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10 truths to help you write your dissertation (and actually finish it)

As you begin to write your dissertation, you begin to understand that not all of your thoughts are nearly as profound as you imagined. Dr. Michael Munger confirms that writing, editing, and responding to feedback is usually far from glamorous. As Dr. Munger says in the interview below:

“I think if you’re not a little bit confused, embittered, and angry, you’re not working hard enough on your writing.”

But he is quick to point out that dedication to consistency and hard work pay off. Here are a few of his thoughts on keeping the perfect from becoming the enemy of the good as you write, finishing your dissertation sooner rather than later, finishing graduate school (on time), and getting a job afterward. The podcast below contains the full interview with Dr. Munger.

Transcript: 10 Truths to Help You Write Your Dissertation

Jeanne hoffman.

Welcome to this Kosmos online podcast. I’m Jeanne Hoffman. Today our topic is dissertation writing and research agendas, and my guest is Mike Munger. Dr. Munger is a professor at Duke University in the political science and economics department and the School of Public Policy, as well as the director of the joint UNC Duke Philosophy Politics and Economics Program. Welcome, Dr. Munger.

Mike Munger

It’s a pleasure to be on.

It’s a pleasure to have you. Our interview today is based on your essay, “Writing your Dissertation and Creating your Research Agenda,” which was originally written for IHS’s guide for graduate students, Scaling the Ivory Tower . Where do you place the importance of these activities in relation to other graduate school responsibilities?

it seems to me that people, when they’re in graduate school, have to recognize that their chief job is to redirect their energies from where they were as an undergraduate to where they will be as a professional.

A graduate student is somewhere between an undergraduate and a professional. The people who succeed are those who make that transition faster. What’s disturbing about it is that faculty often don’t really tell you that. This is something that you have to pick up on your own.

The problem is faculty would like you, and I’m no different, faculty would like for you to validate their pathetic lives by taking their classes very, very seriously. You’re not going to get a job taking classes. You’re going to try to get a job as an independent researcher who has their own ideas. Who’s able to make his or her own ideas clear to someone in writing.

The sooner you start working on that, the sooner you’re going to be able to make that transition. And the easier it will be to write your dissertation.

I’ve noticed that in the second or third year of graduate school there’s something that’s approaching an inversion where the people who were the real stars in the first and second year, who managed to make the faculty smile and pat them on the head and say, “Good student. Here’s a biscuit.” These are the ones who, after their second or third year, are thinking, “You know, I’m going to take more classes.”

Whereas the other people, and frankly I was one of the other people, were thinking, “You know, classes are sort of boring. I’m going to try to write some stuff on my own.”

Those are the ones who end up succeeding.

The stars in the first and second year, a lot of them don’t finish a thesis and they don’t get a job. Be of good cheer, if you feel like an odd ball, if you’re someone who’s working on research and taking the classes. Getting through the classes is fine. But you’re not going to get a job taking classes. You’re going to get a job doing your research.

Start working on writing. Start working on your dissertation as soon as you can.

In your essay, you also listed 10 truths about writing. I just want it go through them all briefly because I think each of them is a great piece of advice for students to keep in mind when they’re writing. The first is writing is an exercise. What do you mean by that?

Mike Munger:

Suppose you were going to run a marathon six months from now. You wouldn’t wait until the night before the marathon and train all night. What you would do is run a little bit at a time. Now, some days you’d go slow. You wouldn’t feel like it, but you would recognize that your performance in this marathon is going to be based on having practiced in situations where you developed the lung capacity, the ability of your muscles in your legs to perform.

Writing is the same way.

If you write every day, some days it’s not going to be very good. You’re going to throw a lot of it away. But when it comes time to do the marathon, you’ll be ready to write the dissertation that you have to finish in order to leave graduate school.

And as I often tell graduate students, “How will be ever miss you if you won’t go away?”

The key to this is to treat it as an exercise. Writing is something that you do every day, and like training for a marathon you will get better. The fact that some of what you do is a waste isn’t the point.

The point is to develop the skills so when the dissertation comes up, you’ll be ready.

Jeanne Hoffman:

You also mentioned “set goals.” What type of goals should graduate students be setting?

So many people have this fetish about input based metrics. I worked for three hours today. Yeah, well you didn’t do a thing. You need output based metrics. I wrote three pages today. That’s a goal. Not I went to the office. Think of all the times that you as a graduate student said, “Well, I worked for six hours today. I read a book.”

No, what you have to do is set a goal of writing. Have an output based metric. Focus on that, and once you’ve done that, yes, then go do something else. But make sure you have an output that you produce every day. Not input.

Nobody cares about the labor pains. They just want to see the baby.

Now, this other one sounds really profound, but could you explain it to me? It says “write for the ages.” What does that mean?

This comes from an experience that I had that was pretty darned embarrassing.

I was interviewing in 1984 at George Mason University, and one of the people I was interviewing with was James Buchanan. Now, this was two years before he won the Nobel prize in economics. He won it in 1986. This was 1984, but he was pretty scary even without a Nobel prize. The first question he asked me in our interview … (Note that this was a job I really wanted. I so wanted to be at George Mason. This meant the world to me.) His first question was, “What are you working on? What are you writing that somebody might read 10 or 100 years from now?”

I had nothing. His point, and he says this pretty often, is you ought to be working on something that people are going to want to read years from now. Because if you know when you’re working on it that’s really of no consequence, why are you spending your time on it? How are you going to stay excited enough about it to be able to produce a decent quality piece of work if you already know that it’s trivial?

Now, a lot of the things that you think are interesting at first turn out to be not as important as you had hoped, but you have to have some aspiration to write on the kinds of questions that people care about and that might conceivably they would want to read in 10 or even 100 years.

Next you have, “give yourself time.” Do you mean time to write?

I certainly do mean time to write. We’re used to being patted on our heads for our prolixity–and the fact that even the night before a paper was due we could produce a decent quality paper.

Well, if you try to carry that over into graduate school or into your professional career, you’re going to fail. Look at something that Adam Smith wrote or that Ayn Rand wrote (or whatever writing that you care about), they didn’t sit down the night before it was due and write the whole thing. They wrote it then they went for a walk, had dinner, talked to someone. Then they wrote it again.

They worked on it over and over again.

In a way, this is the same thing as write for the ages. This is take your work seriously enough to treat it as something that’s worthy of your full attention over an extended period.

Not I work really well under pressure. The fact is nobody works really well under pressure. You’re just smart enough that you’ve been able to get away with it up until now.

Speaking of people leaving things to the last minute, you have as your fifth truth, “edit your work.” Which I know a lot of undergraduates don’t get to because they do their paper overnight. But what does this mean for graduate students who have an extended amount of time to work on their papers?

A lot of people don’t like the idea of editing their work, and I think there’s two reasons. (Maybe they’re related, but students always give two different reasons.)

• One is it’s boring to edit (especially as you write your dissertation), and it’s more interesting and fun to work on something new.
• The other is, you know, they hate to waste anything that they’ve written.

Once you get used to editing, it’s really quite liberating. Try to find out if you can shorten everything into something that’s better.

When you’re writing, often less is more.

The first paper that I published came out in the journal public choice in 1984. Started out as 22 pages of calculus and proofs. When it came out in the journal it was two-and-a-half pages, and it had two short equations. It bore no resemblance to the paper I started out with, but it was much better.

That first paper was unpublishable. If I had sent it to the journal it would have just been turned out, and then I would have thought, “Oh I was born under a dark star.” No, I was too lazy to edit the thing.

If you don’t like editing your own papers, find another graduate student and switch as you.

It’s often much easier to edit and find the mistakes or infelicities that other people have made. One of the things that we’re all good at is criticizing, so find a writing buddy and switch papers and edit each other’s stuff. There’s one other thing about editing that Deirdre McCloskey always says. Deirdre McCloskey’s claim is “Let editors edit.”

Which means that if someone, an editor or a friend who you’ve gotten to edit your paper, volunteers that there’s a problem with that sentence, there is. Nobody cares what you think. The fact is that when someone else looks at that and says, “You know, I don’t understand this.” Or, “I think you should reword it.” You should. Don’t get defensive. Just do it.

Let the editor edit.

Okay, now here you have, “pick a puzzle.” That is a puzzle to me. What do you mean by that?

There are a lot of ways of making a paper that you’re working on seem, and in fact be, more interesting.

One of the key ways to do that when you’re setting it up is to choose one of the classic kind of puzzle formulations. Some examples that I could give are, well, we start with the problem of, “there’s a lot of people that have noticed empirically X happens, but the theory says that Y should happen. Why is it that our theory implies something different from what we actually observe?”

Another famous and common kind of puzzle that’s quite useful is, “There’s this theory about phenomenon X, and there’s another theory about apparently very different phenomenon Y. It turns out that the same underlying explanation accounts for both of these apparently very different things.”

Well, there again, if you start with that, you have the readers interest. It’s a way of organizing your discussion. It’s a way of getting started. A lot of people have trouble writing the first page of their paper, so we sometimes jokingly say, “Okay start with the second page!” It’s hard to set the thing up.

Using the puzzle (even if it seems rather mechanical at first) is a good way to get past that first hurdle of presenting your work. Tt has the bonus of grabbing the reader’s attention.

Now, your seventh truth seems to tie into your fourth truth, your “give yourself time” one. Your seventh truth is “schedule time for writing.”

