Writing up the Research : For a dissertation or Thesis: The Quick Guide Series

Challenges in Academic Research and Writing

Producing a piece of academic research presents many challenges, two of which are acquiring the skill of academic writing and knowing what issues have to be addressed in each chapter of the finished dissertation or thesis.

Writing adequately for a research degree does not come naturally to most people. It is a learnt skill. It is difficult to acquire this skill and extensive practice is needed. It is therefore important that from the outset research degree candidates write about what they are doing and obtain advice from their supervisor/s at each stage of the research.

In addition, research degree candidates and their supervisors often have difficulty knowing when and where to stop the write-up of the research. There is a mystique about finishing doctoral dissertations and sometimes a researcher continues well after enough has been done to be comfortably awarded the degree. This can produce excessively long dissertations which then require reducing in size. Occasionally we have encountered two volume dissertations reaching nearly a thousand pages. You should not need so many pages to get a PhD in management or information systems.

Purpose and Audience of the Book

Although this book is dense with regard to the information it contains, it has been designed to be read in four or five hours and it will give those who are preparing to finalise their research degree dissertation for submission a set of guidelines to follow.

The book can also serve those who may be interested in undertaking academic research and who do not know what the final output of their research will need to look like.

Language and Alternative Research Approaches

Readers of this book will realise that it is difficult enough to obtain a research degree when writing in one’s own home language. Those whose first language is not English will find academic writing in this language all the more challenging. We have not specifically addressed issues related to the problems of writing in a second language.

Finally, we are aware that research degrees may be obtained by means other than a dissertation which is sometimes referred to as a monograph. One such approach is by published papers. This multiple paper and other approaches to writing up the research are not covered in this book.