A dissertation is the crowning achievement of years of graduate study. But many graduate students struggle long hours with formatting their dissertations properly. This book guides a graduate student, step by step, thorough the process of using Microsoft Word to produce a dissertation that meets the requirements of the student's graduate school -- the first time it's submitted. Throughout, the book uses real-world examples of formatting requirements from actual graduate schools, and is amply illustrated to provide a visual guide to working through Microsoft Word. Tips and tricks about Word will help a graduate student devote time to the content of the dissertation, not its formatting.
Research fuels innovation—and with this focused guide to Microsoft Word, you can help increase your team’s collaborative power and effectiveness, and bring new research to life. Writing proposals, reports, journal articles, theses, and other technical documents as a team poses unique challenges, not the least of which is consistent presentation and voice. You must also manage the formatting and accuracy of figures, equations, and citations, and comply with the style rules of external publications. In this book you’ll learn from the authors’ extensive experience managing the authoring and publication of technical content, and gain specific practices and templates you can apply right away. Focuses on the unique challenges of writing and producing documents in an academic or commercial R&D setting Demonstrates how to use Microsoft Word to increase the quality of collaborative document preparation—including formatting, editing, citations management, commenting, and version control Includes downloadable templates that help automate creation of scientific documents Offers best-practices guidance for writing in teams and writing in the scientific genre
Are you a final year social science student who has to do a dissertation or final year project? Do you have no idea where to start? If so, Doing Your Undergraduate Social Science Dissertation is the book for you, covering the whole dissertation journey from project planning to submission. Using a mixture of useful information, exercises, practical strategies, case study material and further reading, it helps you through the process, giving hints and tips on beginning and managing your research project and working with your supervisors. Packed with proven practical advice, it also identifies many other sources of information and resources, making it your most dependable starting point and guide on your dissertation journey. Also included are links to accompanying materials on the Routledge website. The authors have extensive experience in teaching at all levels in the social sciences, supervising social science undergraduates and dissertations.
If you are studying at undergraduate or masters level it's likely that you will have to write a dissertation, critical essay or project report before you can graduate. Unfortunately, many good pieces of student research and inquiry are devalued - and sometimes even fail - because they are badly planned, structured or written. Make all that hard work count! This new guide looks directly at the processes, techniques and objectives of writing the dissertation itself. It covers longer term aspects - such as planning, scheduling, structuring - and more immediate ones - such as style, detail and managing the length. - Learn how to understand and decode the academic language of research questions, learning outcomes, objectives and assessment criteria, and translate them into the right form of words. - Discover how to maintain that essential focus on your objectives and research question or hypothesis, and their connection to your discussion and eventual conclusions. - Develop a schedule, identifying the tasks and milestones that will keep you on track, and update the plan as you go. - Find a style and structure that will help shape your writing to satisfy the examiners. - Manage the overall length and chapter lengths, and learn how to cut excess content and avoid repetition. - Master the technicalities of dissertation writing, such as methodologies, literature reviews, note systems, referencing...- Learn to how to transform an adequate dissertation into a good one by attending to fluency and detail - grammar, accuracy, consistency, punctuation - and the controlled use of aids such as spellcheckers and style checkers. - Avoid plagiarism and other evils. How can you avoid falling into cheating, either by accident or by carelessness under pressure? With examples and self-checking exercises to help you to stay on the right track, this essential guide will also serve as a valuable aid to all types of academic writing.
Conducting good research is critical to any student today. Writing good research papers is equally important—yet many students have not been given the proper tools to convey cogently the results of their research. This book is for you or anyone who needs a step-by-step approach to the writing of a research paper in the field of economics. Most books concerned with research writing are broadly applied. They approach the subject generally, which is to say that they don't lay out a particular path to conducting research. Yet a specific path offering a specific focus to writing research is exactly what is needed for most students. This book provides that focus. For example, this book doesn’t cover a dozen different search engines to perform a literature review; it specifies only EconLit. Nor are you left to decide what scholarly publications are important ones to review; the book emphasizes only the use of journal impact factors found through RePEc to rank journal articles and their importance to the literature at large. Whereas other books provide an overview of how to present research, with only cursory suggestions and tips, inside this book, the authors provide precise details on all aspects of research writing, including how many PowerPoint slides one should prepare for presentations and how much content should be on each slide. In short, unlike other books, this book provides a specific approach to conducting research, writing a paper, and presenting its material.