The reason that it’s different is the “give yourself time” means that you start long before it’s due.

Scheduling means that you have to think when is my most productive time. Am I a morning person? Am I a night person? Then make sure that you schedule your writing during your most productive time. For instance, take classes or teach them (as the case may be) at a time that doesn’t conflict with your most productive writing time.

Now, it’s perfectly true that when I teach I get enough of an adrenaline rush. It happens that I’m a morning person, so I always schedule my writing in the morning and then I teach in the late afternoon. The late afternoon, a lot of times, I might need a little nap. I’m a little tired after lunch, and I’m kind of nodding off, but when it comes to teaching I get a rush of adrenaline. It’s like having two different peak times because you spend your writing time when you’re naturally most productive. Then you do your teaching at a time that otherwise would be a down time. It makes you enormously more productive.

The problem that I see is that people say, “Well, I’m so busy, so I’ll write when I get a chance.” It’s a residual category. It’s what I do after I’ve done everything else.

You have to turn that on it’s head. Schedule your writing first, and make everything else fit. First and foremost, if you’re going to succeed, you need to be a writer.

Now, I want to tie your eighth and ninth together because I think one flows from the other one. Your eighth truth is “not all of your thoughts are profound,” and your ninth one is “your most profound thoughts are often wrong.” Why aren’t all my thoughts profound? I think they are.

You know, they are as long as they’re thoughts. Actually this is going to tie into the next one also, so let me tie all three together.

When I think of an idea, or when I talk about an idea in a bar to my friend, we’re having cigarettes and beers, and it’s 1:30 at night. You know, you think that’s really clever. That’s something.

The problem is I sit down to write it, it turns out to be much more complicated than I thought it was.

When I was in graduate school, and I was a beginning assistant professor, would keep a list of what I thought were interesting ideas. Half of them by the time I had worked on them for a day turned out to be not that important. A lot of the things that seem interesting and important are not as important once you start to write them.

That means that you need to start to write them as soon as possible. You learn about your own thoughts by trying to write them. Not by just repeating them and having other people say, “Oh, that’s a clever nugget.”

Writing is how you learn whether your ideas are profound.

The ninth one that you mentioned was your most profound thoughts are often wrong.

I have a friend who made this suggestion that you should kill your children. What he means by “kill your children” is after you finished a paper, and you think it’s almost ready to send to the journal, go through it and underline the three most clever and profound sentences, and delete them because you’re bored with this paper. You have read this paper so often. You thought about it so much. The three sentences that you think are the best are almost all non sequiturs. They’re usually something that they have nothing to do with the paper, or they’re an ad hominem attack on someone you should leave alone. You think, “Oh I really got that guy.”

Go through and take all of those “profound” thoughts out. They’re the things that are going to make referees angry or that are going to side track the reader.

You’re no longer competent to judge whether or not these thoughts are profound.

This leads to the tenth truth, which is that everyone’s unwritten work is brilliant.

In my essay, I try to conjure a figure that we’ve all met. Usually, it’s a like seventh year graduate student, and it could be a fourth year assistant professor who hasn’t published anything, but he’s extremely glib. He generally has a cigarette and probably a black turtle neck sweater and an imported beer. Probably a Hefeweizen from Germany. A person that excludes good taste. He holds court in this bar or in this coffee shop with his cigarette and tells you a three-or-four-hundred-word summary of what he’s going to write his dissertation or his next book on in the case of a professor.

You think, “Wow that’s so interesting.”

Then he asks you, “What are you working on?”

You’re a little confused because the chapter that you’re currently working on, you’re not quite sure it’s going right. The direction isn’t at good. You finished another chapter, but you’re not sure it hangs together, and so you sort of stutter. From this guy, you get a smug smile, “It’s hard, isn’t it?”

Well, the truth is that guy is a poser.

He’s not actually working on anything. The reason that his glib superficial description of his work is so impressive is that he’s been saying the same thing for five years.

You are the winner here. You’re the one who’s actually working on something. You’ve written several pages today. You wrote several pages yesterday. You finished a chapter in the past month.

It’s hard to know because you’re in the middle of a project. Beware of the people that have this description of their work that is practiced and sounds like it’s good. People who are writing are often confused, embittered, and angry.

In fact, I think if you’re not a little bit confused, embittered, and angry, you’re not working hard enough on your writing.

This guy’s work is unwritten. That’s why it sounds brilliant. Everyone’s unwritten work is brilliant. You have to encounter how hard your idea is by writing it.

If you could give grad student just one piece of advice over all about their dissertation what would that be?

I’m going to give three. I’m a professor. I have a hard time giving just one.

Okay. I’m a lawyer, so I can negotiate, so that’s fine.

I’ll try to be brief about it, though.

The first is that graduate students elevate the dissertation in their mind to the status of something that’s enormous.

In a way, that absolves them of responsibility for not finishing it very quickly. You should think of the dissertation as being a sort of glorified class requirement. It doesn’t have to be publishable. It doesn’t have to be close to publishable. In fact, when you start to think of your dissertation what you’re doing is saying, “I have to write something that four or five people who may not like each other very much have to all sign off on.”

Which brings me to the second point. How good does your dissertation have to be?

Well, one of my professors told me a good dissertation is a done dissertation, and a done dissertation is good.

What that means is that as soon as you get it finished then you’ve already accomplished the first piece of advice was don’t elevate this to having the status of some gigantic important book. You recognize it’s just a glorified class requirement. Now you look and there’s four different people on your committee. Maybe they don’t like each other very much. Maybe they don’t even talk to each other, and so they communicate only through you. Where you bring a draft to one, and they give you corrections. You make the changes, and then another person says, “No, no. Change all that back.”

Well, what you need to do is have them talk to each other. But what you really need to do is recognize that a done dissertation is good. Just finish what they say. Don’t let them use you as a pawn in a personal war that for them goes back ten years. Just get the work finished, and once you’re in a position to have it done you can work on a book that then you won’t have to please four masters who are making different demands on your time.

The way to do that is the third piece of advice which is don’t read. Write.

I ask my students, the students who work with me on their dissertation, to put up a three by five card in their work cubicle or their library carrel or wherever they’re working, that says, “Don’t read. Write.” Because writing is an output-based metric. Reading is an input-based metric. You should always avoid input-based metrics.

“I read two books today” means you did nothing. If you wrote something then you had an accomplishment. What are you supposed to read though? The answer is let other people, including your faculty advisors, be your research assistants. You can hire them as research assistants, and you don’t have to pay them. You give them a draft, and they say, “Oh, here’s four things you should cite.” Well, go look up precisely those four things. Cite those four things, and add them to your references because then you’re not reading to decide whether or not it’s relevant. You already know that it is. You have used your faculty advisors as unpaid, really smart, highly-trained research assistants.

Make the system work for you.

That’s brilliant. You mentioned that students make the mistake of elevating their dissertation much higher than it should be. What are some other common mistakes that you see students making as they work on their dissertation?

I guess an elaboration of that first one is the one that’s most important which is after I’ve been working on it for six months, and I haven’t written anything, the explanation has to be that it’s really hard and really profound. After 18 months or two years, I knew a guy who worked for seven years on his dissertation. He had 600 pages written, but since he’d been working on it for six years it had to be something enormous. Now, he could have turned in what he had, and it would have been fine, but it wouldn’t have been fantastic. It wasn’t good enough because he couldn’t explain to himself why he’d done it for six years. He ended up not finishing, although he had 600 pages written.

Well, believe me, by that time the faculty really just wanted him to go away. Write an introduction, write a conclusion, hand it in. Say, “That’s enough. I’m done.”

What else separates a student who gets their dissertation done from a student who doesn’t complete their dissertation on time?

I would say that completing your dissertation on time largely just requires you sitting down and writing out a timeline that starts with finishing . Then give yourself reasonable amounts of time to do all the things you need to do in the middle, and work backwards to now. Now, I finished my dissertation when I was 25. I wrote the whole thing in six months. Was it good? No. It was terrible, but a good dissertation is a done dissertation. After I finished it I was able, on my own without the infighting and bickering of faculty members looking over my shoulder, to be able to fix the problems, and send it to journals, and I got it published.

Think of it as a job. Think of it as something that has a schedule that you can produce. Rather than “I’m working on this, and my lack of productivity is a sign of my profundity,” which is a trap many of us fall into.

Having a deadline is an important part of becoming a professional because you have to learn to generate internal deadlines. Journal editors do not have deadlines. They would prefer that you don’t send your paper to them.

The editor of the philosophy journal, economics journal, political science journal, they’re not going to call you and say, “Hey, are you going to send that paper in?” They hope you don’t. You have to generate your own internal deadlines. You might as well start doing it now. Think of it as a job. Have deadlines, and meet the deadlines. If it isn’t perfect that’s fine. The faculty will tell you what you have to add.

In this timeline that you’re talking about (other than sending your work to journals) what other steps should people consider in making it?

I guess I would suggest you send papers to journals before a lot of people actually send their papers to journals. Let me see if I can explain that. For anyone who does computer programming, you know something called “machine intensive debugging.” Machine intensive debugging means that I don’t stare at the program and try to figure out what errors of programming or logic are in it. I send it to the computer, and it comes back with error messages.

