Title

It’s more important to do this properly than you may imagine. You risk the dissertation missing emphasis or coherence and do not highlight particular points if you settle on a title that is too general.

Create a title that pushes you to focus, ask a specific question or compare something in particular.

You could have a two part title where the first half, the main title, is brief and maybe fairly broad in nature, but the second portion is highly targeted.

Alternatively, the primary title becomes ambiguous, obscure or seemingly contradictory, followed by a subtitle that explains all this. This makes the reader interested in reading more.

Abstract

This is a brief overview of the substance of the dissertation and possibly its conclusions, typically around 300 words in length. Abstracts are stored in a database so that people looking for information of interest may immediately discover if your effort will help them or not.

Despite the fact that it is at the beginning of the study, if it is written at the very end, it is much simpler – and will save you a lot of effort – to guarantee that the contents of the abstract are precisely the same as those of the dissertation.

Introduction

The list should be (this list is not exclusive):

• Research goals and objectives.
• Research context.
• Any important terminology utilized are explained.
• Recognition, if required, of any limits or exclusions (this research will not include…);
• Description of the dissertation structure/shape.

Review of literature

Your dissertation becomes part of the current research and literature and supports your choice of topic. For further details, see the Literature Reviews page.

Methodology

This is a description of how the research question is to be answered. You must describe what techniques you are employing to gather, analyze and defend any choices you have made about further literature.