work, the dissertation offers you the opportunity to further develop your subject expertise and your social research, intellectual and organisational skills. The dissertation gives you a unique opportunity to work in considerable detail on a topic of special interest to you. It requires you becoming more actively involved with research, this could mean empirical research or a library-based project. It provides more scope for originality and intellectual independence than you have perhaps experienced before.

Your first essays were usually (though not always) written to titles that had been prescribed by your tutor. As you progressed through your course, you may have been given the opportunity to design your own assignment questions. In this way your independence, as a reader and critic, will have developed. Similarly, you may have noticed that you no longer read books and papers simply to understand them and re-present their arguments in an essay. Rather, you notice what particularly interested you in the books, journal articles or media sources and what particular critical questions you wanted to ask about them. The dissertation builds on this foundation; it grows out of your own particular interest, both in terms of the material you choose to write about and the topic that provides the focus of your study.

The longer word count of the dissertation requires you to sustain your analysis and interpretation over a greater range of material and almost inevitably involves you in more careful and subtle argument and critical evaluation. The preparation and writing of the dissertation make you take responsibility, with the support of a tutor or supervisor, for your own learning. You have to manage your independent study, your time and present the results of research clearly and methodically. You need to remember that the dissertation is a marathon rather than a sprint!

In many ways, the dissertation is about doing social science rather than writing about the social science research that others have produced. You will develop skills that will improve your expertise at subject level and be expected to collect and manipulate information, present and demonstrate critical thinking and problem-solving skills – all of which will be beneficial for your professional life or in preparing you for study at postgraduate level.

For these reasons, the dissertation can be seen as the culmination of your undergraduate studies, honing your academic skills and presenting ideas which are uniquely your own.

Dissertation organisation and structure

The way in which this type of assessment is organised will vary from institution to institution and programme to programme. It is therefore important that you familiarise yourself with the particular arrangements for your degree. Many institutions produce module guidance setting out these requirements and also will allocate students a dissertation tutor or supervisor. Your supervisor, and any guidance which is offered, should be your primary sources of information and support for the dissertation project. While this book provides an overarching guide to the dissertation process, ultimately you will be assessed on the requirements of your own university and although most universities have a standard requirement of ‘an introduction, a literature review, methodology, findings, conclusion and bibliographic references’, there may be slight differences that you need to be aware of.

It is worth being very clear from the earliest planning stages of your dissertation exactly what is being asked of you. Questions that you should be asking yourself include:

• If required, have I sought and obtained ethical approval for my research?
• How many credits does the dissertation carry?
• How many words do I have to write?
• How often can I meet my supervisor?
• What can I expect from my supervisor and what should my supervisor expect from me?
• Are there any interim progress reports or oral presentations that I need to provide for my institution/supervisor as part of my assessment?
• What are the submission points and in what format?
• What system of referencing and citations am I required to use?
• What deadline am I working to and how can I manage my time to ensure completion by the deadline?

As the sayings go, ‘poor planning makes poor performance’ and ‘failing to plan is planning to fail’, so good planning and preparation in the early stages are essential for writing a successful dissertation.

All dissertations will vary in format, style and design; however, a dissertation generally contains four main sections (Swales and Feak 2004: 222):

1. Introductory section that sets out the context, aim and objective of your study;
2. Methodology section that provides information on how and why you conducted your research;
3. Findings section that details the essential outcomes of your investigation; and
4. Discussion section that explains and evaluates your findings in the context of existing knowledge.

The introductory section begins with a general overview of your research topic. This becomes increasingly specific as you introduce the research questions you are going to pursue, the methods you will use to do that and then the results that those methods give. The dissertation will then become more general again as you relate your specific findings to the wider context. It is useful to imagine a camera. You start with a wide-angled lens which takes in the surrounding environment. Then you focus in closely using the zoom to look in detail at your subject. Then you zoom out again to see the bigger picture. A typical dissertation format is as detailed in Figure 1.2.

Figure 1.2 A typical dissertation format and contents structure

Preparing for the dissertation

In certain essential ways, what the dissertation reflects is a direct development from the skills that you have acquired through your programme. If you doubt that you have developed during your study, go back and look at one of your first-year assignments and think of improvements you might now...