Part 2: Dealing with Technical RequirementsWelcome to part two of a four-part power series on successfully preparing for your dissertation (or thesis) defense. Each part in this power series helps you adequately prepare for each stage in the dissertation defense process. This way, by the time you read and implement the strategies of all four parts, you should walk into your dissertation defense and let all hell break loose! In a ‘successful’ hell kind of way of course. The four-part series … [Read more...]
Dissertation Tips Archive
What is a Dissertation Defense?
The dissertation defense is a formal presentation of your research to a committee of faculty members. The goal of the defense is to demonstrate that you have a deep understanding of your research and that you are able to communicate your findings effectively.The defense typically begins with a presentation of your research. You will be asked to give a brief overview of your topic, your research methods, and your findings. After your presentation, the committee will have the opportunity to ask … [Read more...]
A Dissertation Checklist: 5 Questions to Check Your Progress
“This article provides advice you help you reduce the gap between your dissertation goals and your actual progress.”How hard do you work? How hard do you study? As a student who has reached the doctorate level, you have certainly worked very hard to get to this point. With that being said, do you feel like no matter how hard you work, you are still behind on the dissertation goals and timeline you set for the coming months or year?If this is the case, you may think to yourself that you simply … [Read more...]
Formatting your Thesis or Doctoral Dissertation
You’ve thought of the dissertation topic. You’ve worked hard to get your proposal accepted. You’ve conducted research, gathered the data, and analyzed the results. You now have a working draft of your thesis and initial submission is close at hand. However, you need to make sure your dissertation is formatted properly before those analytical eyes start criticizing. It is also vital you make a good first impression when you submit that initial draft. This blog article will help you make sure your … [Read more...]
How to Write an Effective Dissertation Proposal: Part I
Not every dissertation proposal will have the same structure since the specific structure for a proposal varies according to guidelines stipulated from each university department. However, the basic compositions of a proposal (things like theme, audience, purpose, etc.) are one and the same. In addition, the general structure is always similar. To help guide you in writing a winning proposal, this article introduces to you several important concepts. These include the dissertation proposal’s … [Read more...]
How to Write an Effective Dissertation Proposal: Part II
In part one of this article, we discussed the main aspects of what makes a winning proposal. In particular, we talked about a dissertation proposal’s main ingredients as well as the purpose, the audience, and the first five elements of its structure (title, abstract, introduction, problem statement, and purpose/research questions). This second part talks about the rest of the structural elements (literature review, methodology, significance, structural overview, workplan, and … [Read more...]
Tips for Surviving Your Dissertation: Dissertation Help
As most doctoral students know firsthand, keeping up with your dissertation, let alone completing it, is a major challenge. However, if a few principles are followed, no matter at which stage of the dissertation process you apply them, you can make it much easier on yourself. You can always seek dissertation help. The following are some principles that any doctoral student should take seriously when writing his or her dissertation and, in the end, following them will help you immensely in … [Read more...]
SPSS Help: A Brief Tutorial
What is SPSS? Do you need SPSS help? SPSS is an IBM creation and stands for the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. It is an effective yet simple software for analyzing data inputs. This data can come from just about any source you can imagine: dissertation research, a customer resource management database, in-house marketing research, or even the server log data of a website. SPSS is also able to open numerous file formats, usually those related to structured data such as Microsoft … [Read more...]
A Dissertation Checklist: 5 Questions to Check Your Progress
A Dissertation Checklist: 5 Questions to Check Your Progress How hard do you work? How hard do you study? As a student who has reached the doctorate level, no doubt you’ve worked very hard to get to this point. With that being said, do you feel like no matter how hard you work, you are still behind on the dissertation goals you set for the coming months or year? If this is the case, you probably think to yourself that you simply must work harder and longer. Or maybe you are questioning … [Read more...]
7 Ways to Meet your PhD Deadlines
Do you find it really difficult to meet dissertation deadlines that you set? Do you find it hard to fulfill your personal deadlines especially when there is no great amount of extrinsic motivation coming from colleagues, dissertation supervisors and others? If so, this article discusses different ways that will greatly help you meet your deadlines and finally achieve those dissertation goals. In my experience, I found that there were 7 steps that I keep taking in order to stay motivated and on … [Read more...]
