Students pursuing a Master's degree or Doctorate will be required to complete a dissertation paper at the end of their coursework. In some cases, undergraduates are required to complete dissertation papers as well. Some guidelines follow for planning and completing a successful dissertation paper.
The first step in the dissertation paper process is choosing a topic. The topic should be original and significant within the student's field. The student can search for dissertation topics by reviewing his or her prior coursework in the field, by studying the existing literature, and by asking what questions still remain unanswered. The student must strive to develop a topic that has not been covered before. Once the student has chosen a topic, it useful to phrase this topic as a question.
The overriding goal of the student's research will be to answer the topic question. The nature of the research conducted will vary by field. The student should become familiar with the existing literature of dissertation papers and structure his or her research project to the standards observed by others in the field.
Next, the student will draft a dissertation proposal discussing the need to address the topic at hand. The student's research proposal will also describe the research project in detail. The purpose of a dissertation paper proposal is to prove to the student's advisors that the topic is important and that the student has designed an effective research project.
Once the dissertation paper proposal is approved by the faculty, the student will begin research. As the student gathers data from the research he or she will form a thesis. A thesis is an overall statement describing the findings of the research and the conclusions the student has drawn from them. The thesis will act as a unifying theme in the student's dissertation paper.
When the research is complete, the student will write the dissertation paper discussing the existing literature in the field, the student's own research projects, and the conclusions the student has drawn from this research. A great deal of work will have been done prior to writing the actual dissertation paper. The dissertation paper itself is primarily a report on all of the original work the student has completed. If carefully written and based on solid research, the student's dissertation paper will no doubt be well-received.
