Writing Your Dissertation: The bestselling guide to planning, preparing and presenting first-class work

by Derek Swetnam

This book gives you the confidence, tools and techniques to produce a first-class dissertation. It offers practical guidelines to planning realistic timetables and structuring every aspect of your work. Find out how to avoid common mistakes and the best way to present your work, and even how to assess your dissertation in the same way as a university or college tutor does.

Genres: Research, Nonfiction, Reference

Paperback

First published September 1, 1995

Reviews

[Rowen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cracking Read

[Nicky · Rating 2 out of 5]

This had some useful checklists and suggestions about structuring your research, but it wasn't terribly relevant to an English Literature dissertation, since it goes into stuff about case studies and ethical considerations and questionnaires. Most of the advice is common sense, but it did prod me into considering a few things I'd forgotten to think about, so it wasn't a waste of time. If your degree is more along the lines of sociology, geography, science, that kind of thing, it'd be more useful.

[Lou (Lou and Life) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this book up to have a guide on what to do with my dissertation. Whilst it did help me, and give me motivation to do my dissertation a lot of the book wasn't relevant for my BA History course/dissertation. I suppose that this is the case to appeal to all students who need to do a dissertation, but I didn't like the fact that there were so many pages that I had to skim read/skip because it wasn't relevant. I would recommend this guide to people who study more science based degrees than humanities ones, because there is only 5 points that I noted down which were important and those were:
1) Word limit guide (which only helped for introduction and conclusion). It recommended 5% of word count for introduction and 10% for conclusion.
2)How to find/write the question which your dissertation is based on
3)A paragraph from the section how to write your conclusion where it recommends rounding up the whole dissertation and why
4)How to use colons and semi-colons
5) How to proof read your introduction

Reading this book will have definitely have helped me in the planning of my dissertation, but as a guide I wouldn't recommend it. You could most likely find this information online so I'd say save your money.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is useful for the complete novice to dissertations. It contains some useful checklists and reminders. However, it is very superficial in its approach and the examples provided are not particularly helpful, lacking depth and length somewhat. The author should also specify that the advice he offers does not apply to all types of dissertations or disciplines. However, some good tips for newbies.

[Tara Brabazon · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a solid book. It would be particularly useful for students completing an honours dissertation. It is short and offers some accurate if basic advice. But it reveals those key ideas with focus and clarity.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is more useful for empirical dissertations than literature based dissertations.

Helpful all the same.

[Sonya Griffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great information and guidance on helping you out on writing your dissertation.

[Katie Mcsweeney · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am sick of Paul and Alison... they make me feel inadequate. This is a good overview of the work to be done for a dissertation and i would recommend reading it at the very beginning. It is basic but covers everything.

[Levent Bayindir · Rating 1 out of 5]

unfortunately it is the worst book i have read on the topic so far.

[Bruno · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great practical advice for the uninitiated

[Renee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy to read guide

[Audrey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Useful for College or Undergraduate dissertations but not really useful for MPhil/PhD Dissertations.