Now, there are no obvious mistakes. I don’t send it to the computer so that it bombs in the first line. I do the best that I can to make sure that it doesn’t immediately bomb. Well, you can think of journals the same way. Since I, myself, was the editor of the Journal Public Choice for five years, let me say immediately that doesn’t mean send in half-finished papers. It means get the paper to a certain point of being good and then finish it in the sense that you edit it. You correct the references. You make sure the title page is right. There are no typos. There’s no hanging widow titles. It looks like a professional paper.

Then the referees are going to tell you what you should work on.

You need to have a portfolio of papers. People are surprised when they first come out. You know, they’re teaching, they’re spending time trying to get their dissertation into shape, and two or three years pass by. Start sending papers to journals right away, and that sort of generates it’s own momentum, its own logic. You get the paper back, and you’ve got comments. Basically these are like error messages from the computer. Fix those. Send it back again. You’ll be publishing papers before you know it.

Send the paper out before you think it’s perfect because the editors aren’t going to think it’s perfect anyway. Even the paper you worked on for three years is going to come back with error messages.

This is my final question. Do you have any advice on how to generate really interesting ideas that spark quality papers?

I do, and the answer is write a lot of different papers, and recognize that not all of your ideas are as profound as you thought they were. As we’ve already discussed. When the paper comes back from the journal … This has happened to me several times. My most cited paper is the 1986 American Political Science review paper with Arthur Denzau. We had sent it to four other journals before it was finally accepted. When the paper started out, it wasn’t very good, but we got comments from referees that said, “You know, this is stupid, but if you were really going to do this here’s what you could go and do.”

Well, we took those seriously. By the time I had worked on it for two and a half years, it had been turned down at four places. We had gotten comments from twelve different referees. The paper was excellent, and it was partly because of the important ideas that we had gotten from machine intensive debugging.

From having those very smart anonymous referees make suggestions.

Again, you can use smart people as your unpaid research assistants as long as you keep at it, and take comments seriously. Let the editors edit. Let the referees tell you. If they think there’s something wrong with a passage, there is. Don’t be defensive about it. Fix it.

Well, thank you very much for joining us, Dr. Munger and for your great advice.

It was a pleasure.

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Helping Grad Students Become Better Writers

Writing Genres: The Dissertation

By Jonathan Kanary, GWC Consultant

When I started working on my dissertation, I thought I knew how to write. After all, I had successfully completed seminar papers. I had prepared and delivered talks for conferences. I had even placed a couple of scholarly articles. Surely I had the hang of this academic writing thing by now, right?

Then I got my director’s feedback on a draft chapter. He was gracious, and he liked a lot of what I was doing. But he also made it clear that my work needed a lot of revision. I started to think, “maybe I don’t know what I’m doing after all.”

The Problem

Almost no one who begins writing a dissertation has ever written a dissertation before. You might have written a master’s thesis, and that helps. But you’re also new to this.

The good news is that if you’ve gotten this far, you’ve done a lot of writing. You have most of the skills you need to complete the task.

The challenge is that it isn’t exactly the same task. If you want to master the dissertation, you have to understand what kind of thing it is: its genre .

In this post, I want to break the dissertation’s genre into three parts: the purpose, the audience, and the format.

The Purpose

What is a dissertation for ? This might seem like an obvious question: you’re making a scholarly argument. If you’re in STEM or the Social Sciences, the basis for your argument is probably a study, or a series of studies. If you’re in the Humanities, the material for your argument will likely include evidence you have gathered from books and articles. Your task is to make this argument and make it well.

True—but incomplete. Your dissertation has a second major purpose: showing that you’ve done your work. In today’s world, a graduate degree is a kind of credential. It’s a stamp of approval that you have the competencies those letters after your name represent. Your dissertation tells your committee that they don’t have to feel bad about giving you that stamp of approval. They can release you into the world with a reasonable hope that you know how to do the sorts of things that people with advanced degrees in your field do. This means that you need to demonstrate the thoroughness of your research. And you have to explain—maybe more fully than you would in other kinds of academic writing—exactly how your argument relates to other scholars’ work.

The Audience

Who is the dissertation for? Again, this initially seems obvious: you write for your committee. But have you thought about what that means? Your director may or may not have a high degree of expertise in the specific area of your project. Other members of your committee have relevant expertise; but they almost certainly don’t all work in your exact area. If you have an “outside reader” from another department, or someone from your own department who does a very different kind of research, they may not know all the technical terminology you’re using. They may lack historical context. When you reference a scholarly work that has defined your area, they may not know why it’s such a big deal.

Ask yourself, “What might someone on my committee need to know for this argument to make sense?” And then figure out how to include that information.

Although the primary audience for a dissertation is your committee, you could end up having a secondary audience: other scholars working in your area. I am citing several dissertations as I write my own. However, if you do a good job providing background for everyone on your committee, it will likely be enough for secondary readers as well.

So how the heck do I put together this dissertation?

Here, I have good news: the Graduate School has lots of resources to help you format your dissertation properly. (Hint: If you go ahead and put your draft into this format to begin with, it will save you a lot of time later.)

But you might also want to ask your director if he or she can point you to an earlier dissertation that proved successful. Sometimes seeing what an acceptable entry in the genre looks like can help you imagine your own.

Getting Done

Notice, I said an “acceptable” entry, not a “brilliant” or “ground-breaking” one. More than one faculty member has told me, “A good dissertation is a done dissertation.” It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. This isn’t the last thing you get to write. You will have plenty of time to revise before it becomes a book or a series of articles. Just keep your purpose in mind, pursue it in a way that will make sense to your audience, and follow the basic format.

You can do this.

Jonathan Kanary is a PhD candidate in English at Baylor, where he serves as a consultant for the Graduate Writing Center and teaches for the Great Texts department. His research focuses on the intersection of literature and spirituality, with a particular interest in the Middle Ages and 19th-20th century British literatures.

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• Dissertation

How to Write a Dissertation | A Guide to Structure & Content

A dissertation or thesis is a long piece of academic writing based on original research, submitted as part of an undergraduate or postgraduate degree.

The structure of a dissertation depends on your field, but it is usually divided into at least four or five chapters (including an introduction and conclusion chapter).

The most common dissertation structure in the sciences and social sciences includes:

• An introduction to your topic
• A literature review that surveys relevant sources
• An explanation of your methodology
• An overview of the results of your research
• A discussion of the results and their implications
• A conclusion that shows what your research has contributed

Dissertations in the humanities are often structured more like a long essay , building an argument by analysing primary and secondary sources . Instead of the standard structure outlined here, you might organise your chapters around different themes or case studies.

Other important elements of the dissertation include the title page , abstract , and reference list . If in doubt about how your dissertation should be structured, always check your department’s guidelines and consult with your supervisor.

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Acknowledgements, table of contents, list of figures and tables, list of abbreviations, introduction, literature review / theoretical framework, methodology, reference list.

The very first page of your document contains your dissertation’s title, your name, department, institution, degree program, and submission date. Sometimes it also includes your student number, your supervisor’s name, and the university’s logo. Many programs have strict requirements for formatting the dissertation title page .

The title page is often used as cover when printing and binding your dissertation .

Prevent plagiarism, run a free check.

The acknowledgements section is usually optional, and gives space for you to thank everyone who helped you in writing your dissertation. This might include your supervisors, participants in your research, and friends or family who supported you.

The abstract is a short summary of your dissertation, usually about 150-300 words long. You should write it at the very end, when you’ve completed the rest of the dissertation. In the abstract, make sure to:

• State the main topic and aims of your research
• Describe the methods you used
• Summarise the main results
• State your conclusions

Although the abstract is very short, it’s the first part (and sometimes the only part) of your dissertation that people will read, so it’s important that you get it right. If you’re struggling to write a strong abstract, read our guide on how to write an abstract .

In the table of contents, list all of your chapters and subheadings and their page numbers. The dissertation contents page gives the reader an overview of your structure and helps easily navigate the document.

All parts of your dissertation should be included in the table of contents, including the appendices. You can generate a table of contents automatically in Word.

If you have used a lot of tables and figures in your dissertation, you should itemise them in a numbered list . You can automatically generate this list using the Insert Caption feature in Word.

If you have used a lot of abbreviations in your dissertation, you can include them in an alphabetised list of abbreviations so that the reader can easily look up their meanings.

If you have used a lot of highly specialised terms that will not be familiar to your reader, it might be a good idea to include a glossary . List the terms alphabetically and explain each term with a brief description or definition.

In the introduction, you set up your dissertation’s topic, purpose, and relevance, and tell the reader what to expect in the rest of the dissertation. The introduction should:

• Establish your research topic , giving necessary background information to contextualise your work
• Narrow down the focus and define the scope of the research
• Discuss the state of existing research on the topic, showing your work’s relevance to a broader problem or debate
• Clearly state your objectives and research questions , and indicate how you will answer them
• Give an overview of your dissertation’s structure

Everything in the introduction should be clear, engaging, and relevant to your research. By the end, the reader should understand the what , why and how of your research. Not sure how? Read our guide on how to write a dissertation introduction .

Before you start on your research, you should have conducted a literature review to gain a thorough understanding of the academic work that already exists on your topic. This means:

• Collecting sources (e.g. books and journal articles) and selecting the most relevant ones
• Critically evaluating and analysing each source
• Drawing connections between them (e.g. themes, patterns, conflicts, gaps) to make an overall point

In the dissertation literature review chapter or section, you shouldn’t just summarise existing studies, but develop a coherent structure and argument that leads to a clear basis or justification for your own research. For example, it might aim to show how your research:

• Addresses a gap in the literature
• Takes a new theoretical or methodological approach to the topic
• Proposes a solution to an unresolved problem
• Advances a theoretical debate
• Builds on and strengthens existing knowledge with new data

The literature review often becomes the basis for a theoretical framework , in which you define and analyse the key theories, concepts and models that frame your research. In this section you can answer descriptive research questions about the relationship between concepts or variables.

