Writing your Dissertation

(Prepared by Dr.Hob Brown)

  1. Introduction
  2. An Overview
  3. Calendar of Events
  4. Cast of Characters:Their Rights and Their Responsibilities
  5. Steps in the Process
    1. Planning: Introduction and Review of Literature
    2. Organizing a design:Methodology
    3. Gathering data: Results
    4. Reflecting: Conclusions
    5. Submitting
    6. Assessment
    7. Receiving your degree
    8. Publishing
  6. Criteria of Assessment
  7. Ethics of Research
  8. Writing guidelines
    1. Parts of the Dissertation
    2. References and bibliography
    3. Style
    4. Plagiarism
    5. Sexist language
    6. Length
    7. Technology
  9. Bibliography

Department of Curriculum Studies | Department of Education

I. Introduction: What this manual is-and is not. Top

Let us be clear: No one ever learned how to write a dissertation , wind-surf, play concert piano, or perform any other difficult, complex task, by reading a manual. You learn these things by hard work, making lots of mistakes, having a good "coach," watching expert performances, reflecting, being criticized, and so on; in short, you learn it by doing it. In your case, the "coach" is your supervisor, the "experts" are other researchers (including other M.Ed. students), the "performances" are well-written articles and dissertations, and good critics are where you find them. But the work, the mistakes, the reflection, the changes and improvements that comprise a good dissertation must be yours. There are no short cuts.

This manual provides guidelines to help you. Guidelines are important: you should skim this entire manual, and after that make frequent reference to it as the need arises. You are accountable for knowing and understanding what it has to say: deadlines, formats for references and bibliography, precepts and procedures on the ethical treatment of subjects, prohibitions and consequences related to plagiarism, limitations on length, submitting your dissertation and preparing it for archiving, and other precise rules are set out, and you are expected to know them and adhere to them.

In addition, this manual includes recommendations for writing your dissertation that are more like strong suggestions than hard and fast requirements. They are rules-of-thumb, called "heuristics," (hyu RIS' tics) about writing style, organization, language, and so on. For example, "Every good dissertation has a single, well-defined focus that can be stated clearly in twenty-five words or less" is a heuristic. Following these heuristics cannot guarantee you a top-class dissertation, but they can often help.

The third and final purpose of this manual is simply to let you know how the dissertation process operates. It tells you the steps along the way, the persons involved, the regulations that apply, how to seek an extension, how your dissertation is assessed, when you will normally get your degree, and so on.

Writing a dissertation is difficult, but students usually find it the most rewarding part of their studies. We hope that you will, too. This manual is dedicated to that goal.

II. An Overview Top

The best way to tackle any large, overwhelming problem, such as writing a dissertation, is to break it down into smaller, more manageable tasks. If those tasks are still too large, then break them down into still smaller tasks. This section gives you a general first-level breakdown for the entire project of writing your dissertation. It outlines the major steps you must take, in roughly the order you must take them. Note, however, that many of these steps, particularly those involving writing, will overlap. The overview can be a checklist for you, to mark off each step as you perform it. If you are stuck at any point, then write down the sub-steps you must take. Each step is expanded later in this manual.

____ 1. Devise a topic,
____ 2. and find a supervisor. Steps 1 and 2 usually occur together, since one often depends upon the other. You must find a topic that can be supervised, and a supervisor who can help you with your topic.
____ 3. Submit your dissertation title. The Faculty deadline is March 1st, but your supervisor will usually want a firm title and proposal earlier than that.
____ 4. Establish a timetable for what you must do, including meetings with your supervisor, gathering data, submitting preliminary drafts, and so on.
____ 5. Complete the reading for the theoretical context and review of literature and begin writing these up.
____ 6. Complete any technical preparation in research design, statistics, computer operations, and so forth.
____ 7. Collect and analyze your data for the "results" section of your dissertation.

____ 8. Think about and write up your conclusions.
____ 9. Submit your dissertation. The deadline each year is September 1st. You must submit two bound copies and a computer diskette.

____ 10. (Optional) Attend Convocation, usually in November, to receive your degree and celebrate your accomplishment.

III. Calendar of Events Top

Deadlines: There are two dates that are specified by regulation.

  1. March 1st, the last day to submit an acceptable dissertation title.
  2. September 1st of the same year, the last day to submit your completed dissertation.

A third date specified by the University is Convocation, when the Chancellor of the University or their deputy formally awards degrees to successful candidates. Convocation usually occurs in November. Although attendance is voluntary, the ceremony is a fitting close to your M.Ed. studies, and you are encouraged to participate.

Extensions: As a rule, extensions to the deadlines are not granted except for medical or other genuine emergencies. Personal convenience does not qualify as an emergency. Extensions are approved by the Dean of the Faculty, in consultation with your Course Director. Applications for extension must be submitted to the Dean before the deadline, since no extension can be granted after that date.

Timeline: You should also create a calendar of your studies, showing what you need to do, and by when you need to do it. These are some things to include:

  1. Regular contacts with your supervisor. Contacts should occur at least once every two weeks, to keep your supervisor advised of your progress and problems. Your contacts may not always have to be face-to-face: e-mail is an efficient way of keeping in touch, since it allows you to exchange both messages and attachments such as draft chapters and other documents. However you stay in contact, do it regularly, according to a pre-set calendar, not just when you feel like it or think you have something to discuss. Often your supervisor will point out problems you didn't realize you had. Remember: it is up to you, not your supervisor, to keep in contact.

  2. The dates you begin and end the different phases of your work. These might include

  3. The dates on which you submit drafts of the chapters of your dissertation. There should be a date for Chapter 1, another for Chapter 2, for Chapter 3, and so on. Do not wait to submit your dissertation as a complete draft-by then it is usually too late. You should check with your supervisor whether or not they will be available to supervise you during the summer months. If they are not available in July and August, you must plan to submit an entire first draft no later than mid-June, to give them time to read and comment on your work.

IV. Cast of Characters Top

Following is a description of who figures in your dissertation process, and how they affect it.

  1. You. More than for any other academic task in your whole schooling career, your M.Ed. dissertation is your responsibility. Whether it turns out badly or well, you have only yourself to blame, and no one else. You have the right to suggestions, criticisms, guidelines, and help where it can be offered, but the initiative for gathering materials, making appointments, arranging for subjects, finding help, and so on, is ultimately yours.

