
This might include your supervisors, participants in your research, and friends or family who supported you. The acknowledgements section is usually optional, and gives space for you to thank everyone who helped you in writing your dissertation. Many programs have strict requirements for formatting the dissertation title page. Sometimes it also includes your student number, your supervisor’s name, and the university’s logo. The very first page of your document contains your dissertation’s title, your name, department, institution, degree program, and submission date.

If in doubt about how your thesis or dissertation should be structured, always check your department’s guidelines and consult with your supervisor. For example, some universities advise that the conclusion should come before the discussion. The order of sections can also vary between fields and countries. For example, in certain kinds of qualitative social science, the results and discussion will be woven together rather than separated. In many cases, each will be a separate chapter, but sometimes you might combine them. Not all dissertations are structured exactly the same – the form your research takes will depend on your location, discipline, topic and approach.įor example, dissertations in the humanities are often structured more like a long essay, building an overall argument to support a central thesis, with chapters organized around different themes or case studies.īut if you’re doing empirical research in the sciences or social sciences, your dissertation should generally contain all of the following elements. Deciding on your dissertation’s structure