The methodology chapter or section describes how you conducted your research, allowing your reader to assess its validity. You should generally include:

• The overall approach and type of research (e.g. qualitative, quantitative, experimental, ethnographic)
• Your methods of collecting data (e.g. interviews, surveys, archives)
• Details of where, when, and with whom the research took place
• Your methods of analysing data (e.g. statistical analysis, discourse analysis)
• Tools and materials you used (e.g. computer programs, lab equipment)
• A discussion of any obstacles you faced in conducting the research and how you overcame them
• An evaluation or justification of your methods

Your aim in the methodology is to accurately report what you did, as well as convincing the reader that this was the best approach to answering your research questions or objectives.

Next, you report the results of your research . You can structure this section around sub-questions, hypotheses, or topics. Only report results that are relevant to your objectives and research questions. In some disciplines, the results section is strictly separated from the discussion, while in others the two are combined.

For example, for qualitative methods like in-depth interviews, the presentation of the data will often be woven together with discussion and analysis, while in quantitative and experimental research, the results should be presented separately before you discuss their meaning. If you’re unsure, consult with your supervisor and look at sample dissertations to find out the best structure for your research.

In the results section it can often be helpful to include tables, graphs and charts. Think carefully about how best to present your data, and don’t include tables or figures that just repeat what you have written  –  they should provide extra information or usefully visualise the results in a way that adds value to your text.

Full versions of your data (such as interview transcripts) can be included as an appendix .

The discussion  is where you explore the meaning and implications of your results in relation to your research questions. Here you should interpret the results in detail, discussing whether they met your expectations and how well they fit with the framework that you built in earlier chapters. If any of the results were unexpected, offer explanations for why this might be. It’s a good idea to consider alternative interpretations of your data and discuss any limitations that might have influenced the results.

The discussion should reference other scholarly work to show how your results fit with existing knowledge. You can also make recommendations for future research or practical action.

The dissertation conclusion should concisely answer the main research question, leaving the reader with a clear understanding of your central argument. Wrap up your dissertation with a final reflection on what you did and how you did it. The conclusion often also includes recommendations for research or practice.

In this section, it’s important to show how your findings contribute to knowledge in the field and why your research matters. What have you added to what was already known?

You must include full details of all sources that you have cited in a reference list (sometimes also called a works cited list or bibliography). It’s important to follow a consistent reference style . Each style has strict and specific requirements for how to format your sources in the reference list.

The most common styles used in UK universities are Harvard referencing and Vancouver referencing . Your department will often specify which referencing style you should use – for example, psychology students tend to use APA style , humanities students often use MHRA , and law students always use OSCOLA . M ake sure to check the requirements, and ask your supervisor if you’re unsure.

To save time creating the reference list and make sure your citations are correctly and consistently formatted, you can use our free APA Citation Generator .

Your dissertation itself should contain only essential information that directly contributes to answering your research question. Documents you have used that do not fit into the main body of your dissertation (such as interview transcripts, survey questions or tables with full figures) can be added as appendices .

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Defending Your Dissertation: A Guide

Written by Luke Wink-Moran | Photo by insta_photos

Dissertation defenses are daunting, and no wonder; it’s not a “dissertation discussion,” or a “dissertation dialogue.” The name alone implies that the dissertation you’ve spent the last x number of years working on is subject to attack. And if you don’t feel trepidation for semantic reasons, you might be nervous because you don’t know what to expect. Our imaginations are great at making The Unknown scarier than reality. The good news is that you’ll find in this newsletter article experts who can shed light on what dissertations defenses are really like, and what you can do to prepare for them.

The first thing you should know is that your defense has already begun. It started the minute you began working on your dissertation— maybe even in some of the classes you took beforehand that helped you formulate your ideas. This, according to Dr. Celeste Atkins, is why it’s so important to identify a good mentor early in graduate school.

“To me,” noted Dr. Atkins, who wrote her dissertation on how sociology faculty from traditionally marginalized backgrounds teach about privilege and inequality, “the most important part of the doctoral journey was finding an advisor who understood and supported what I wanted from my education and who was willing to challenge me and push me, while not delaying me.  I would encourage future PhDs to really take the time to get to know the faculty before choosing an advisor and to make sure that the members of their committee work well together.”

Your advisor will be the one who helps you refine arguments and strengthen your work so that by the time it reaches your dissertation committee, it’s ready. Next comes the writing process, which many students have said was the hardest part of their PhD. I’ve included this section on the writing process because this is where you’ll create all the material you’ll present during your defense, so it’s important to navigate it successfully. The writing process is intellectually grueling, it eats time and energy, and it’s where many students find themselves paddling frantically to avoid languishing in the “All-But-Dissertation” doldrums. The writing process is also likely to encroach on other parts of your life. For instance, Dr. Cynthia Trejo wrote her dissertation on college preparation for Latin American students while caring for a twelve-year-old, two adult children, and her aging parents—in the middle of a pandemic. When I asked Dr. Trejo how she did this, she replied:

“I don’t take the privilege of education for granted. My son knew I got up at 4:00 a.m. every morning, even on weekends, even on holidays; and it’s a blessing that he’s seen that work ethic and that dedication and the end result.”

Importantly, Dr. Trejo also exercised regularly and joined several online writing groups at UArizona. She mobilized her support network— her partner, parents, and even friends from high school to help care for her son.

The challenges you face during the writing process can vary by discipline. Jessika Iwanski is an MD/PhD student who in 2022 defended her dissertation on genetic mutations in sarcomeric proteins that lead to severe, neonatal dilated cardiomyopathy. She described her writing experience as “an intricate process of balancing many things at once with a deadline (defense day) that seems to be creeping up faster and faster— finishing up experiments, drafting the dissertation, preparing your presentation, filling out all the necessary documents for your defense and also, for MD/PhD students, beginning to reintegrate into the clinical world (reviewing your clinical knowledge and skill sets)!”

But no matter what your unique challenges are, writing a dissertation can take a toll on your mental health. Almost every student I spoke with said they saw a therapist and found their sessions enormously helpful. They also looked to the people in their lives for support. Dr. Betsy Labiner, who wrote her dissertation on Interiority, Truth, and Violence in Early Modern Drama, recommended, “Keep your loved ones close! This is so hard – the dissertation lends itself to isolation, especially in the final stages. Plus, a huge number of your family and friends simply won’t understand what you’re going through. But they love you and want to help and are great for getting you out of your head and into a space where you can enjoy life even when you feel like your dissertation is a flaming heap of trash.”

While you might sometimes feel like your dissertation is a flaming heap of trash, remember: a) no it’s not, you brilliant scholar, and b) the best dissertations aren’t necessarily perfect dissertations. According to Dr. Trejo, “The best dissertation is a done dissertation.” So don’t get hung up on perfecting every detail of your work. Think of your dissertation as a long-form assignment that you need to finish in order to move onto the next stage of your career. Many students continue revising after graduation and submit their work for publication or other professional objectives.

When you do finish writing your dissertation, it’s time to schedule your defense and invite friends and family to the part of the exam that’s open to the public. When that moment comes, how do you prepare to present your work and field questions about it?

“I reread my dissertation in full in one sitting,” said Dr. Labiner. “During all my time writing it, I’d never read more than one complete chapter at a time! It was a huge confidence boost to read my work in full and realize that I had produced a compelling, engaging, original argument.”

There are many other ways to prepare: create presentation slides and practice presenting them to friends or alone; think of questions you might be asked and answer them; think about what you want to wear or where you might want to sit (if you’re presenting on Zoom) that might give you a confidence boost. Iwanksi practiced presenting with her mentor and reviewed current papers to anticipate what questions her committee might ask.  If you want to really get in the zone, you can emulate Dr. Labiner and do a full dress rehearsal on Zoom the day before your defense.

But no matter what you do, you’ll still be nervous:

“I had a sense of the logistics, the timing, and so on, but I didn’t really have clear expectations outside of the structure. It was a sort of nebulous three hours in which I expected to be nauseatingly terrified,” recalled Dr. Labiner.

“I expected it to be terrifying, with lots of difficult questions and constructive criticism/comments given,” agreed Iwanski.

“I expected it to be very scary,” said Dr. Trejo.

“I expected it to be like I was on trial, and I’d have to defend myself and prove I deserved a PhD,” said Dr Atkins.

And, eventually, inexorably, it will be time to present.  

“It was actually very enjoyable” said Iwanski. “It was more of a celebration of years of work put into this project—not only by me but by my mentor, colleagues, lab members and collaborators! I felt very supported by all my committee members and, rather than it being a rapid fire of questions, it was more of a scientific discussion amongst colleagues who are passionate about heart disease and muscle biology.”

“I was anxious right when I logged on to the Zoom call for it,” said Dr. Labiner, “but I was blown away by the number of family and friends that showed up to support me. I had invited a lot of people who I didn’t at all think would come, but every single person I invited was there! Having about 40 guests – many of them joining from different states and several from different countries! – made me feel so loved and celebrated that my nerves were steadied very quickly. It also helped me go into ‘teaching mode’ about my work, so it felt like getting to lead a seminar on my most favorite literature.”