  2. Your supervisor. Your supervisor is responsible for meeting with you regularly, offering advice, reading and commenting upon your work, and assessing your final submission. You must keep in regular contact with your supervisor. Many students and staff find using e-mail the most efficient way to do this. Remember, however, that your supervisor has other students, classes, and her own research. Her time is valuable-you cannot expect instant feedback on your draft versions, nor can you reasonably expect your supervisor to read many revised drafts. Your supervisor may be away from Hong Kong during July and August, so, unless you make some special arrangement, it is possible you may not be supervised during that period.

  3. Research experts. The Faculty employs a number of experts in research design, statistics, and computing. Some of these experts are graduate students, and are keenly aware of your needs. You should get to know them-their help can be invaluable.

  4. Your subjects. If you are doing an empirical study, you may use teachers or pupils as your subjects. It is important you realize that these subjects are under no obligation whatever to further your research, tell you their views, fill out your questionnaires, hold still for your measurements, or be observed like animals in the zoo. You, on the other hand, owe them respect, sensitivity, and anonymity. If they agree to these impositions and indignities, you should be demonstrably grateful. It is, for example, good practice to have an additional copy of your thesis bound to present to the school where you did your research, to let them share in your findings and recommendations.

  5. M.Ed. Board of Examiners. The grade you receive for your dissertation is actually determined by the Board of Examiners, upon recommendation of your supervisor and second reader. The Board meets in October, when it confirms your grade, disposes of any cases involving plagiarism, makes recommendation if necessary for re-submission or discontinuation, awards and publishes passes and distinctions, and in general acts as the governing body for assessment procedures. The Dean of the Faculty is the Chairperson of the Board, and the Board itself is comprised of all M.Ed. examiners.

  6. The University. The principal task of the University is to award your degree, in accordance with regulations, once all your work is satisfactorily completed and all assessments are approved by the Board of Examiners. The University is responsible for issuing your transcripts and maintaining your academic records. The University is also responsible for inquiring into cases of plagiarism and recommendations for discontinuation. Regulations and procedures for such cases are spelled out in Degree Regulations and Course Descriptions published annually by the University. This manual is available in the University Book Store, libraries, Faculty Office, and your supervisor's bookshelf.

V. Steps in the Process - Doing Your Dissertation Top

The purpose of this section is to offer advice on how to get through, hopefully with some measure of success, the steps in doing your dissertation. In effect, it tells you the criteria agreed upon within the Faculty for dissertation assessment, the things we look for and the moves we think you should make. Note that the first four of these steps correspond to the chapters found in most dissertations. The length of each chapter is approximate, but you should not be too far over the maximum indicated.
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1. Planning your dissertation: Introduction and Review of Literature
a. Introduction (4 to 6 pages):

Finding a good problem. This is probably the most difficult part of your dissertation. Students nearly always begin with a problem that is much too large, much too vague, and much too grand. Remember, this is not a Ph.D. (although it could be a preliminary study to one). Your problem must be manageable given your time and resources, which usually means about one-fourth of what you first plan. Further, it should be a topic that can be researched: previous studies, up-to-date theoretical sources, appropriate schools and subjects, tested survey and observation instruments, and so on, should all be readily available. Finally, a good problem is one worth studying. It is interesting, either for its practical implications, or what it reveals, or its contribution to the criticism of theory. To know whether or not a topic is genuinely interesting, you may need the wisdom of your supervisor or other experts in the area.

Where to look for a good problem. There are many sources of good problems. One of the best is your previous course work: the papers you wrote, the readings you did or meant to do, the curious things you discovered, the curious teachers you had and their research interests. Another source is the research projects that are always going on in the Faculty that you might contribute to. A third source students often overlook is their own work, the problems they experience directly on the job that can be related to their theoretical work in the M.Ed.

b. Review of Literature (6 to 10 pages).

It is always, repeat always, true that interesting problems have a history and a theoretical context. A problem is not an itch. An itch we scratch, a problem we think about. When we turn itches into problems-when, for example, we call a child who irritates us by refusing to do his homework an "academically low achiever"-we transform our itches by giving them a history and context of research. There is no educational literature about your defiant student, but there is a huge one about motivation, achievement, and homework, a small portion of which is current and relevant to your particular interests. Your review of the literature examines that small portion. It describes other studies like the one you propose to do, and analyzes where they fall short. It also describes the ideas you, and others, use in your research to make sense of things, and to show what ideas are missing or inadequate. That is, it describes the theoretical context of your study. A review of literature is not a shopping list of library books, nor a recipe for your research pie. It is a limited selection, usually of no more than five to ten examples of the best and most recent writing about the problem you are working on-the ideas you will use to discuss your problem, and the actual studies that you will build upon. At its best, it is also a critical analysis of those ideas and studies, one that shows omissions or shortcomings that justify bothering to do your research.

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2. Organization and design: Methodology (10 pages).
This section of your dissertation is a kind of blueprint of what you did. If yours is an empirical study, it tells your unit of observation: individual, class, school, or what have you. It describes how you chose your subjects, the instruments you used to observe, question or survey them. It explains the kind of analysis you used, the statistical techniques, classification system, or hermeneutic principles you chose. There are basically two tests of a well-written methodology section:
a. First, are the methods and techniques you chose shown to be well suited to the kind of problem you are studying? There is no method of research-conceptual, historical, experimental, even narrative-that is the one and only method of scientific inquiry. It all depends on what best suits the problem.

b. Second, is your description clear enough for someone else to take your blueprint and repeat, or replicate, your study with other subjects? Even the most idiosyncratic qualitative case study should leave a clear trail for others to follow. It is the mark of a good study that it is possible to show, unmistakably, that it is wrong.

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3. Gathering data: Results (10 to 50 pages).
The size of this section varies considerably according to the kind of methods you use. If you are reporting the results of an empirical survey, you should not need more than 10 to 15 pages at the most. Large tables of data should be included, if at all, as an appendix. On the other hand, if you are reporting intensive interviews, historical research, or conceptual analysis, you may need to write more. However, even for an historical study, this part of your essay, excluding notes, should not exceed 70 pages.
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4. Reflecting: Conclusions (10 pages).
The last section, like the first, is difficult to write well, because it requires you to evaluate your own work. Conclusions should say two things:
a.First, what is the significance of your study? Has it answered the problem you began with, and if so, how well? What implications are there for changing the way we think about or do things, and how far can these implications be generalized? To what extent are your conclusions warranted by your results? You try out some speculation in your conclusions, but you must make it clear what is speculation, and what is well-supported by your data.

b. Second, what needs to be done next? The speculation mentioned above should be part of a general evaluation of your essay. Where could it be improved, what more needs to be done? The hallmark of a truly great piece of research is not that it answers all the questions once and for all, but rather that it points forward to further research, a continuing deepening of our understanding. Indeed, there are some experiments whose complete failure proved a far greater impetus to our understanding than thousands of trivial successes. So, even if it was not successful, where does your essay point, what further research needs to be done?