This handbook provides an in-depth exploration of the entire journey of postgraduate research in the social and behavioural sciences, from enrolment to its culmination in the form of a thesis, dissertation or portfolio, and beyond. It is written in an accessible and example-rich style, offering practical and concrete advice in virtually all areas. It also includes references to additional resources and websites, and each chapter features key recommendations for improving the postgraduate research experience. The book addresses not only research-related aspects (e.g. supervisors; selecting your guiding assumptions; contextualising, framing and configuring research; reviewing literature; sampling; writing proposals; ethics and academic integrity; selecting a data gathering strategy; surviving your thesis/dissertation/portfolio examination; and publishing), but also questions concerning how to integrate, manage, and balance the research journey in the context of the postgraduate student’s broader life-world (e.g. skill development and supervisor relations; effective time and project management; a healthy work–life balance; maintaining motivation; and dealing with criticism). The book adopts an explicitly pluralist perspective on postgraduate research, moving beyond mixed methods thinking, and offers concrete examples from postgraduate students’ real-world experiences.
A growing number of both established and newly developed doctoral programs are focusing on the preparation of practitioners rather than career researchers. Professional doctorates such as the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP), Doctor of Education (EdD), Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD), Doctor of Professional Studies (DProf or DPS), and the Doctor of Psychology (PsyD) are, in fact, just a few of the professional doctorates being offered today. Professional doctorates are the fastest growing segment of doctoral education. The nature of the dissertation and the process of completing a dissertation can be quite different in a professional practice doctoral program but there are few resources for both students and faculty involved in completing and mentoring such dissertations. This book was written specifically for students and faculty involved in professional practice dissertation work. It addresses both the tasks and procedures that professional practice dissertations have in common with dissertations in "research" doctoral programs as well as the tasks and issues that are more common in professional practice doctoral programs. For example, negotiating entry into applied settings and securing the cooperation of practicing professionals is covered, as are alternative models for the dissertation (e.g., the "three article dissertation" or "TAD"). The book also covers tasks such as getting IRB approval for applied dissertation research conducted in the field and how to propose and carry out studies based on applied and professional models of research. This book, written by three experienced mentors of professional practice dissertation students, is the comprehensive guide for both students and faculty.
Students and researchers have an abundance of materials and sources available to them via the internet for use in their projects. However, there is little practical guidance available on the fundamentals of performing qualitative research with documents. This valuable book enables readers to undertake high-quality, robust research using documents as data. Encouraging critical consideration of research design, the book guides readers step-by-step through the process of planning and undertaking a research project based on documentary analysis. It covers selecting a research topic and sample through to analysing and writing up the data. The book includes: • a wealth of case studies demonstrating how lessons can be applied in practice; • summary boxes and suggestions for further reading in each chapter to guide learning; • helpful online resources to facilitate designing your own research. Accessible and comprehensive, this book will be invaluable for both students and researchers alike who are new to documentary analysis. All the resources included in this book are available to download on the book’s webpage at https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/doing-your-research-project-with-documents/online-resources. Look for the Online Resources logo throughout the book.
This accessible guide equips students to succeed in their master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation in psychology. The authors provide concrete assistance to the myriad tasks and requirements that students will encounter as they plan, conduct, and present their dissertation or thesis research. Drawing upon their many years of experience in working with graduate students, the authors address the multiple stages of the dissertation and thesis process. They take you through drafting the proposal, the advisor-advisee relationship, interacting with committee members, the writing process, handling obstacles, and the final presentation. Chapters provide guidance on using a research team, collecting data, conducting a literature review, and even acquiring financial support. Finally, students will find additional resources such as practical information on copyright issues, research methods, case analyses, and teleconferencing. This is an essential book for both graduate psychology students working on their master’s theses or doctoral dissertations and their advisors.
As a built environment student you are likely to be required toresearch, write and submit a dissertation as a core component ofyour degree studies. As a vocational profession, students of thebuilt environment often have strong practical aspirations.Writing a Built Environment Dissertation provides practicalguidance and will help to steer you into a position where you candevelop a good dissertation by mixing your practical strengths withmore theoretical tools. The book is ordered around a common dissertation structure: thatis, it starts with material that should be in the introduction andfinishes with material that should be in the conclusion. Eachchapter provides a commentary on the kind of information that youshould put in each chapter of your dissertation, supported by avariety of examples using a range of methodological designs. Thebook has a strong focus on data collection, data analysis,reliability and validity – all areas where studentdissertations are often weak. Material that will help you thinkabout study skills and ethics is embedded throughout the book, andthe chapters on qualitative and quantitative analysis will show youhow to carry out a rigorous analysis while avoiding some of thecomplexity in statistical work. If you are an under-graduate student in the final year of anhonours degree programme in the built environment, or perhaps astudent at masters or PhD level and have been away from academicstudy for some time, then this book will help you to write a moreinnovative and thorough dissertation.