“In reality, my dissertation defense was similar to presenting at an academic conference,” said Dr. Atkins. “I went over my research in a practiced and organized way, and I fielded questions from the audience.

“It was a celebration and an important benchmark for me,” said Dr. Trejo. “It was a pretty happy day. Like the punctuation at the end of your sentence: this sentence is done; this journey is done. You can start the next sentence.”

If you want to learn more about dissertations in your own discipline, don’t hesitate to reach out to graduates from your program and ask them about their experiences. If you’d like to avail yourself of some of the resources that helped students in this article while they wrote and defended their dissertations, check out these links:

The Graduate Writing Lab

https://thinktank.arizona.edu/writing-center/graduate-writing-lab

The Writing Skills Improvement Program

https://wsip.arizona.edu

Campus Health Counseling and Psych Services

https://caps.arizona.edu

https://www.scribbr.com/

What makes a good dissertation? 

In this post, we share some thoughts from academics on what makes a good dissertation.     

We surveyed academic staff across the University of Edinburgh to find out what qualities that made a good dissertation. Surprisingly, there was little variation across the various Schools and Colleges and subjects. Here, we bring together the common elements in their answers to help you think about what makes a good dissertation.    

“ Find a topic that you are really excited about: you will live with this dissertation for a long time… ” Dr Anja Gunderloch, CAHSS.    

You should be genuinely excited and passionate about your chosen topic. You will live with your dissertation for a long time (in some cases, for two years), so you will need to have lots of motivation to carry out your research, analysis and writing. Your passion will shine through in the finished product, which will make it a more engaging read for the marker.    

“ A hypothesis-led investigation of a relevant subject area. ” Professor John Moncrieff, CSE.    

At the beginning of the dissertation, you must set out a clear, focused research question that you are capable of addressing fully and effectively “ …within the scope of a dissertation process. ” (Dr Jan Eichorn, CAHSS). The question should neither be too broad nor too narrow, and terms should be defined and consistently used.    

“ Critical evaluation of literature, and especially of own data where relevant. ” Professor Norah Spears, CMVM.    

Your dissertation should demonstrate excellent knowledge of the literature related to your research question. As part of reviewing the literature, you need to show that you have a solid grasp of what other people have said and be able to summarise it. But you also need to go beyond this: you must critically engage with relevant ideas, texts and thinkers.    

“ This involves subjecting what others have said to close scrutiny, figuring out what the best interpretation of their views and arguments is, what can be said for and against each key claim and whether their arguments are genuinely plausible or not …” Dr Aidan McGlynn, CAHSS.    

As part of your critical appraisal of the literature, you must identify a gap and explain what your contribution to filling this gap will be: a new case, argument or theory? An innovative take on prior work? What are you offering?    

“ Well-structured, organized and clearly written. ” Professor Gary West, CAHSS.    

Almost everyone we asked mentioned how important clarity and structure was. Good dissertations have a clear structure which makes it easy for your reader to follow your argument. Clarity in your writing makes your points and arguments and conclusions explicit for the reader. “ If you maximise clarity at every level, you cannot fail to produce a good dissertation .” (Dr Matthew Bell, CSE).    

Signposting, headings, sections, topic sentences all help the reader know where they are in your argument. Keep things relevant and focused towards your conclusion to avoid distracting your reader. “ The writing is concise… A good dissertation does not outstay its welcome .” (Dr Stephen Gilmore, CSE).    

Try to avoid overlong sentences and paragraphs to make it easier for the reader to follow the individual points and arguments. Simple, accessible and appropriate language and grammar also make for easy reading and tell your reader that you are invested in your work. Consistent and accurate referencing also lends authority to your work. “ Student ownership of [the] project. ” (Dr Andrew Bell, CSE) is highly valued by markers.    

A good dissertation will conclude with a worthwhile answer to its research question. There should be a sense that the dissertation satisfactorily answers the questions it posed. It should also offer a discussion of the implications of the dissertation’s findings for policy, theory and/or practice where appropriate.    

A dissertation or research project is a challenge and requires time and effort. Knowing what makes a good dissertation means that you can direct your time and effort more effectively.    

And a final tip from Dr Anja Gunderloch (CAHSS) “ …do your referencing as you go along – you don’t want to …have to tidy up… the day before the deadline . ”    

This post was based on contributions from:      

Dr Jan Eichhorn, Dr Kevin Wright, Professor Andrew Newman, Dr Chris Perkins, Dr Anja Gunderloch, Professor Gary West, Dr Andrei Potlogea, Dr Tom Mole, Dr Alan Mackie, Dr Aidan McGlynn, Dr Sandy Forsyth, Dr Fionnuala Sinclair, Dr Elaine Haycock-Stuart, Professor Norah Spears, Miss Zoe Coyle, Professor Simon Tett, Dr Julia Richardson, Dr Matthew Bell, Dr Catherine Kidner, Professor John Moncrieff, Dr Stewart Smith, Dr Andy Hein, Dr Stephen Gilmore and Dr Andrew Bell.  

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Dissertation Structure & Layout 101: How to structure your dissertation, thesis or research project.

By: Derek Jansen (MBA) Reviewed By: David Phair (PhD) | July 2019

So, you’ve got a decent understanding of what a dissertation is , you’ve chosen your topic and hopefully you’ve received approval for your research proposal . Awesome! Now its time to start the actual dissertation or thesis writing journey.

To craft a high-quality document, the very first thing you need to understand is dissertation structure . In this post, we’ll walk you through the generic dissertation structure and layout, step by step. We’ll start with the big picture, and then zoom into each chapter to briefly discuss the core contents. If you’re just starting out on your research journey, you should start with this post, which covers the big-picture process of how to write a dissertation or thesis .

*The Caveat *

In this post, we’ll be discussing a traditional dissertation/thesis structure and layout, which is generally used for social science research across universities, whether in the US, UK, Europe or Australia. However, some universities may have small variations on this structure (extra chapters, merged chapters, slightly different ordering, etc).

So, always check with your university if they have a prescribed structure or layout that they expect you to work with. If not, it’s safe to assume the structure we’ll discuss here is suitable. And even if they do have a prescribed structure, you’ll still get value from this post as we’ll explain the core contents of each section.  

Overview: S tructuring a dissertation or thesis

• Acknowledgements page
• Abstract (or executive summary)
• Table of contents , list of figures and tables
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Literature review
• Chapter 3: Methodology
• Chapter 4: Results
• Chapter 5: Discussion
• Chapter 6: Conclusion
• Reference list

As I mentioned, some universities will have slight variations on this structure. For example, they want an additional “personal reflection chapter”, or they might prefer the results and discussion chapter to be merged into one. Regardless, the overarching flow will always be the same, as this flow reflects the research process , which we discussed here – i.e.:

• The introduction chapter presents the core research question and aims .
• The literature review chapter assesses what the current research says about this question.
• The methodology, results and discussion chapters go about undertaking new research about this question.
• The conclusion chapter (attempts to) answer the core research question .

In other words, the dissertation structure and layout reflect the research process of asking a well-defined question(s), investigating, and then answering the question – see below.

To restate that – the structure and layout of a dissertation reflect the flow of the overall research process . This is essential to understand, as each chapter will make a lot more sense if you “get” this concept. If you’re not familiar with the research process, read this post before going further.

Right. Now that we’ve covered the big picture, let’s dive a little deeper into the details of each section and chapter. Oh and by the way, you can also grab our free dissertation/thesis template here to help speed things up.

The title page of your dissertation is the very first impression the marker will get of your work, so it pays to invest some time thinking about your title. But what makes for a good title? A strong title needs to be 3 things:

• Succinct (not overly lengthy or verbose)
• Specific (not vague or ambiguous)
• Representative of the research you’re undertaking (clearly linked to your research questions)

Typically, a good title includes mention of the following:

• The broader area of the research (i.e. the overarching topic)
• The specific focus of your research (i.e. your specific context)
• Indication of research design (e.g. quantitative , qualitative , or  mixed methods ).

For example:

A quantitative investigation [research design] into the antecedents of organisational trust [broader area] in the UK retail forex trading market [specific context/area of focus].

Again, some universities may have specific requirements regarding the format and structure of the title, so it’s worth double-checking expectations with your institution (if there’s no mention in the brief or study material).

Acknowledgements

This page provides you with an opportunity to say thank you to those who helped you along your research journey. Generally, it’s optional (and won’t count towards your marks), but it is academic best practice to include this.

So, who do you say thanks to? Well, there’s no prescribed requirements, but it’s common to mention the following people:

• Your dissertation supervisor or committee.
• Any professors, lecturers or academics that helped you understand the topic or methodologies.
• Any tutors, mentors or advisors.
• Your family and friends, especially spouse (for adult learners studying part-time).

There’s no need for lengthy rambling. Just state who you’re thankful to and for what (e.g. thank you to my supervisor, John Doe, for his endless patience and attentiveness) – be sincere. In terms of length, you should keep this to a page or less.

Abstract or executive summary

The dissertation abstract (or executive summary for some degrees) serves to provide the first-time reader (and marker or moderator) with a big-picture view of your research project. It should give them an understanding of the key insights and findings from the research, without them needing to read the rest of the report – in other words, it should be able to stand alone .