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5. Submitting your dissertation.
By September 1st of the year you expect to graduate, you are required to submit two printed copies of your dissertation, and a computer diskette containing a file of your work in a recent and popular format such as Microsoft Word. After your dissertation has been assessed, you may be asked to make editorial improvements in the writing so that it may be made available to other students and staff for consultation. The diskette version of your dissertation may be archived electronically for future reference.

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6. Assessment.
Your dissertation will be read and assessed by at least two persons, your supervisor and another staff member familiar with your general area of research. The grade it receives is the result of negotiation between these two. If, as rarely happens, they are hopelessly divided in their assessments, a third reader, often the Chief Examiner, may be called in to help decide the issue. Your are entitled to feedback from your supervisor, although most of their criticism and suggestions should have been given on earlier drafts. The criteria for assessment are discussed in Section VI below.

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7. Receiving your degree.
Although your degree is awarded by the University once all the formal requirements for it are met, it will be presented to you by the Chancellor of the University or their deputy at a Convocation called for that purpose. That is, appropriately, a very proud moment for many graduates, and you are warmly encouraged to participate.

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8. Publishing your dissertation.
You should give serious thought to sharing your research with a wider audience, through a published article, a conference presentation, or some other means. There are a number of local and regional journals in education that are always looking for interesting research, as well as conferences such as that sponsored by the Hong Kong Educational Research Association. Research that is hidden away where no one can find it is of little use to anyone.

VI. Criteria of Assessment Top

Although assessing a dissertation, like any extended essay, requires subjective judgment, there is a large measure of agreement among supervisors and readers. These are some of the questions they ask, and things they look for:

  1. Dissertation topic.

  2. Literature review

  3. Theoretical Structure.

    The theoretical structure of your dissertation is usually presented and discussed in your Review of Literature, but it should permeate your study, from the statement of your problem to your conclusions. Your theory guides what you do by providing you with terms and procedures for doing it. It determines what is a problem, and what is not. Should students be encouraged to speak out in class? From the perspective of an activity-based theory of instruction, students talking together is not a problem, while students sitting quietly at their desks is. Should sex education include moral teaching? It depends on your theory. Should teachers be involved in school budget decisions? Yes, if you follow the theories behind the School Management Initiative, but many teachers do not have that concept of their profession. A theory is not a luxury, a pleasant but not strictly necessary extra like air-conditioning on a bus. It is, or ought to be, the very framework of your study. Your dissertation will be judged, in part, by how well you express and critically understand the theory you are using, and how clearly and consistently it is connected with the problem and methodology of your dissertation.

  4. Methodology.

    The two chief criteria for the methodology section have already been mentioned.

    1. First, is your choice of methods and techniques well suited to the kind of problem you are studying? There is no method of inquiry, including appeal to a fortune teller, that is in itself wrong or false: there are only methods that work or don't work. They work if they provide a persuasive response to your question, positive or negative, results you would be willing to bet on. They don't work if you and your readers think all bets are off. If you want to know how much individual schools, on average, spend on staff development, a case study of one school will not tell you. If you want to know the political processes that determine how schools spend their money, a general survey of hundreds of schools probably won't help. Students sometimes choose "qualitative methods" not because they fit the problem, but because they seem to be easier, require fewer data, and generate their own hire-purchase pay-as-you-go theory. Such a choice, for those reasons, is mistaken both in theory-it is plain wrong-and in practice.

    2. Second, is your description clear enough for someone else to take your blueprint and repeat, or replicate, your study with other subjects? Events and persons are unique, but good science doesn't happen just once. It is the mark of a serious study that it is possible to show, unmistakably, that it is wrong; and that criterion applies just as much to historical, comparative, conceptual, and case studies, as it does to large surveys.

  5. Results.

    The purpose of this section is to tell what you found out, neither more nor less. That is not as easy or straightforward as it sounds.

    1. Are your results in fact faithful to what you actually found, or do you claim more than you should, or more than is relevant? In a purely quantitative study, in which you report your findings in tables generated by statistical analysis, you must not "cook" or "massage" the data to fit either your structure or hoped-for outcomes. In one study, for example, the student did not have enough subjects in each cell of her study to justify the statistical techniques she wanted to use, so she simply passed them around the way she thought they should have been distributed. But more common than massaged data or unwarranted inferences are results that include pages of findings that are basically irrelevant to the question. You must not assume that any and all results that can possibly be generated from the data by some computer-based statistical package have to be included.

    2. Have you told enough, have you provided enough analyzed data (also known as evidence) to make a convincing case? It is true that large tables of data, if included at all, should be sent off to appendices at the end of your dissertation. But you must present everything that is directly relevant to your dissertation question, including substantial evidence, without the reader having to flip back and forth from one part of the thesis to another. You may not have to include the entire protocol or interview from your subjects, but you should include enough, perhaps a bit more than enough, for the reader to understand exactly how much evidence you have, and how good it is. A general summary of your findings is usually not enough. This is particularly true for results gathered by oral history, interview, observation of processes, and the like. How much you include is a matter of taste and judgment, and you should work closely with your supervisor to decide when enough is enough, but not too much.

    3. Are your results clear, easy to read, grasp, and understand? Pages of raw numbers taken directly from your surveys are hard to read, difficult to grasp, and impossible to concentrate upon. Any good spreadsheet program such as Excel can help you prepare not only tables, but graphs and charts to present your quantitative data. Regarding qualitative data, transcriptions from protocols and interviews should be indented and clearly marked. Your quotations should be used to illustrate and provide examples for your own explanations and discussion of the findings, not as a substitute for them. Only under very exceptional circumstances should any single quotation be longer than five to ten lines, without your own commentary giving it purpose, explanation, and structure. If direct quotations take up more than ten percent of your findings, you should seriously consider rewriting the chapter to include more of your own discussion.

