Writing up your Research

Writing up your research for a dissertation or thesis

The Quick Guide Series Stopwatch

By

Dan Remenyi & Frank Bannister

Published by Academic Conferences and Publishing International Limited

Copyright ©2012 Academic Conferences and Publishing International Limited

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of critical review, no part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright holder except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Applications for the copyright holder’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the publishers.

Academic Conferences and Publishing International Ltd

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Disclaimer: While every effort has been made by the editor, authors and the publishers to ensure that all the material in this book is accurate and correct at the time of going to press, any error made by readers as a result of any of the material, formulae or other information in this book is the sole responsibility of the reader. Readers should be aware that the URLs quoted in the book may change or be damaged by malware between the time of publishing and accessing by readers.

This book mentions a number of commercial products, all of which are a trademark of their respective owners.

ISBN 978-1-908272-28-7

First edition January 2012

Second Edition January 2013

Available from: http://www.academic-publishing.org

Contents

Writing up your research

for a dissertation or thesis

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

A key definition – the name of the book

Using this book to achieve your objectives

Part 1 – Where to begin?

When to submit for examination

Part 2 – Writing the dissertation

Obstacles to writing

An integrated story

Flow and continuity

The use of the personal pronoun

The tense of the verbs used - historical present

Minimise the use of adjectives and adverbs

Acronyms/Abbreviations

The launch pad

Diagrams, tables, figures and photographs

Some details of which to be careful

References

Copyrights and trademarks

Scheduled writing

Writer’s block

Drafting and redrafting

Proofreading and editing

Learning to write academically

University rules for producing the written document

The result of the dissertation

Learning sources for academic writing

Getting to the end

Part 3 – The main body of the dissertation or thesis

The first chapter - introducing the research

The second chapter - what is known about your topic

The third chapter - how the research will be done?

The fourth chapter - an account of the research- what was actually done?

The fifth chapter - Findings and Conclusions

The sixth chapter - limitations and future research

Part 4 – The dissertation as a whole and integrated document

Part 5 – Some General Thoughts

Part 6 – The leading pages

Cover page

Abstract

Certificates of own work

Acknowledgement

Dedication (if any)

Other academic outputs

Table of contents

Tables of figures and tables of tables

Appendices

List of references

Glossary

Abbreviations and/or acronyms used

Questionnaire or interview schedule/s

Research protocol

Ethics protocol and related correspondence

Data acquired - either transcripts or numeric tables

Other detailed explanatory evidence acquired

Part 7 – Data Management: Makes writing up easier

Directory and file names

Directories and subdirectories

Merging files or combining data

Backing up data

Reference management software

Summary and conclusion

Part 8 – The Monograph Dissertation versus the Papers Approach

The Monograph Dissertation

Papers Approach

Do the Papers need to be published?

The research topic and the individual research

Leading and Ending Narratives

The Leading Narrative

The Ending Narrative

Why undertake a Papers Approach to the Dissertation?

Which route to the doctorate should be preferred?

Writing of the Paper

Part 9 - Authors’ reflections on the contents of this book

Appendix 1 – Reference list

Appendix 2 – Interesting websites

Appendix 3 – Number of pages in a typical doctoral dissertation

Appendix 4 – Some common errors to avoid when writing

Appendix 5 - The challenge of writing with adequate rigour without        obfuscation

Appendix 6 – Bibliography

Appendix 7 - Some More Useful Web Tools

Appendix 8 – Glossary

Index

Preface

Producing a piece of academic research presents many challenges, two of which are acquiring the skill of academic writing and knowing what issues have to be addressed in each chapter of the finished dissertation or thesis.

Writing adequately for a research degree does not come naturally to most people. It is a learnt skill. It is difficult to acquire this skill and extensive practice is needed. It is therefore important that from the outset research degree candidates write about what they are doing and obtain advice from their supervisor/s at each stage of the research.

In addition, research degree candidates and their supervisors often have difficulty knowing when and where to stop the write-up of the research. There is a mystique about finishing doctoral dissertations and sometimes a researcher continues well after enough has been done to be comfortably awarded the degree. This can produce excessively long dissertations which then require reducing in size. Occasionally we have encountered two volume dissertations reaching nearly a thousand pages. You should not need so many pages to get a PhD in management or information systems.

Although this book is dense with regard to the information it contains, it has been designed to be read in four or five hours and it will give those who are preparing to finalise their research degree dissertation for submission a set of guidelines to follow.

The book can also serve those who may be interested in undertaking academic research and who do not know what the final output of their research will need to look like.

Readers of this book will realise that it is difficult enough to obtain a research degree when writing in one’s own home language. Those whose first language is not English will find academic writing in this language all the more challenging. We have not specifically addressed issues related to the problems of writing in a second language.

Finally, we are aware that research degrees may be obtained by means other than a dissertation which is sometimes referred to as a monograph. One such approach is by published papers. This multiple paper and other approaches to writing up the research are not covered in this book.

Dan Remenyi

dan.remenyi@gmail.com

Acknowledgments

A book like this can only be written after many experiences with research degree candidates, with their supervision and their examination.

Many people have contributed to our learning over the past decade and we acknowledge our gratitude to all those we have worked with and learnt from. Learning by doing this is the only way of fully understanding what is required from research degree candidates.

Of course this learning continues and hopefully we can pass on some of the lessons we have learned to newcomers to academic research.

A key definition – the name of the book

There are two words which are sometimes used interchangeably to describe a document created to report the result of academic research presented for a degree. These are dissertation and thesis. Some universities prefer to make a distinction between these terms and when this is done the word dissertation is typically used to describe research at masters level. The word thesis is then reserved for the product of work conducted at doctoral level.

There is also the question of the different types of masters degree research. Traditionally, a masters degree was awarded for research which was neither as broad in scope nor as profound in depth as a doctorate. But it was clearly a research degree.

However, during the past two or three decades many if not most universities began offering masters degrees which were gained largely by course work and examination. Such degrees generally require only a modest amount of research work and the document written to report this research may be described as a minor dissertation, a research report, a project report or even a management challenge report.

If the term thesis is used, there is a different concern as the word thesis then refers both to the document or the book and to the contribution which the research has made to the body of knowledge. Consequently, when the writer refers to ‘this thesis’, his or her meaning can be ambiguous.

Choosing words carefully is part of what is required from a skilled academic researcher. The best advice is to determine the conventional or required nomenclature in the academic institution to which the doctorate is to be submitted and to stick with that.

Besides the question of whether to use the word dissertation or thesis to describe the book which is to be submitted, there is the actual definition of the word dissertation (or thesis), something which is seldom addressed. A dissertation is a full and accurate account of the research which has been undertaken under supervision for the purpose of obtaining a research degree. A dissertation should specifically address the conceptualisation of the research question, the research processes and analysis, the findings, the conclusion and the application of the findings. It is expected that in the dissertation the researcher should demonstrate that he or she is aware of good practice related to academic research and that the work has complied with the research ethics protocol approved by the university.

Using this book to achieve your objectives

Remember that the purpose