For it to stand alone, your abstract should cover the following key points (at a minimum):

• Your research questions and aims – what key question(s) did your research aim to answer?
• Your methodology – how did you go about investigating the topic and finding answers to your research question(s)?
• Your findings – following your own research, what did do you discover?
• Your conclusions – based on your findings, what conclusions did you draw? What answers did you find to your research question(s)?

So, in much the same way the dissertation structure mimics the research process, your abstract or executive summary should reflect the research process, from the initial stage of asking the original question to the final stage of answering that question.

In practical terms, it’s a good idea to write this section up last , once all your core chapters are complete. Otherwise, you’ll end up writing and rewriting this section multiple times (just wasting time). For a step by step guide on how to write a strong executive summary, check out this post .

Need a helping hand?

Table of contents

This section is straightforward. You’ll typically present your table of contents (TOC) first, followed by the two lists – figures and tables. I recommend that you use Microsoft Word’s automatic table of contents generator to generate your TOC. If you’re not familiar with this functionality, the video below explains it simply:

If you find that your table of contents is overly lengthy, consider removing one level of depth. Oftentimes, this can be done without detracting from the usefulness of the TOC.

Right, now that the “admin” sections are out of the way, its time to move on to your core chapters. These chapters are the heart of your dissertation and are where you’ll earn the marks. The first chapter is the introduction chapter – as you would expect, this is the time to introduce your research…

It’s important to understand that even though you’ve provided an overview of your research in your abstract, your introduction needs to be written as if the reader has not read that (remember, the abstract is essentially a standalone document). So, your introduction chapter needs to start from the very beginning, and should address the following questions:

• What will you be investigating (in plain-language, big picture-level)?
• Why is that worth investigating? How is it important to academia or business? How is it sufficiently original?
• What are your research aims and research question(s)? Note that the research questions can sometimes be presented at the end of the literature review (next chapter).
• What is the scope of your study? In other words, what will and won’t you cover ?
• How will you approach your research? In other words, what methodology will you adopt?
• How will you structure your dissertation? What are the core chapters and what will you do in each of them?

These are just the bare basic requirements for your intro chapter. Some universities will want additional bells and whistles in the intro chapter, so be sure to carefully read your brief or consult your research supervisor.

If done right, your introduction chapter will set a clear direction for the rest of your dissertation. Specifically, it will make it clear to the reader (and marker) exactly what you’ll be investigating, why that’s important, and how you’ll be going about the investigation. Conversely, if your introduction chapter leaves a first-time reader wondering what exactly you’ll be researching, you’ve still got some work to do.

Now that you’ve set a clear direction with your introduction chapter, the next step is the literature review . In this section, you will analyse the existing research (typically academic journal articles and high-quality industry publications), with a view to understanding the following questions:

• What does the literature currently say about the topic you’re investigating?
• Is the literature lacking or well established? Is it divided or in disagreement?
• How does your research fit into the bigger picture?
• How does your research contribute something original?
• How does the methodology of previous studies help you develop your own?

Depending on the nature of your study, you may also present a conceptual framework towards the end of your literature review, which you will then test in your actual research.

Again, some universities will want you to focus on some of these areas more than others, some will have additional or fewer requirements, and so on. Therefore, as always, its important to review your brief and/or discuss with your supervisor, so that you know exactly what’s expected of your literature review chapter.

Now that you’ve investigated the current state of knowledge in your literature review chapter and are familiar with the existing key theories, models and frameworks, its time to design your own research. Enter the methodology chapter – the most “science-ey” of the chapters…

In this chapter, you need to address two critical questions:

• Exactly HOW will you carry out your research (i.e. what is your intended research design)?
• Exactly WHY have you chosen to do things this way (i.e. how do you justify your design)?

Remember, the dissertation part of your degree is first and foremost about developing and demonstrating research skills . Therefore, the markers want to see that you know which methods to use, can clearly articulate why you’ve chosen then, and know how to deploy them effectively.

Importantly, this chapter requires detail – don’t hold back on the specifics. State exactly what you’ll be doing, with who, when, for how long, etc. Moreover, for every design choice you make, make sure you justify it.

In practice, you will likely end up coming back to this chapter once you’ve undertaken all your data collection and analysis, and revise it based on changes you made during the analysis phase. This is perfectly fine. Its natural for you to add an additional analysis technique, scrap an old one, etc based on where your data lead you. Of course, I’m talking about small changes here – not a fundamental switch from qualitative to quantitative, which will likely send your supervisor in a spin!

You’ve now collected your data and undertaken your analysis, whether qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods. In this chapter, you’ll present the raw results of your analysis . For example, in the case of a quant study, you’ll present the demographic data, descriptive statistics, inferential statistics , etc.

Typically, Chapter 4 is simply a presentation and description of the data, not a discussion of the meaning of the data. In other words, it’s descriptive, rather than analytical – the meaning is discussed in Chapter 5. However, some universities will want you to combine chapters 4 and 5, so that you both present and interpret the meaning of the data at the same time. Check with your institution what their preference is.

Now that you’ve presented the data analysis results, its time to interpret and analyse them. In other words, its time to discuss what they mean, especially in relation to your research question(s).

What you discuss here will depend largely on your chosen methodology. For example, if you’ve gone the quantitative route, you might discuss the relationships between variables . If you’ve gone the qualitative route, you might discuss key themes and the meanings thereof. It all depends on what your research design choices were.

Most importantly, you need to discuss your results in relation to your research questions and aims, as well as the existing literature. What do the results tell you about your research questions? Are they aligned with the existing research or at odds? If so, why might this be? Dig deep into your findings and explain what the findings suggest, in plain English.

The final chapter – you’ve made it! Now that you’ve discussed your interpretation of the results, its time to bring it back to the beginning with the conclusion chapter . In other words, its time to (attempt to) answer your original research question s (from way back in chapter 1). Clearly state what your conclusions are in terms of your research questions. This might feel a bit repetitive, as you would have touched on this in the previous chapter, but its important to bring the discussion full circle and explicitly state your answer(s) to the research question(s).

Next, you’ll typically discuss the implications of your findings . In other words, you’ve answered your research questions – but what does this mean for the real world (or even for academia)? What should now be done differently, given the new insight you’ve generated?

Lastly, you should discuss the limitations of your research, as well as what this means for future research in the area. No study is perfect, especially not a Masters-level. Discuss the shortcomings of your research. Perhaps your methodology was limited, perhaps your sample size was small or not representative, etc, etc. Don’t be afraid to critique your work – the markers want to see that you can identify the limitations of your work. This is a strength, not a weakness. Be brutal!

This marks the end of your core chapters – woohoo! From here on out, it’s pretty smooth sailing.

The reference list is straightforward. It should contain a list of all resources cited in your dissertation, in the required format, e.g. APA , Harvard, etc.

It’s essential that you use reference management software for your dissertation. Do NOT try handle your referencing manually – its far too error prone. On a reference list of multiple pages, you’re going to make mistake. To this end, I suggest considering either Mendeley or Zotero. Both are free and provide a very straightforward interface to ensure that your referencing is 100% on point. I’ve included a simple how-to video for the Mendeley software (my personal favourite) below:

Some universities may ask you to include a bibliography, as opposed to a reference list. These two things are not the same . A bibliography is similar to a reference list, except that it also includes resources which informed your thinking but were not directly cited in your dissertation. So, double-check your brief and make sure you use the right one.

The very last piece of the puzzle is the appendix or set of appendices. This is where you’ll include any supporting data and evidence. Importantly, supporting is the keyword here.

Your appendices should provide additional “nice to know”, depth-adding information, which is not critical to the core analysis. Appendices should not be used as a way to cut down word count (see this post which covers how to reduce word count ). In other words, don’t place content that is critical to the core analysis here, just to save word count. You will not earn marks on any content in the appendices, so don’t try to play the system!

Time to recap…

And there you have it – the traditional dissertation structure and layout, from A-Z. To recap, the core structure for a dissertation or thesis is (typically) as follows:

• Acknowledgments page

Most importantly, the core chapters should reflect the research process (asking, investigating and answering your research question). Moreover, the research question(s) should form the golden thread throughout your dissertation structure. Everything should revolve around the research questions, and as you’ve seen, they should form both the start point (i.e. introduction chapter) and the endpoint (i.e. conclusion chapter).

I hope this post has provided you with clarity about the traditional dissertation/thesis structure and layout. If you have any questions or comments, please leave a comment below, or feel free to get in touch with us. Also, be sure to check out the rest of the  Grad Coach Blog .

Psst... there’s more!

This post was based on one of our popular Research Bootcamps . If you're working on a research project, you'll definitely want to check this out ...

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36 Comments

many thanks i found it very useful

Glad to hear that, Arun. Good luck writing your dissertation.

Such clear practical logical advice. I very much needed to read this to keep me focused in stead of fretting.. Perfect now ready to start my research!

what about scientific fields like computer or engineering thesis what is the difference in the structure? thank you very much

Thanks so much this helped me a lot!

Very helpful and accessible. What I like most is how practical the advice is along with helpful tools/ links.

Thanks Ade!

Thank you so much sir.. It was really helpful..

You’re welcome!

Hi! How many words maximum should contain the abstract?

Thank you so much 😊 Find this at the right moment

You’re most welcome. Good luck with your dissertation.

best ever benefit i got on right time thank you

Many times Clarity and vision of destination of dissertation is what makes the difference between good ,average and great researchers the same way a great automobile driver is fast with clarity of address and Clear weather conditions .

