Appendix: Writing a Doctoral Dissertation

Dinesh S. Hegde and Lakshmikanth Hari

1. Thesis Writing

Thesis writing is one of the crucial and the final phases of a doctoral program.
Producing a thesis either in soft or hard copy form is mandatory for the research
degree and in a way it is the outcome of research which is communicated to the
outside world and other researchers. Besides meeting the requirements of the degree,
it reports the findings, draws inferences and implications thereon, and highlights
the contributions of the research and their usefulness to the stakeholders. Also, the
research process is as important as the research itself in that researcher is expected
to demonstrate subject knowledge in the relevant area and familiarity with the
methodology adopted, tools and techniques. Further, the limitations encountered
in the research and leads/inspirations to other researchers by way of scope for future
research are to be brought out. Based on these considerations, a doctoral candidate’s
research work is evaluated.
This chapter is aimed at providing some broad guidelines to doctoral candidates
as to how to prepare, organize and structure the dissertation writing on completion
of research work. Needless to say, the findings and inferences need to be integrated
and connected to the other scholarly works previously undertaken.

D.S. Hegde ()

Former Professor of Economics and Dean (Academic), National Institute of Industrial
Engineering, Mumbai, India
Present Affiliation: Visiting Faculty, IIM Raipur, India
e-mail: dshegde108@gmail.com
L. Hari
Assistant Professor & Chairperson, Centre for Sustainable Development, K J Somaiya Institute of
Management Studies & Research, Mumbai, India
e-mail: kanthhl@gmail.com

© Springer India 2015 227

D.S. Hegde (ed.), Essays on Research Methodology,
DOI 10.1007/978-81-322-2214-9
228 D.S. Hegde and L. Hari

Cover Page

Certificate

Abstract/summary

Acknowledgement Prefatory section

Table of Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

List of Abbreviations

1. Introduction
2. …
3. …
4. ...
5. Conclusion
Main section (chapter scheme)

References

Appendix References and Appendix section

Publications

Fig. A.1 Sections of the thesis

2. Structure of the Thesis

In general, a thesis can be divided into three sections as (1) Prefatory, (2) Main
(chapter scheme) and (3) References and appendix. A typical thesis structure is as
shown in Fig. A.1.

2.1 Prefatory Section

Prefatory section precedes the main chapters of the thesis. It includes cover page,
certificate, abstract/summary, acknowledgement, table of contents, list of figures,
Appendix: Writing a Doctoral Dissertation 229

list of tables and also a list of abbreviations. The sequence and format of these differ
from institute to institute and one may follow the prescribed format in this section.

2.2 Main Section (Chapter Scheme)

As the name indicates, the main section constitutes crucial parts of the thesis. It
comprises introduction, literature review, methodology, data sources including study
design, analysis, discussion and conclusion. Unlike the prefatory part, this section
largely depends on the candidate who has the freedom to organize the things in
his/her own way in consultation with supervisor/s. However, there are certain rules
to follow which will be elaborated in detail subsequently (i.e. Sect. 3).

2.3 References and Appendix Section

Reference and appendix part follows the main section of thesis. It contains refer-
ences, appendix, list of publications, questionnaire and other supporting material.
Similar to the prefatory section, the format and sequence depends on institute and
one may follow the same pattern.

3. Organizing the Chapters (Main Section)

Compiling the years of research work into a single piece is a challenging task and
one needs to pay due care and attention in doing so. All the chapters in the thesis
should be connected to each other and there should not be any disjoint or break in
the continuity and flow. In other words, each chapter should stand on its own and
together there should be well integrated. For achieving this, chapters need to be
carefully organized and connected.
Example 1
There are many ways to organize the chapters depending on the field of research.
Let us begin with one simple example as shown in Fig. A.2.
As shown in the example, the main section of thesis contains seven chapters.
The number of chapters may increase or decrease depending on the type research
work and on the number aspects dealt with. Introduction and Conclusion are usually
the common chapters in various types of structures of the thesis. Introduction being
the starting chapter of the main section and conclusion the last. Following are the
description of each of the chapters.
Introduction: This chapter should provide two things. First is introducing the
topic (title) and the second introducing the thesis. Introduction chapter usually
should have either following subsections or cover the following topics.
230 D.S. Hegde and L. Hari