  6. Conclusions.

    The purpose of this section is to answer a simple, but very fundamental, question: "So what?" Suppose you did a study of achievement in two schools that were evenly matched, except that one was in the flight-path for the airport and suffered from very noisy interruptions every few minutes, while the other was in a quiet neighborhood in mid-levels. And suppose you found, to your surprise, that the overall achievement of students was actually higher in the flight-path school than in the quiet one. Well, so what? Was this result a fluke, an anomaly, and should we study more schools? Should we go back to the two schools and look for some hidden factor we hadn't taken into account? Should we conclude there is no connection between achievement and noisy interruptions? Or should we conclude that one way to improve student learning is to buzz the schools with a 747 every few minutes during the school day? As you can see, your findings (achievement in a noisy school is higher than in a quiet one) are very different from your conclusions (so what?).

    Dissertation writers often assume that results speak for themselves, that they don't need to be explained. That is a mistake: You must explain what the results mean, what is their importance, for your theory, for future research that still needs to be done, and for practical consequences. This is the job of the conclusions. But your conclusions should be honest. More often than you might think, even the best of studies fail to say anything either important or interesting, against all expectations. If that happens to you, you should not be either afraid or ashamed to acknowledge that you just did not get results that point to anything. At least you can say with some authority that anyone should think twice before doing such a study again.

  7. Other criteria for assessment.

    1. Originality. Does the dissertation add to our general understanding of the topic in ways that have not been covered often before? Does it actually contribute to our knowledge? Note that "originality" does not merely mean something new and different. Probably no one has done a study of the frequency of the colors used on the book bindings in the University of Hong Kong Main Library. Discovering that the most popular color for library books is black, then blue, then red, and so on, would be a novel study, but it doesn't contribute much to our knowledge. A good, but not infallible, test of a dissertation's originality is its usefulness. Is it often referred to by other scholars? Do later dissertation writers make reference to it? In this sense, a study which has been done overseas many times may still be original when it is done in Hong Kong, as, for example, studies based on gender differences.

    2. Craftsmanship. Is the dissertation a work of art as well as labor? Has the author taken pride in its making? For example, at the lowest level, has a spelling checker been applied to the text? Is the writing clear and direct, are the sentences complete and to the point? Are all the quotations carefully and consistently referenced? Are the tables, charts, and graphs clearly labeled and formatted? Are photographs and other graphics used, when appropriate, to show what is meant? Is there a cover sheet, an abstract, and a disclaimer stating that the work is unique and original? If you do serious work on your dissertation, it deserves to be shown in the best possible light to your reader. As Confucius once remarked, good form without real substance is trivial and superficial, but real substance without good form is brutish and vulgar.

    3. Overall. There is one last criterion of assessment that is, perhaps, the hardest to pin down, and yet the most forceful: What is the overall impression of the dissertation? A dissertation is more than just the sum of its parts, it is how those parts fit together, how they work to create a single stamp or imprint upon the reader. Suppose as you leave the theater you say to your friend, "That was a terrific movie. I really enjoyed it." And your friend turns to you and asks, "Was it the acting?" "No, not just that" "Was it the directing, or the cinematography?" "No" "Well, was it the plot or the story? The special effects? The love scenes? The popcorn?" "No, no, no, no, not really." "Well, what was it then?" "It was the whole thing, everything, all together, a really great movie." And there your friend is left, right where he began. It is the same with a dissertation. Of course the individual parts are important, but it is also important how they all work together, the whole thing, to make a great dissertation. Are there any digressions, and tangents that confuse the main theme? Do the sections fit together well, do they carry your story forward with no sharp breaks? Does the dissertation build upon itself, with a foundation in your problem and theory, a structure in your methodology, a finished building in your results and conclusions, and careful finishing in your editing and style? Is it, in short, a complete house, or a collection of squatter huts?

VII. Ethics of Research Top

Imagine for a moment that you are a medical researcher, and that you and your team have discovered a possible cure for some deadly disease such as AIDS. You need to test your treatment, so you conduct a large-scale experiment on persons suffering from the disease. The experimental group receives the medication, and another control group receives a placebo, something that looks just like the medication, but doesn't do, and isn't meant to do, anything. Your study is scheduled to continue for five years. During the first two years, however, many of those receiving the medication begin to recover from their illness, while the control group receiving the placebo keeps dying off at the usual high rate. Should the experiment continue, or should everyone in both groups be given the medicine? There are good arguments, believe it or not, on both sides.

The point of this story is that when you are doing research on human beings-some say any animals-there are often ethical as well as purely intellectual problems. Is it right, as some sociometric techniques suggest, to have students identify the ones who are the least popular in class? Should students have the right to refuse to be treated as subjects? Should subjects be informed when they are the object of indirect observations, as, for example, when a particular child is selected for careful watching because of his or her unusual behavior? Should comments by teachers, principals, and students about each other be treated as confidential? How is it possible to use that sort of qualitative data in a public document such as a dissertation, and still preserve anonymity?

Ethical problems will vary from dissertation to dissertation, and there is no way of laying down rules that cover all situations. In general, however, you should

  1. Obtain permission to do your research, from the school, the teachers, and the students. It may also be necessary to obtain permission from parents. You should never assume that you have the right to study the attitudes and behaviors of others without their express consent. You may have to get that consent in writing.

  2. Respect the privacy and anonymity of your subjects. Particularly when you are dealing with sensitive or derogatory findings, it should be difficult if not impossible to trace exact sources. Remember, your dissertation is a public document that may be available in the Hong Kong University libraries.

  3. Do not exploit your subjects. Put another way, conduct your research, so far as possible, in such a manner that it benefits the schools or persons you study as much as it does you. Bluntly speaking, you get a Master's degree out of the research, but what do they get out of it? Does it provide your subjects a useful understanding of some important educational problem that directly concerns them? At the very least, you should present a copy of your dissertation to the school where you conducted your research.

There are other rules, including ones that apply to the particular research you are doing, and you should consult your Supervisor if you have any doubts. In general, however, the famous maxim of Confucius is as good a rule of thumb as there is: Don't do to others what you don't want them to do to you, which includes wasting their time, prying needlessly into their private life, making invidious comparisons, pasting dimwitted, immoral, or inadequate labels on them, and so forth.

VIII. Writing Guidelines Top

A. Parts of the Dissertation.

Although University Regulations for the degree of Master or Doctor of Philosophy do not apply to M.Ed. dissertations, it is, nevertheless, good practice to follow them, since they do specify the generally accepted parts of an academic thesis.

Abstract. The first page of a dissertation is the abstract, a concise statement of the problem, methods, findings, and important conclusions of your study. For an M.Ed. dissertation, this should be no longer than 300 words. Following is a partial example of what the abstract page should look like.




