Kjell Rudestam, Ph.D. and Rae Newton, Ph.D. offer some valuable advice to students working on dissertations. The essay we've posted here provides a nicely organized list of pointers summarized by the authors from their best selling book, Surviving Your Dissertation: A Comprehensive Guide to Content and Process-lauded by critics as an indispensable resource for graduate students and their dissertation advisors.

"Why don't doctoral candidates manage to get rolling on the dissertation any sooner, or KEEP rolling once they get started? Partly because the dissertation is a completely new experience that is much larger and more independent than your previous academic work. . . ." [Read the complete essay]

"Because the purpose of the graduate thesis is to prove that you have made an original and useful contribution to knowledge, the examiners read your thesis to find the answers to the following questions:

1. what is this student's research question?
2. is it a good question? (has it been answered before? is it a useful question to work on?)
3. did the student convince me that the question was adequately answered?
4. has the student made an adequate contribution to knowledge?

A very clear statement of the question is essential to proving that you have made an original and worthwhile contribution to knowledge. To prove the originality and value of your contribution, you must present a thorough review of the existing literature on the subject, and on closely related subjects. Then, by making direct reference to your literature review, you must demonstrate that your question (a) has not been previously answered, and (b) is worth answering. Describing how you answered the question is usually easier to write about, since you have been intimately involved in the details over the course of your graduate work. " . . . .
[Read the complete essay]