Prefatory section

1. Introduction

2. Literature Review

3. Objectivesand Methodology

4. Chapter 1
5. Chapter 2 Data collection, analysis and
6. Chapter 3 discussion

7. Conclusion

References and Appendix

Fig. A.2 Thesis Structure (Example 1)

(a) Backdrop: introducing the topic, providing the background of the topic
(b) Need for the study: justification for choosing the topic
(c) Objectives of the study
(d) Scope of the study
(e) Chapter scheme
Literature Review: As the name indicates, this chapter should contain the review
of literature as up to date as possible. The objective of literature review is to
critically discuss the existing literature, how the various works relate to one another,
organize them into sections following a suitable taxonomy/classification and finally
identify the research/knowledge gaps. The basis of taxonomy can be periodization,
spatial dimension reflecting different regions/countries, conceptual, model based,
aspects based or broadly theoretical and empirical studies or phenomenological and
positivist studies.
Apart from objectives, methodology and findings from various works/papers,
a review must contain how the study under review connects to previous and
subsequent studies and how they relate to one another. If one study is an extension
of or improvement over previous one/s it should be clearly brought out. Similarly,
studies dealing with same or related aspects are to be discussed together and
points of concurrence/departure along with reasons/possible explanations should
be pointed out. Towards the end of the critical review, there should be “summary”
section giving an overview of the literature review followed by research gaps or
Appendix: Writing a Doctoral Dissertation 231

issues raised. A few such research gaps thus arrived invariably leads to the research
questions and objectives of the proposed study/thesis.
Objectives and Methodology: This chapter is very important as it describes the
“what” and “how” aspects of the research being undertaken. It should contain
objectives of the research and problem formulation followed by the methodology
or approach to inquiry (positivist or phenomenological), research design, models
adopted and delineating the tools and techniques employed. This is then followed
by description of the data sources which maybe primary or secondary.
Chapter 1, 2, 3 : : : (Data collection, analysis and discussion): The chapters
between “Objectives and Methodology” chapter and “Conclusion” chapter, there
should be chapters containing main body of the work, say 3–4 in numbers. They
broadly cover data collection, data analysis and discussion and can be named based
on aspects covered by the research. For example, if topic of research is a study
on urban transportation, the main chapters could be trends in urban transportation
growth, modelling and forecasting the growth and scenarios for policy analysis.
Whatever be the names, the chapters should include data description, modelling,
analysis, validation, discussion, etc. In each of these chapters, major contributions
of the study should stand out and how they are an improvement over the previous
research, thus maintaining the link with the literature chapter throughout the main
chapters.
Conclusion: The last chapter of the thesis viz. the concluding chapter should
contain a summary of findings, implications for stakeholders such as industry,
policy, research, etc., limitations of the study and scope for future work. Apart
from culling the results and discussion from each of the main chapters, the
summary section should highlight the salient features of the thesis including major
contributions. This is then followed by limitations of the present study and scope
for future work.
Thesis as one: Though every chapter in the thesis stands on its own, together
they all should be connected and cohesive and appear as one complete piece of
work. There should be continuity and flow from the first to the last chapter. As
discussed earlier, the introductory chapter anticipates what is likely to follow. The
literature review chapter identifies research gaps and also in a way anticipates gaps
which are to be taken up for inquiry/investigation. The chapter on methodology
describes the overall approach/ methodology, research design, tools and techniques
and data sources. The subsequent chapters constituting the main body of research
work focuses on some major aspects dealt with during the course of the study.
In addition to the above, the dissertation should reflect a broad knowledge of
the subject, critical thinking, attempt to make the analysis rich by seeking possible
alternative explanations, intelligently connecting to similar or related previous
works. Further, the writing should be couched in a research language and suitably
using riders in appropriate places. Finally, it should reflect ability to undertake
research investigation independently with the use of suitable tools and techniques.
232 D.S. Hegde and L. Hari

Prefatory section

1. Introduction
2. Chapter Describing about area/ field of study
3. Literature Review
4. Objectives, Hypotheses, Methodology &
Data sources

