How UK Universities Want You To Format Your Dissertation

To create high-quality content, you need to have a decent understanding of its structure to align with your ideas and statements. A process of writing a dissertation can seem overwhelming, but this is completely normal. It is a good idea to start planning and writing the sections as you go along rather than waiting until you feel like you have done all the research.

Each university has different format guidelines. Some are very detailed as they specify the exact depth of the page layout with respect to your margins, fonts, citations, etc., so always check with your university if they provided you a structure or layout in brief that they expect you to work with. If not, it is safe to assume the structure we will discuss here is suitable.

What Does a Dissertation Structure Refer to?

To know how u can format a dissertation, you need to understand first what the literal meaning of its formatting steps is:

• A clear structure keeps your dissertation logical, organized, and easy to follow.
• You always start your structure with the title page, acknowledgments, abstract, and table of contents.
• The core chapters include Introduction (What and Why), Literature review (What is known), methodology (The method by which you will research), Results (What you found), Discussion (What it means), and then conclusion.
• End it will stating all the references and any appendices.

Talking in simple words, the structure and layout of an ideal dissertation writing service provide the steps in research. That involves posing a clear question or questions, digging into the details, and then giving the answer. See below for more on that.

Title Page

The title page for a dissertation creates that initial impression right away. It gives the marker their first sense of your overall work. That is why it makes sense to spend a bit of time on your title. You might wonder what goes into a solid title. A good one has to cover three main points:

• Concise (not overly lengthy or verbose)
• Specific (not generic or ambiguous)
• Representative of the research you’re undertaking (clearly linked to your research questions)

Acknowledgement

This provides you with an opportunity to say thank you to those who helped you along your research journey. Generally, it is not directed towards your marks, but it is academic best practice to include this.

So, who do you say thanks to? Well, there are no prescribed requirements, but it is common to mention the following people:

• Your supervisor or committee.
• Any professors, lecturers, or academics who helped you understand the topic or methodology
• Any tutors, mentors, or advisors
• Your family and friends, especially your spouse.

There is no reason to go on with long-winded talk in this part. You just need to say who you feel thankful for and why that is the case.

Abstract or Executive Summary

The abstract in a dissertation or the executive summary that some programs call for gives anyone reading it for the first time a solid overview of the whole research effort.

This includes the marker or moderator who might be checking your work. It lets them grasp the main insights and results right away. They do not have to dive into the full report to get the point.

In a real sense, it works on its own without needing the other sections to make sense. For this, to stand alone, your abstract should cover the following key points:

• Your research questions and objectives. What key questions did your research aim to answer?
• Your methodology. How did you go about investigating the topic and finding answers to your research questions?
• Your Findings, like following your own research, what did you discover from this?
• What did you conclude? Based on your overall findings, what conclusions did you draw? What answer did you find to your research questions?

In much the same way, the dissertation structure mimics the research process; your abstract or executive summary should reflect the research process and stages.

Using a professional style for inserting a table of contents relies on styles to keep track of page numbers and section titles for you automatically. Microsoft Word can scan your document and find everything in the heading styles and put that on the first level of your table of contents.

If you want an automatic table, you need to do further dissertation editing steps to apply the heading 1 style to all the chapter titles and front matter headings like “dedication” and “acknowledgements”. All section headings within your chapters should use the heading 2 style. All subsection headings should use heading 3, etc.

If you have made good use of heading styles in your document, then creating an automatic table of contents is a piece of cake. Here are the following steps you can follow:

• After writing and completing your whole thesis, place your cursor where you want your table of contents to be placed at.
• Now look at the nav-bar of your Word document and click on the references ribbon.
• In the table of contents group, click on the arrow next to the table of contents icon and select custom table of contents.

Keep All the Chapters Aimfully Aligned

1) Chapter 1: Introduction

An introduction is the first chapter of your dissertation, appearing right after the table of contents. Your introduction is responsible for drawing the reader’s attention, setting the stage for your research with a clear vision and focus of the topic, and giving you a purpose to write about.

Your introduction should answer the following questions:
• What is the context of the topic you are writing your thesis for?
• What specific aspects of the topic are you going to address?
• How does your scope of work fit into the current findings about this area of research?

2) Chapter 2: Literature Review

Now that you have figured out a clear direction with your introduction chapter, the next step is the literature review. In this section, you will analyze the existing research (typically academic journal articles and high-quality industry publications), with a perspective to understand the following questions:

• What does the literature say about the topic you’re investigating?
• Is the literature lacking or well-established? Is it divided or in disagreement?
• How does your research methodology from previous studies help you develop your own?

Depending on the nature of your study, you may also present a conceptual framework towards the end of your literature review, which you will then use to test your actual research.

3) Chapter 3: Methodology

Now that you have investigated the current state of knowledge in your literature review chapter and are familiar with the existing key theories, models, and frameworks. It’s time to design your own research.
In this section, you will address two critical questions, like:

1) Exactly HOW will you carry out your research, or what are your intentions for this research design?
2) Exactly WHY have you chosen to do things this way ( how do you justify your design )?

This chapter requires complete detail. Do not hold back on the specifics; state exactly what you will be doing with whom, when, for how long, etc.

4) Chapter 4: Results and Findings

After collecting all your data and undertaking your analysis, whether qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods. You will present the raw results of your analysis. For this example, the case of a quantitative study, you will present demographic data, descriptive statistics, inferential statistics, etc.

5) Chapter 5: Discussion

Now that you have presented your data analysis results, it is time to interpret and analyze them. The main point here is that you should go over your results and connect them to your research questions and overall aims. You also want to link them up with the current literature out there. The results point to specific insights about those research questions.

They either match what other studies have found or go against it in some way. If there is a mismatch, think about the reasons behind that difference. Dive right into your findings and break down what they really indicate. Put it all in straightforward English that anyone can follow.

6) Chapter 6: Conclusion

This chapter is the final section of your thesis. You will typically talk about what your findings really mean in the bigger picture. Basically, you have already tackled your research questions. But now think about how this plays out in the real world. Or even within academic circles. You need to consider what changes should happen next. All because of the fresh insights you have come up with.

Finally, cover the limits of your own research. And explain how those limits affect future studies in the field. Keep in mind that no research project turns out flawless. That goes double for something at the Master’s level.

7) Chapter 7: References

The references list is straightforward. It should contain a list of all the resources cited in your dissertations, in the required format, for instance, APA and Harvard, etc.

It is an essential part that even top firms like Assignment Ace emphasise, in which you need the help of reference management software for your thesis or dissertation.

Do not try to handle your referencing manually; it is far too error-prone. On a reference list of multiple pages, you are going to make a mistake.

Consider a software extension that provides a very straightforward interface to make sure that your referencing is accurate and 100% on point.

8) Chapter 8: Appendices

The very last piece of the puzzle is the appendix. This is where you will include any supporting data and evidence. Important, supporting is the focus here.

The right way to write appendices is by providing additional “good to know” information that adds depth to your information, which is not critical to the core analysis.

Final Thoughts

Remember that your dissertation tells a lot about your skills, so your markers will be looking for professional work, demonstrating accurate referencing and well-presented and formatted writing.