Abstract of thesis entitled
The Financial Costs of Bilingualism
submitted by
Peter K. G. Chan
for the degree of Master of Education
at the University of Hong Kong
September, 1997

This dissertation assesses the actual costs, both hidden and apparent, of implementing a
English-Chinese bilingual approach to the medium of instruction in ten selected primary schools. Costs include not only new curriculum materials, but also teacher training, administrative costs, consultant salaries, and, above all, the cost of time devoted to the project by language specialists, principals, and teachers. In all, it was found that costs per pupil during the first year were more than double those spent on normal language education . . . .


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Title Page. The second page should be your title page, which should include the full title of your dissertation, your name and student number, and, centered near the bottom of the page, the following statement:

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for

the Degree of Master of Education

at the University of Hong Kong

Centered beneath that statement should be the month and year you submit the dissertation:

September, 1998


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Declaration. The third page is a declaration that the dissertation is your own work, that you have not, in other words, committed plagiarism. The Declaration must be included in your dissertation-it is required by regulations (Ed 26(d)), it is not optional. Further, it must be signed, on the Declaration page. The Declaration reads as follows:

Declaration

I declare that this dissertation represents my own work, except where due acknowledgment is made, and that it has not been previously included in a thesis, dissertation or report submitted to this University or to any other institution for a degree, diploma or other qualification.

Signed: Your signature

( Your name )

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Acknowledgments. The fourth page, acknowledgments, is not officially required, but it is mandatory good form. The acknowledgments most often refer to your supervisor, but you should include others who have given you significant help and encouragement. In particular, you should acknowledge the contribution of the school, teachers, students, or other subjects who took part in your research. It is also common for some grateful reference to neglected and long-suffering wives, husbands, and children to appear at the end of the acknowledgments.


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Table of Contents. After the acknowledgments comes the Table of Contents. The abstract and title pages are not listed in the Table of Contents, so the first numbered page is the Declaration. The Declaration, Acknowledgments, and the Table of Contents itself are numbered using lower case Roman numerals, usually in italics (i, ii, iii, iv . . . .). The main body of your dissertation, starting with Chapter 1, Introduction, is numbered using Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, 4 . . . .). Following is a brief example:



Contents
Declaration ................................................................. ...........................i...
Acknowledgments ......................................................... ........................ii...
Table of Contents . ........................................................... .....................iii...
Chapter 1
Introduction . .............................................................................. ..........1....
Chapter 2
Ways and Means................................................... ................................26....
Appendices ......................................................... .................................91....
Notes.................................................................. .................................97....
Bibliography (or References) ................................. ..............................107....


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Appendices. Although convincing and relevant data are crucial to the argument of a good dissertation, it is not necessary to overwhelm your reader with pages and pages of numbers, computer programs, statistical analyses, protocols, interviews, and so on. If you feel this data should be included, you should consider putting more broad-brush summaries such as graphs and charts, interview selections, summaries, or précis's, into the main text, and more precise and extended data into appendices at the end of your dissertation. As an author, your first job is to keep the reader reading, rather than stopping him dead in his tracks by impassable mountains of raw or nearly raw data. But at the same time, you must provide the curious reader, who wants to go deeper into your analysis, the materials she needs to do so. That is what appendices are for.

Notes The "Notes" page shown in the sample Table of Contents reflects the traditional practice of using endnotes after the main text of a dissertation, rather than footnotes at the bottom of each page where the reference numbers appear in the text. One of the main reasons for that practice was the fiendishly difficult task of trying to fit footnotes to the bottom of the page, something many "old-timers" could only do with scissors and paste. That task, along with footnote numbering, is now done automatically by any word-processing program. Having the notes at the bottom of the page saves the reader from skipping back and forth in your dissertation. On the other hand, if you use extensive notes to discuss the quality of your sources and other tangential matters, you may still wish to place them at the end. Karl Popper, for example, in his classic The Open Society and Its Enemies, has one page of notes for every two pages of text-and he uses endnotes.

These are the basic parts you will find in nearly every dissertation. There are other parts you may want to include, depending on your own needs. Some dissertations could benefit greatly from a glossary that defines terms an intelligent but nonspecialist reader might stumble upon, as, for example, in computer studies, linguistics, evaluation, or sociology. Glossaries are also useful for translating Chinese terms into English or vice-versa. The glossary, if you decide to create one, should be placed just before the appendices.

Because of the difficulty involved in creating one, very few dissertations have an index. If yours is an experimental or quasi-experimental study, you may not want to bother with an index, but if you are writing a more narrative dissertation, an index might be very useful. Indices are relatively easy to create with a word processor, easy enough for you to seriously consider creating one.

B. References and Bibliography Top / Writing ...

References are like tracks in the snow. They let your reader see where you have been, and to some extent where you are going. They mark the path you have chosen, the sources you have used. They indicate the context you have created, the authorities that vouch for your facts, the respected voices who lend support to your wisdom, insights, and judgments. Good references are clear tracks that persuade your reader to follow along. Bad references are like trampled footprints that cannot be made out. No references leave no sign of life at all.

References can be overdone: Some academic papers seem to be composed of short sentences, each followed by an array of references longer than the sentence that precedes it. But more often, in dissertations, references are underdone. From contentious matters of fact to sweeping evaluations, too often dissertation writers simply assert something to be the case without offering any underpinning of solid evidence or plausible, well-recognized authority. When in doubt, insert a reference. You can always take out the needless ones later.

There are two secrets to writing good references. The first is to keep good notes on your library research. One note card should contain the complete description of your library source. Other note cards should include brief but exact quotations from the reference source, and page numbers. If you take notes carefully, you should have no trouble incorporating them into your dissertation.

The second secret is to use a standard reference format. Two are presented in this manual. The first is that recommended by the American Psychological Association (APA). This format is very commonly used to report empirical studies in psychology, learning and instruction, evaluation, psychometrics, and other psychology-related studies. A complete description of this format is published in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.

The second reference format is commonly called Chicago style, after the University of Chicago where it originated. It is described in Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, published by the University of Chicago Press. This method is also adopted in the manual Preparing and Submitting Your Thesis: A Guide for MPhil and PhD Students, available from the University of Hong Kong School of Research Studies. It is, in general, more suitable for dissertations in the humanities, history, and social sciences other than psychology. Both the APA Manual and the Chicago style books by Turabian can be obtained from the University Book Store. Make sure you purchase the latest edition, as these formats, particularly APA, change regularly.

