Choose your subject wisely

Ask yourself what you want to get out of this dissertation. Depending on your academic goals, you may be looking to do a piece of research you’re proud of, hit your grade goals, or use your research to leverage employment after your degree. Once you have a sense of what you want your end goal to be, pick your topic to match but make sure it is a topic you are interested in.

Start by identifying your question

Without knowing your question, you may find it hard to get started on research, or to read or write most effectively. To get ideas you can look at previous students’ titles, or ask your supervisor. Observe their structure, breadth or specificity, and what type of discussion they set up. Some will set up a yes or no conclusion, while others will set up more of a nuanced debate or will seek to uncover new statistics or observations. Find the question type that feels most natural for your project. If you are doing participant research, make sure you identify your research questions early enough so that you can get ethics approval forms completed in time.

Create a reading list and get feedback

Creating a reading list will enable you to be organised in your reading and plan your time throughout the year. Sharing it with your dissertation supervisor early on and asking for feedback is a great way to make sure you haven’t missed anything.

Track your progress and celebrate small chunks

Dissertations generally include phases of work like planning, research, drafting, editing, and submission. Completing each phase deserves celebration, but celebrating progress within these phases is also important as it will help you feel like you are making progress. You could try ticking items off your reading list when you have read them, or creating tick boxes for each 500 words or section of a draft. Whatever you do, celebrate your wins!

Plan, assess, write

Creating a strong plan before you begin writing will help you break down the topic into chunks and stay on track in your argument. Try to ensure your plan has a few bullet points of key things you want to cover in each subsection. Assess your plan by asking your dissertation supervisor and peers for feedback, and compare it to the marking criteria to make sure it covers the points needed for the grade you want. Once you have a strong plan, you can break your writing down into chunks and use your plan to make sure each section stays on track.

Edit to improve your marks

Ensuring that work is well-presented work is often a criterion for high marks, but it can sometimes be hard to find the motivation when you have just completed a big piece of work. So try to view editing as a grade booster! Good ways to edit include taking a big chunk of time away from your work and editing with fresh eyes, using text-to-speech technology to read your work to you, or swapping dissertations with a friend and reading each others’ work.