Writing a dissertation may feel like a huge task, but it becomes more manageable when you see it as a series of stages with each stage building on the last.
The Assignment Calculator breaks this process into five stages - this guide has added 'finding your topic' as a first step:
- Finding your topic - exploring ideas and finding a researchable topic.
- Planning - defining your question; mapping out your aims and creating a realistic timeline.
- Researching - gathering and critically evaluating evidence, data, ideas, literature, etc from a range of sources.
- Organising the structure - organising your ideas and evidence from research into a structure/ outline of sections or chapters.
- Drafting - writing and revising as you go - early drafts develop the argument; later drafts finetune and polish.
- Finalising - editing and refining - tightening your writing, checking referencing, formatting ad proofreading.
Although each stage feeds into the next, the process is rarely a straight line; some stages are concurrent and you may move back and forth, refining as you go. The key is to stay as organised, flexible and consistent as you can. This guide offers some tips, tools and guidance for each stage.