How should you choose which style to use? APA format makes brief citations in the text that are listed in full, alphabetically, in a References section at the end of the dissertation. It is more efficient and straightforward, especially when your references are simply to show sources and need little comment. Most studies using APA format do not use footnotes. It is possible to include footnotes using APA, but they are awkward and poorly integrated into the reference system. By contrast, Chicago style puts references into footnotes, which allows you to add comments, notes, and other marginal materials that you do not want to include in the main text. There is no list of complete references at the end, but there is a bibliography which includes, but often is not limited to, the sources referred to in footnotes. As a rule of thumb, if yours is an empirical study using either quantitative or qualitative methods of direct observation, you are probably better off using APA. If, on the other hand, you refer to many historical, literary, philosophical, or other documents in the social sciences, you will most likely find Chicago style more useful.

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Following is a brief summary of each referencing method.

1. APA Reference Style

The following example shows how the reference appears in the text, and then in the list of references. Note that references in the text can include up to three elements: author's surname, date of publication, and page number. The page number is only included when you are quoting something. The author's name is included if it does not appear in the text.

Recent advances in research methods (Bray & Thomas, 1995; Constas, 1992) have attempted to combine quantitative and qualitative techniques rather than oppose them to each other.

Following recent trends, both Bray & Thomas (1995) and Constas (1992) have attempted to combine quantitative and qualitative techniques rather than oppose them to each other.

References

Bray, M. & Thomas, R.M. (1995). Levels of comparison in educational studies: Different insights from different literatures and the value of multilevel analyses. Harvard Educational Review, 65(3), 472-490.

Constas, M. (1992). Qualitative analysis as a public event: The documentation of category development procedures. American Educational Research Journal, 29, 256-266.

These are both examples of references to journal articles. Here are some things to note:

APA references for books are similar, except that they show where and by whom the book was published:

Morris, P. (1996). The Hong Kong school curriculum: Development, issues and policies (2nd ed.). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

Falvey, P. & Kennedy, P. (Eds.). (1997). Literature in the English language classroom. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

Again, you should pay careful attention to capitalization, italicization (or underlining), and punctuation. Note also the way editions and editors are included, respectively, in each reference. The following example is of an article cited in an edited book, one article of a collection.

Tsui, A. (1996). Learning how to teach writing. In J. Richards & D. Freeman (Eds.), Teacher learning in language teaching. New York: Cambridge University Press, 97-124.

This is only a very brief, and incomplete, introduction to APA format. To see how to format chapter and section headings, construct tables, as well as reference different and unusual sources, you should consult the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, now in its fourth edition.

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2. Chicago style.

In Chicago style, references are indicated in the text by numbers which then make reference to footnotes or endnotes. Here is how the examples above might appear in this format. Note that the reference in Chicago style is always to a specific, precise citation in the referenced document, and not to the document as a whole. The whole document appears in the bibliography at the end of the dissertation.

Following recent trends, authors as different as Mark Bray and Murray Thomas, on the one hand, and Mark Constas, on the other, have attempted to combine quantitative and qualitative techniques rather than oppose them to each other.1

1. Mark Bray and R. Murray Thomas, "Levels of Comparison in Educational Studies: Different Insights from Different Literatures and the Value of Multilevel Analyses." Harvard Educational Review, 65 (1995), 472-490; Mark Constas, "Qualitative Analysis as a Public Event: The Documentation of Category Development Procedures." American Educational Research Journal, 29 (1992), 256-266. Note the post-modern emphasis upon knowledge as intimately related to literature in both these very different writings.

Aside from the different punctuation, capitalization, and arrangement of parts, some things to notice in this example include placing the footnote marker at the end of the sentence, the inclusion of both references in a single footnote, and the commentary at the end of the footnote.

This is how books and chapters are referenced in Chicago style:

1. Paul Morris, The Hong Kong School Curriculum: Development, Issues and Policies, 2nd ed. (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1996), p. 77.

2. Peter Falvey and Peter Kennedy, eds., Literature in the English language classroom. (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1997), p. 82.

3. Amy Tsui, "Learning How to Teach Writing," in Teacher Learning in Language Teaching, eds. J. Richards and D. Freeman (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 97-124.

If you use Chicago style, you should include a bibliography at the end of the main text of your dissertation. There are many small differences between bibliographical entries and references, such as punctuation and the use of parantheses. Perhaps the most important differences are that bibliographical entries are not numbered; they begin with the surname of the author, rather than the first name; and they are in alphabetical order.

Bibliography

Falvey, Peter and Kennedy, Peter, eds. Literature in the English language classroom. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1997

Morris, Paul. The Hong Kong School Curriculum: Development, Issues and Policies, 2nd ed. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1996.

Tsui, Amy. "Learning How to Teach Writing." In Teacher Learning in Language Teaching. Eds. J. Richards and D. Freeman. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

One of the major differences between APA and Chicago formats is the way in which references that are subsequent to the first reference are handled. In APA, the first, second, third, and all other references to a single source are much the same. If the first reference to The Hong Kong School Curriculum is (Morris, p. 23), the second might be (Morris, p. 35) and the third (Morris, p. 50).

Chicago style, however, traditionally uses two conventions, "Ibid." and "Op. cit." Ibid., a Latin abbreviation which means "in the same place," is used for consecutive references to the same source, one after the other. Op. cit. is used to refer to an original source when there has been an intervening reference, so the references to the original are not consecutive.

However, Ibid. and Op. cit. are rarely used today, mainly because it is often very difficult, after even a short sequence of consecutive or non-consecutive references, to figure out exactly what they refer to. Far more common is the use of the author's surname, a shortened version of the title, and the new page number:

1. David Watkins, "Student Evaluations of University Teaching: A Cross-Cultural Perspective," Research in Higher Education 35 (1994), p. 254.

2. Watkins, "Student Evaluations," p. 257.

3. Watkins, "Student Evaluations," p. 263.

For a full discussion of Chicago style, including chapter and section headings, charts and graphs, and other matters, see Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, which is currently in its sixth edition.

Whatever format you decide upon, APA, Chicago, or any other, it is worth spending the money to purchase a complete manual.

C. Style Top / Writing ...

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once remarked to the effect that anything that can be stated at all can be stated clearly. There are, however, many things that cannot be stated, and on those things Wittgenstein advises us to remain silent. The difficulty arises when we try to say things that for us, at least, cannot be said: when we do not know what we are talking about, or try to explain things that make no sense, or are only dimly and poorly understood. Then, every time, our speaking and writing becomes vague, confused, full of words that only obscure understanding rather than illuminate it. That is why clarity is the essence of good style. Clarity is not the product of good thinking, it is it's very origin. If your writing style is vague, obscure, badly ordered into jumbled-up sections and paragraphs, long-winded, loaded down with ponderous words and wandering sentences, full of passive evasions of exactly who does what to whom, then the odds are that, at bottom, you really have nothing much to say.