I guess Great researcher = great ideas + knowledge + great and fast data collection and modeling + great writing + high clarity on all these

You have given immense clarity from start to end.

Morning. Where will I write the definitions of what I’m referring to in my report?

Thank you so much Derek, I was almost lost! Thanks a tonnnn! Have a great day!

Thanks ! so concise and valuable

This was very helpful. Clear and concise. I know exactly what to do now.

Thank you for allowing me to go through briefly. I hope to find time to continue.

Really useful to me. Thanks a thousand times

Very interesting! It will definitely set me and many more for success. highly recommended.

Thank you soo much sir, for the opportunity to express my skills

Usefull, thanks a lot. Really clear

Very nice and easy to understand. Thank you .

That was incredibly useful. Thanks Grad Coach Crew!

My stress level just dropped at least 15 points after watching this. Just starting my thesis for my grad program and I feel a lot more capable now! Thanks for such a clear and helpful video, Emma and the GradCoach team!

Do we need to mention the number of words the dissertation contains in the main document?

It depends on your university’s requirements, so it would be best to check with them 🙂

Such a helpful post to help me get started with structuring my masters dissertation, thank you!

Great video; I appreciate that helpful information

It is so necessary or avital course

This blog is very informative for my research. Thank you

Doctoral students are required to fill out the National Research Council’s Survey of Earned Doctorates

wow this is an amazing gain in my life

This is so good

How can i arrange my specific objectives in my dissertation?

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How to tackle the PhD dissertation

Finding time to write can be a challenge for graduate students who often juggle multiple roles and responsibilities. Mabel Ho provides some tips to make the process less daunting

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Is it time to turn off turnitin, use ai to get your students thinking critically, taming anxiety around public speaking, emotions and learning: what role do emotions play in how and why students learn.

Writing helps you share your work with the wider community. Your scholarship is important and you are making a valuable contribution to the field. While it might be intimidating to face a blank screen, remember, your first draft is not your final draft! The difficult part is getting something on the page to begin with. 

As the adage goes, a good dissertation is a done dissertation, and the goal is for you to find balance in your writing and establish the steps you can take to make the process smoother. Here are some practical strategies for tackling the PhD dissertation.

Write daily

This is a time to have honest conversations with yourself about your writing and work habits. Do you tackle the most challenging work in the morning? Or do you usually start with emails? Knowing your work routine will help you set parameters for the writing process, which includes various elements, from brainstorming ideas to setting outlines and editing. Once you are aware of your energy and focus levels, you’ll be ready to dedicate those times to writing.

While it might be tempting to block a substantial chunk of time to write and assume anything shorter is not useful, that is not the case. Writing daily, whether it’s a paragraph or several pages, keeps you in conversation with your writing practice. If you schedule two hours to write, remember to take a break during that time and reset. You can try:

• The Pomodoro Technique: a time management technique that breaks down your work into intervals
• Taking breaks: go outside for a walk or have a snack so you can come back to your writing rejuvenated
• Focus apps: it is easy to get distracted by devices and lose direction. Here are some app suggestions: Focus Bear (no free version); Forest (free version available); Cold Turkey website blocker (free version available) and Serene (no free version). 

This is a valuable opportunity to hone your time management and task prioritisation skills. Find out what works for you and put systems in place to support your practice. 

• Resources on academic writing for higher education professionals
• Stretch your work further by ‘triple writing’
• What is your academic writing temperament?

Create a community

While writing can be an isolating endeavour, there are ways to start forming a community (in-person or virtual) to help you set goals and stay accountable. There might be someone in your cohort who is also at the writing stage with whom you can set up a weekly check-in. Alternatively, explore your university’s resources and centres because there may be units and departments on campus that offer helpful opportunities, such as a writing week or retreat. Taking advantage of these opportunities helps combat isolation, foster accountability and grow networks. They can even lead to collaborations further down the line.

• Check in with your advisers and mentors. Reach out to your networks to find out about other people’s writing processes and additional resources.
• Don’t be afraid to share your work. Writing requires constant revisions and edits and finding people who you trust with feedback will help you grow as a writer. Plus, you can also read their work and help them with their editing process.
• Your community does not have to be just about writing!  If you enjoy going on hikes or trying new coffee shops, make that part of your weekly habit.  Sharing your work in different environments will help clarify your thoughts and ideas.

Address the why

The PhD dissertation writing process is often lengthy and it is sometimes easy to forget why you started. In these moments, it can be helpful to think back to what got you excited about your research and scholarship in the first place. Remember it is not just the work but also the people who propelled you forward. One idea is to start writing your “acknowledgements” section. Here are questions to get you started:

• Do you want to dedicate your work to someone? 
• What ideas sparked your interest in this journey? 
• Who cheered you on? 

This practice can help build momentum, as well as serve as a good reminder to carve out time to spend with your community. 

You got this!

Writing is a process. Give yourself grace, as you might not feel motivated all the time. Be consistent in your approach and reward yourself along the way. There is no single strategy when it comes to writing or maintaining motivation, so experiment and find out what works for you. 

Suggested readings

• Thriving as a Graduate Writer by Rachel Cayley (2023)
• Destination Dissertation by Sonja K. Foss and William Waters (2015)
• The PhD Writing Handbook by Desmond Thomas (2016).

Mabel Ho is director of professional development and student engagement at Dalhousie University.

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/images/cornell/logo35pt_cornell_white.svg" alt="good dissertation is a done dissertation"> Cornell University --> Graduate School

Guide to writing your thesis/dissertation, definition of dissertation and thesis.

The dissertation or thesis is a scholarly treatise that substantiates a specific point of view as a result of original research that is conducted by students during their graduate study. At Cornell, the thesis is a requirement for the receipt of the M.A. and M.S. degrees and some professional master’s degrees. The dissertation is a requirement of the Ph.D. degree.

Formatting Requirement and Standards

The Graduate School sets the minimum format for your thesis or dissertation, while you, your special committee, and your advisor/chair decide upon the content and length. Grammar, punctuation, spelling, and other mechanical issues are your sole responsibility. Generally, the thesis and dissertation should conform to the standards of leading academic journals in your field. The Graduate School does not monitor the thesis or dissertation for mechanics, content, or style.

“Papers Option” Dissertation or Thesis

A “papers option” is available only to students in certain fields, which are listed on the Fields Permitting the Use of Papers Option page , or by approved petition. If you choose the papers option, your dissertation or thesis is organized as a series of relatively independent chapters or papers that you have submitted or will be submitting to journals in the field. You must be the only author or the first author of the papers to be used in the dissertation. The papers-option dissertation or thesis must meet all format and submission requirements, and a singular referencing convention must be used throughout.

ProQuest Electronic Submissions

The dissertation and thesis become permanent records of your original research, and in the case of doctoral research, the Graduate School requires publication of the dissertation and abstract in its original form. All Cornell master’s theses and doctoral dissertations require an electronic submission through ProQuest, which fills orders for paper or digital copies of the thesis and dissertation and makes a digital version available online via their subscription database, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses . For master’s theses, only the abstract is available. ProQuest provides worldwide distribution of your work from the master copy. You retain control over your dissertation and are free to grant publishing rights as you see fit. The formatting requirements contained in this guide meet all ProQuest specifications.

Copies of Dissertation and Thesis

Copies of Ph.D. dissertations and master’s theses are also uploaded in PDF format to the Cornell Library Repository, eCommons . A print copy of each master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation is submitted to Cornell University Library by ProQuest.

Notes From a Writer's Desk: Demystifying the Dissertation Finish Line

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As a doctoral candidate in your final year, you’re likely juggling various responsibilities—finishing the dissertation, navigating the job market, completing lab work, possibly teaching, and trying to maintain some semblance of a personal life. In these last few months of the dissertation process, the journey can range from feeling like a well-oiled machine to experiencing well-ordered chaos. Amidst this whirlwind, it is crucial to establish clear expectations with your committee and prioritize tasks to ensure success on the road to graduation. As you try to manage your academic and personal obligations, a primary step is to plot out your remaining time and strategize how to allocate that time effectively. Consider breaking down your time into reasonable chunks, dedicating specific periods to producing the final draft(s) and making revisions, preparing for the defense, and formatting your dissertation document for submission.

Final draft(s) and revisions

Take inventory of the revisions you still need to make for your dissertation. Prioritize tasks based on their importance and feasibility within your timeline. For example, you may need to incorporate additional critical literature into various chapters, clean up citations and your bibliography, build in transitions that move between chapters, alter the structure of a couple of sections within a chapter, and/or hone the framing of your goals and argument(s) in your introduction. Set aside specific time for each of these revisions, thinking about which ones will require the most attention and which you can accomplish when you are less focused. Furthermore, seek out feedback from your advisor and committee members to ensure that your work meets the prescribed standards. Remember that maintaining clear communication with your advisor is essential for a smoother final stretch, especially if you find yourself needing to make compromises in order to meet deadlines. 

Preparing for the defense

Depending on your department’s requirements, the dissertation defense may take various forms. Many defenses will be public presentations, in which the candidate is given the chance to present their research to an audience of peers, members of the faculty, and their committee. Others might be a private final conversation with your committee. Reach out to the committee and to your department administrator to make sure that you are all on the same page. But no matter what kind of defense you have, preparation is key. Practice your presentation (perhaps with us at the FWC!), anticipate potential questions, identify areas you hope to improve upon or develop further in future iterations of the project, and ensure that you are well-versed in discussing and defending your research. Finally, make sure to schedule your defense with ample time before the submission deadline—ideally two or three weeks—to allow you to address any late-stage revisions, including crucial questions that might be brought up at the defense itself.