5. Questionnaire Design/ Tool Design/ Tool

Modifications
6. Data Analysis
7. Results and Discussion Data collection,
analysis and discussion

8. Conclusion

References and Appendix

Fig. A.3 Thesis Structure (Example 2)

Prefatory section

1. Introduction

2. Chapter 1 Literature review, Data

3. Chapter 2 collection, Analysis and
4. Chapter 3
Discussion

5. Conclusion

References and Appendix

Fig. A.4 Thesis structure (Example 3)

Example 2
Another way of organizing the chapters would be as shown in Fig. A.3.
Example 3
One can also organize the chapters as shown in Fig. A.4. The major difference in
this structure compared to the previous ones is the absence of specific chapters on
Appendix: Writing a Doctoral Dissertation 233

Table A.1 Some licensed Licensed software Open source software

and open source software for
data analysis MS Office Open Office
MS Word Latex
SPSS, Stata, Eviews, SAS PSPP, OpenStat, R
MATLAB Scilab

literature review, objectives and methodology. In this structure also, introduction

and conclusion chapters serve the same purpose as that of previous ones. Each
of the middle chapters (i.e. chapters between ‘introduction’ and ‘conclusion’)
contains literature review, gaps, objectives, methodology, results and discussion.
These middle chapters are generally three in number. All these put together and
added with introductory and concluding chapters go to form a thesis.

4. Writing and Data Analysis Tools

While writing the thesis, certain format-related precautions need to be taken. The
usually followed font is Times New Roman with font size 12. The font and size for
headings may differ. The line spacing is generally 1.5. But again, these formatting
standards differ from institute to institute and one should make note of it and adopt
them early.
The other formatting issues are – table of contents, tables, figures, page numbers,
numbers for tables, figures and equations. All these things can be taken care of
with Microsoft Word automatically with minimum manual interface. But for this
purpose, customization of word document settings need to be done. The alternative
for Microsoft Word is Latex. In Latex, all the formatting conditions can be taken
care of easily and it is highly recommended for thesis with a large number of
mathematical equations.
The other tools which come handy while writing thesis are reference managers.
These reference managers are useful for automatically formatting the references in
required style and also adding the reference in the reference list whenever an article
is cited in the text. There are many reference manager1 softwares available in the
market. To name a few: Endnote (against payment), Biblioscape (against payment),
Mendeley (free) and Zotero (free add-on to Mozilla browser). One should try and
adopt them at the early stages and start organizing the references right from the
beginning it self (Table A.1).
Data Analysis
Use of data analysis software depends on the area of research. Statistical Package
for Social Sciences (SPSS) is generally the most preferred data analysis software in
social & management sciences. When it comes to economics or econometric anal-
ysis, the preferred software are Stata, Eviews, SAS, R, etc. When the data analysis

1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_reference_management_software
234 D.S. Hegde and L. Hari

requires elaborate technical analysis such as neural networks, genetic algorithm and
support vector mechanism (SVM), the preferred software is MATLAB. Only a few
software are mentioned here. There are others used by researchers in various fields
depending on the specific requirements.

Some Useful Readings

Davis GB, Parket CA (1997) Writing the doctoral dissertation: a systematic approach. Barron’s
Educational Series, Woodbury, New York, USA
Dunleavy P (2003) Authoring a Ph.D.: how to plan, draft, write and finish a doctoral thesis or
dissertation. Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills, New York, USA
Glathorn A, Joyner R (2005) Writing the winning thesis or dissertation: a step-by-step guide.
Corwin Press, Thousand Oaks, California, USA
Gosling P, Noordam B (2006) Mastering your Ph.D.: survival and success in the doctoral years and
beyond. Springer, Heidelberg, Germany
How not to write a PhD thesis. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/how-not-to-write-a-
phd-thesis/410208.article
How to write a PhD thesis. http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~jw/thesis.html
Lunenburg FC, Irby BJ (2008) Writing a successful thesis or dissertation. Corwin Press, Thousand
Oaks, California, USA
Murray R (2011) How to write a thesis. Open University Press, Maidenhead, England
Oliver P (2004) Writing your thesis. Vistaar Publications, New Delhi, India