There are some writers, particularly academics in literary criticism, some sorts of philosophy, and certain of the social sciences, who disagree with this view of the primacy of clarity. They are wrong in so far as they confuse "unclear" with "difficult to understand." A text may be very hard for many people to master-text books in advanced mathematics, physics, or logic come to mind-but still be perfectly clear. Serious writing in any field, including literary criticism, philosophy, and the social sciences, requires considerable effort to read and reread. But, in the end, when the ideas are in fact mastered, they seem perfectly clear. An anecdote from the Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman about the way mathematicians present their ideas illustrates this process. One mathematician gets up and begins to scrawl symbols all over the blackboard, all the while trying to explain them, while everyone else in the room tries to figure out what he is talking about. At first no one understands, and they all tell the presenter he is talking nonsense, his work is all rubbish, it doesn't make any sense, he is not just on the wrong track, he isn't on any track at all, and so on. Then they go away for a while and think, hard, about what the presenter was trying to do, and when they return next day, a few of them have understood the presentation. But they don't congratulate the presenter on his discovery, they simply tell him, "But of course, that's obvious!" And of course, if the ideas make sense, they are obvious-once you understand them!

That is what good style is about. It makes your ideas seem obvious, perhaps even trivial, because, after some effort, they seem perfectly clear. They are easy to understand not in the sense that any ignorant person can pick them up in a moment's glance, but in the sense that they are inherently understandable: Your question or problem is well-defined with clear boundaries; your major terms are fully and independently defined; your ideas hang together and lead one to another; the methods and techniques you use, the questions you ask, are clearly and logically related to what you want to find out; you do not hide your unvarnished ignorance behind vague generalities such as "society" or "culture" as in "Society requires that schools prepare children for mundane factory labor" or "Western culture is responsible for the growing divorce rate among Chinese couples." No amount of reading, or rereading, such examples will clarify them-they are intrinsically empty.

Are there, then, any heuristics, and tricks to good style? Language workbooks often recommend the use of short sentences and words of few syllables. They tell you that the paragraph, not the sentence, is the unit of thought, that each paragraph should have its own, single concept. They encourage you to use lots of concrete examples. They can show you how to create coherence by making some new sentences begin with the last part of the preceding one, and they can show you many other such techniques. One of the best books on improving your style is by Joseph Williams, Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace, published by Scott, Foresman and Company, but there are many others that you will find in the Library and in the University Book Store.

In the end, however, good style is the product of a shrewd, instinctive taste for what is suitable and what is not, a fluency that reflects complete mastery. Alfred North Whitehead, in his classic Aims of Education, argues that style is the ultimate aim of education, the goal of learning. The Chinese Daoist Zhuang Zi thought much the same: When Cook Ting first learned to cut up oxen, he had to sharpen his knife over and over. When he had mastered the art of butchery, he seemed to go into a kind of dance, in which the knife slipped perfectly between bone and bone, and he had not needed to sharpen his knife for 20 years. Style is Li Lai San on a surf board, Yo Yo Ma playing the cello, or Liang Ch'i Chao writing an essay-beauty and clarity of movement with a perfect economy of effort, intelligence, and emotion.

If all that seems a bit much for you to aspire to, don't worry. In all likelihood, your supervisor has the same aspirations. Indeed, writing a dissertation introduces or initiates you into the goals and values of scholarship as no ordinary assignment ever could. How then should you go about acquiring style in this greater sense? One way is to make yourself deliberately conscious of style in others, to pay attention to how something is said as well as what is said. Students often imagine that if something appears in a book or journal article, it must be clear, sensible, and intelligent, so that if they do not understand it, the fault is theirs. That is a proper bias to have, but it is not always justified. Good style enhances understanding, bad style inhibits it. So pay close attention to the style of the articles you enjoyed reading and really learned from, and study how the authors achieved that result. Then do the same for the pieces you did not get much from, and see how those authors achieved that. Finally, apply those lessons to your own writing.

D. Plagiarism Top / Writing ...

The following paragraph is taken from the M.Ed. Student Handbook:

Please note this warning! Plagiarism is perhaps the most common, and the most avoidable, reason an assignment or dissertation may be failed. To plagiarize is to present as your own work materials copied or closely paraphrased from someone else without acknowledging the original author. Whether published or unpublished materials, from a noted authority or from another student, directly appropriating the work of others without giving due and appropriate credit is plagiarism. Paragraph 5 of the Regulations Governing Conduct at Examinations, published in the University of Hong Kong Calendar, Part 1, states that any student who fails due to plagiarism may be referred to the University Disciplinary Committee, which may then recommend discontinuation. Plagiarism is a serious matter. If you have any doubts about whether or not your use of sources constitutes plagiarism, ask your module lecture.

Plagiarism is serious when found in an assignment. It is even more serious in a dissertation, which, by definition, is expressly your own, original research. You must sign a declaration at the beginning of your dissertation affirming that you have not plagiarized any part of your thesis, so there is even less excuse for claiming that you did not understand what plagiarism is, or the consequences for being found out. In the past, students have been discovered plagiarizing other students' essays, particularly for bibliography and the review of literature. There have also been cases in which a questionnaire or other instrument for gathering data was plagiarized, sometimes from dissertations at other universities in Hong Kong. All these cases have been taken very seriously, in some instances going before the University Disciplinary Committee and the full Senate of the University. Please, do not plagiarize. It is not a pleasant experience for anyone, but more important than the threat of getting caught and exposed to public shame, plagiarism undermines, and reduces to nothing, everything your M.Ed. education intends. If you are not caught, you may get your degree, but you have lost your education.

It is sometimes claimed, usually in defense, that plagiarism is hard to define and apply, that the offender somehow did not know, or appreciate, what he or she was doing. Whether or not such a defense is effective, it is usually sheer poppycock. True, there are some cases that are not clear-cut, but very few. In most cases, it is possible to take the original source, put it next to the dissertation, and read one from the other, word for word. Plagiarizers are basically not very smart. In fact, they are rather stupid: they cite references in foreign languages, copy from texts with perfect flowing English followed in the next chapter by their own awkward style, plagiarize from things written by their supervisor or from items on reading lists distributed in class. Often the plagiarized text includes citations that are not included in the references, refers to research done in Europe or the United States that was alleged by the plagiarizer to have been done in Hong Kong, and so forth. In short, plagiarizers are often found out-if they had the intelligence to plagiarize well, they would not need to do so.

