Surviving Your Dissertation: A Comprehensive Guide to Content and Process

Front Cover
SAGE, Apr 5, 2007 - Education - 317 pages

"The book is an excellent addition to those already available in the area and provides a very practical guide that students can pick up and use for reference throughout their dissertation process."
—ESCalate (a Higher Education Academy Network publication)

Like the previous editions of this bestselling text, Surviving Your Dissertation: A Comprehensive Guide to Content and Process, Third Edition offers readers guidance that other dissertation guides often miss, from ways to improve one's writing, to identifying one's learning preferences, to dealing with emotional blocks. Using examples from a wide range of disciplines, the authors give readers expert advice on the entire dissertation process: selecting a suitable topic; conducting a literature review; managing data overload; building an argument; presenting the material, data, and results; and working with faculty committees. The entire text has been updated and fresh examples have been added to it. This edition features an up-to-the-minute discussion of online research and the use of software packages. The authors have expanded their coverage of qualitative work, and added information about the use of mixed methods to the book. These updates and more make the Third Edition of Surviving Your Dissertation a must have resource for graduate students.

Key Features of the Third Edition:
  • Walks readers through the dissertation process as an ideal mentor would.
  • Devotes more attention to qualitative work, and touches upon mixed methods.
  • Discusses online library resources and completing one's dissertation via the Internet.
  • Features new material on the use of graphics.
  • Includes information about informed consent forms.


 

Contents

Selecting a Suitable Topic
19
Literature Review and Statement of the Problem
61
Describing Your Research Plan
87
Presenting the Results of Quantitative Studies
117
Presenting the Results of Qualitative Research
177
Discussion
195
Becoming
205
Writing
227
How to Complete Your Dissertation
249
Guidelines for the Presentation of Numbers
265
Informed Consent and Other Ethical Concerns
275
References
293
Name Index
303
Subject Index
307
About the Authors 317
Copyright

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