All this is not at all intended to discourage you from using the work of other people. Very few Ph.D. theses, let alone M.Ed. dissertations, are truly original contributions to knowledge, except in the sense of incrementing, often from a Hong Kong perspective, what is already generally accepted. If you base your work on someone else's test or questionnaire, if you are particularly impressed by the depth and usefulness of someone else's analysis, it is not only permissible, it is highly desirable and commendable that you should use those ideas and methods. You should not, however, claim them as entirely your own. Your should give credit where it is due, just as you would want someone else who used your work to write their own dissertation to give credit to you for all your thoughtfulness and hard work.

Giving credit is only part of avoiding plagiarism. Whether you give credit or not, you should not copy down someone else's writing word for word except when making limited quotations. Quotations should illustrate what you are saying, give examples, or present evidence for your interpretation. They should never, never substitute for your own ideas and interpretations. When we borrow the ideas of others, we automatically select some things and omit others, we emphasize some things and ignore others. We might reorder the ideas, or relate them to other things, or even critically appraise them as we present them. In short, a good dissertation uses other people's ideas, it does not just repeat them. To simply repeat the writings of others without quotation marks is plagiarism, even if there is a citation somewhere in the text referring to the original author.

The best advice is this: if you have any doubts at all about plagiarism, consult with your supervisor.

E. Sexist Language Top / Writing ...

In the past few decades feminists have made all of us aware of how much common practice in the English language is biased towards the masculine gender, even when it is clearly inappropriate. For example, only a few years ago it was not uncommon in the literature of education to refer to kindergarten and primary teachers as "he," when the overwhelming majority of such teachers in every country are women. The trend today is to avoid or replace words that refer particularly or exclusively to men when there is no good reason other than custom to do so. This is true the other way around, as well, in an age when men also do housework, care for children, and buy cosmetics for themselves.

How, then, to avoid sexist language? You might be sure that when you use singular pronouns such as "he" and "she" or "him" and "her," that you try to do so equally, and if reasonable, randomly. Using "he or she" is sometimes acceptable, but it becomes wordy, obvious, and tedious when done too often. The expression "he/she," as in "If a student is criticized too often, he/she will become discouraged," is not unusual, but it is nevertheless bad practice, and should be avoided. Some language referees recommend using the plural pronoun with singular verbs: "If a student is criticized too often, they will become discouraged." This is confusing-to whom does "they" refer?-and should not be done. Perhaps the easiest way to avoid sexist pronouns is to use the plural: "If students are criticized too often, they will become discouraged."

There are some words in English, such as "chairman" or "workman," that reflect what was, or was perceived to be, the actual state of affairs in English-speaking cultures: Most heads of most committees and corporations were indeed men, as were most working-class workers. At a more general level, we speak of "mankind" and "man," as in Jacob Bronowski's famous television series and book, The Ascent of Man. Times have changed. Women are more and more taking positions of leadership, and, for better or worse, jobs in low-paid production, and the great but undervalued contribution of women to "the ascent of man" is now no longer questioned.

It is argued by many, men and women alike, that our language should keep pace with social change, but these modifications have been sporadic, hit and miss. My spelling checker accepts "chairwoman" and "chairperson," but not "workwoman" or "workperson," let along "personkind." Perhaps some day it will: changes that were laughed at only a few years ago are now commonplace. In the meantime, you should be sensitive to the way language reflects and influences the way we think about things, including gender stereotypes. To avoid such stereotyping, when possible, is simply a matter of common courtesy. All this applies with equal force, of course, to stereotyping by race, nationality, ethnicity, or cognitive or physical disability.

F. Length Top / Writing ...

How long should your dissertation be, how many pages or words? Although an M.Ed. dissertation should in every respect be a serious piece of research, you, and your supervisor, should nevertheless keep it in perspective. An M.Ed. dissertation is not a mini-Ph.D., not even an M.Phil. In terms of your total M.Ed. programme, it occupies five out of eighteen modules, six if we count the research seminar where you present your proposal. If in most ordinary modules you were asked to write an essay of ten to fifteen pages as your assignment, the equivalent for six modules would be an essay of 60 to 90 pages.

Let us round this off to a maximum of 100 pages, not counting appendices, of about 250 words per page (or about 25,000 words, maximum). This is a realistic and appropriate size to aim for as a maximum. Many students find 100 pages too few, but that, more often than not, is due to poor writing and organization. It is far easier to write too much than just what is needed, to add on more and more paragraphs than to prune away what is really not to the point. We have all learned from our school days that somehow the fattest assignments get the highest grades; that if we use the shotgun method of trying to aim at everything we might hit something. But if you are well read in education literature, you know that no serious piece of writing is done that way.

Some argue that dissertations in history, qualitative social science research, and the like, require a more expansive style, more words, than do more quantitative studies. There is some truth in that: many excellent studies involving many hypotheses, large samples, and important conclusions, are reported in far fewer than 100 pages. But this should not be an excuse for bad writing. No competent historian, anthropologist, or storyteller, establishes her narrative by overwhelming her reader with incidental detail. As a rule of thumb, many if not most dissertations could with profit be about one-third shorter than what is handed in.

G. Technology Top / Writing ...

Over the past decade there has been an enormous advance in the technology for gaining, processing, and presenting knowledge and information. Much of this technology is readily available to M.Ed. researchers: sophisticated statistical packages such as SPSS and LISREL, information sources on the World Wide Web, word processing software that is able to bring together video, sound, and graphics as easily as it presents text. Clear, well-written language is, and will be for the foreseeable future, the core of the dissertation, but you can considerably enhance the appearance, attractiveness, and intelligibility of your dissertation by including an apt illustration, graph, video clip, or hypertext cross reference. Just as teaching does not have to be just talk and chalk, so a dissertation does not have to be just words on a page.

IX. Bibliography Top

American Psychological Association. Publication manual of the American Psychological Association, 4th ed. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 1994.

School of Research Studies. Preparing and Submitting your Thesis: A Guide for Mphil and PhD Students. Hong Kong: School of Research Studies, 1995.

Turabian, Kate L. A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertation, 6th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Williams, Joseph M. Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace, 2nd ed. Glenview, Illinois: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1985.

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