Submission process

Staggering the defense and submission dates will also provide sufficient time to format your dissertation according to the  registrar’s guidelines . Familiarizing yourself with the formatting requirements early on in the process will help minimize stress during the brief post-defense period. Pay close attention to the guidelines regarding the Dissertation Acceptance Certificate (DAC) and the document’s front matter, including the title page, copyright page, abstract, table of contents, acknowledgements, and any lists of illustrations or figures you may require. Strive to submit your dissertation earlier than the deadline just in case you need to make minor adjustments based on feedback from the registrar.

Long-term considerations

Remember to think carefully about your long-term plans for the material in your dissertation. Are you planning to revise the entire dissertation for publication as a monograph? Or are you going to publish elements of it in a series of articles? Should you embargo your work, and if so, for how long? This should also prompt some reflection on how your dissertation will fit into your broader academic and professional goals.

As you approach the dissertation finish line, remember that it is not just about reaching the end and checking that last box. It should be a celebration of your academic journey and the achievements you have amassed along the way. By formulating a well-structured plan, you can navigate these last few months with confidence and alleviate at least some of the stresses of the home stretch. And trust me, once you hit the submit button and get that final confirmation email—after, of course, the inevitable email asking you to fix a formatting issue—you will feel an immense weight lifted from your shoulders.

Ready to book an appointment with FWC staff? Access the  FWC intake form .

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The “Good Enough” Dissertation

February 24, 2019

BY MICHAL LEMBERGER, PHD, DISSERTATION COACH “The best dissertation is a finished dissertation.” “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” Spend enough time in graduate school, and you’ll hear both of these truisms at least once. Probably many more times once you start on the road toward writing your dissertation.

Alison Miller, PhD, owner of The Dissertation Coach, has written about the danger of perfectionism . In dissertation writing, as in life, perfectionism—the need for every sentence to be nailed down and correct before being able to move on, for example—is a recipe for never finishing. There’s no such thing as a perfect sentence. Or a perfect chapter. There’s no such thing as perfection. We all know it. The trap writers, including those writing dissertations, sometimes fall into is that they acknowledge that perfection is out of reach, but then replace that with the idea of “greatness.”

The thought goes something like this: “I may not be able to produce a perfect dissertation, but I want to write a great one. My dissertation will redefine my field. It will make a name for me that will precede me everywhere I go. My dissertation will be great, which will prove how great I am.” It may seem like an exaggeration to write that thought out in such simplistic terms. Putting things that way seems to ignore the fact that most people who embark on the graduate student path temper their desire for greatness with an equally (or almost equally) substantial sense of self-doubt. We want to be great; we’re afraid we never will be.

Too much self-doubt can hobble a person. Writing a dissertation—embarking on any challenging project or endeavor—requires some modicum of self-confidence, and it’s important to try to cultivate a healthy sense of belief in oneself. But self-doubt is regularly derided in our culture. We are told from a very young age to be bold. To stand up for ourselves. To dream big. We are told to conquer self-doubt. Greatness, on the other hand, is celebrated. We venerate child prodigies and singular geniuses. We are told, to quote Hamilton: the Musical that “greatness lies in you.”

GOOD ENOUGH

As a recent op-ed in the New York Times, “The Good Enough Life,” Avram Alpert , shows the ways in which the ideology of greatness cuts across historical eras and political differences. Alpert writes about the philosophical underpinnings of the notion of greatness, and he offers systems of belief that counter it by positing what he calls the “good enough life.” Although Alpert writes about a general attitude toward the experience of living, his ideas can be applied to graduate school and writing a dissertation. For the most part, those of us who are drawn to pursuing graduate studies excelled in college. We may have been at the top of our classes in high school, too. We studied hard and were rewarded for it. We were, according to the standards that judges undergraduates, great.

Then we get to graduate school, and the stakes get higher. We are surrounded by people who were just as great at their colleges as we were at ours. Our professors hold us to more rigorous standards. Our futures depend upon writing a dissertation that stands out from the crowd. We start to think that it has to be great. We have to be great. What gets lost is Alpert’s notion of “good enough.” Good enough is not another way of saying “mediocre”. On the contrary, to approach a dissertation with a “good enough” attitude is to understand the dissertation for what it is: not the opus that will define a person’s intellectual life. Not the final word a scholar will say.

A dissertation is a scholar’s first word. It is the graduate student’s chance to enter a conversation about a field, whether it be literature or history or physics, that has been going on before he came on the scene and will continue after she’s gone. It is hard to give up the idea of greatness. Writing a dissertation, after all, is a significant undertaking. It’s also the first time most people will take on a project of that size. And no one wants to think of himself as just ok. But that’s not what “good enough” means, in philosophy or dissertation writing.

Good enough means redefining “great” away from grandiose notions of importance, and replacing them with beliefs about the value of the work. Acknowledging that can remind the writer of why her topic interested her, of what drew him to study it in such depth. It can, in other words, allow some room for the intellectual joy that attracted the person to graduate school in the first place.

In his op-ed, Alpert talks about the Romantic poets and philosophers who “extend this vision of good-enoughness to embrace what they would call ‘the ordinary’ or ‘the everyday.’ This does not refer to the everyday annoyances or anxieties we experience, but the fact that within what is most ordinary, most basic and most familiar, we might find a delight unimaginable if we find meaning only in greatness.”

Striving to make your dissertation singularly great raises the stakes higher than they need to be. It puts an anvil’s weight of pressure onto the dissertation, weight that the project can’t sustain. It is that impractical expectation that can unintentionally lead to the self-doubt that we’re more used to focusing on when thinking about the difficulties of writing a dissertation. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, ratcheting down the meaning and value of greatness can end up helping boost a person’s self-confidence. And that is the best way to get to a finished dissertation, which is, after all, the best kind of dissertation.

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Graduate view: Why a dissertation can boost your employability

Can a good undergraduate dissertation still make a difference? I'd like to think so.

Imagine you are a student. You go to a respectable university, it's not a world beater but it does the job. Your parents are definitely still proud of you, at least.

But one night, halfway through the summer between your second and final year, you wake up in a cold sweat, with the rather unnerving epiphany that you have a negligible amount of relevant work experience and the saddening realisation that you are not, unfortunately, an Oxbridge superstar with an army of industry contacts, who is a shoe in to the world of high-flying graduate employment.

How then, are you going to pull that all important acceptance email to a grad scheme out the bag (while keeping your mum proud)? How much can you really pack in to those last nine-ish months to turn your fortunes around? Especially in a climate where, if conventional wisdom is to be believed, most of us are up the proverbial. Well, over the course of this year, I intend to find out myself.

In fact, I refuse to bow my head to such scaremongering. If this sounds like you, console yourself with the fact that you are not the only one. In the eyes of academia, I'm considered average too! But fear not, we can dazzle those prospective employers yet with the stalwart of our degrees. The almighty spearhead of our academic arsenal, the dissertation. Honestly.

I am not belittling other extra-curricular methods of attaining that first step on the career ladder. Most of the research I have done personally points to a placement year or a summer internship being the stairways to graduate heaven. But as many of you may well know by now, such placements are like gold dust where similar processes are implemented for internship applications to actual grad scheme applications, and you sometimes need a degree just to fill one out.

It may be obvious, but I'd like to think, as I start to undertake my own dissertation, that in a few years time I can look back on it and think, yes, that counted for something.

When I asked a friend of mine, who had already secured a job as a trainee at one of the Big Four accountancy firms, what he thought of the value of a dissertation when it comes to employability, the answer was not what I hoped. He seemed to think that in cold light of the day it would make a minimal impact on my chances.

We agreed to disagree. Maybe a mediocre piece of half-baked research wasn't going to get any HR manager salivating. But the same cannot be said for a first class piece of innovative and clinical analysis, can it?

Prior to attending university I had no idea that it was not compulsory to undertake a dissertation and, although I personally have persevered to write one, many of my friends have opted not to do so. In my mind, I have always thought a dissertation was the pinnacle of any undergraduate degree, where you finally get to research a topic of sincere personal interest to you, hopefully, with the additional outcome of proving to be of some passable academic merit in the process.

Reassuringly, I have been led to believe, by my own dissertation supervisor, that a well-researched piece of "quantitative analysis" shows commitment, perseverance, self motivation, independent study, initiative and critical thinking; surely all the essential elements to establishing your competency as a viable candidate for any graduate position? Although, maybe he was just being nice.

Surely a well-written postgraduate thesis, with a topic relevant to a prospective employer, could be the deal-maker; potentially placing you ahead other candidates.

Similarly, it may not be as dense as a masters dissertation, but there can't be any harm in gearing your research topic towards the vocation you are interested in taking up in the future. Wouldn't this clearly demonstrate that you have shown a serious interest in a prospective sector prior to undertaking the graduate job search?

Let me know what you think, I'd like to get a wider perspective on the collective chances of this years graduate hopefuls.

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Recent projections, delegate tracker, maryland, west virginia and nebraska primaries 2024: live results and analysis, teen walks at graduation after completing doctoral degree at 17.

Dorothy Jean Tillman II was 10 when she entered college as a freshman.

A teenager from Chicago walked in her graduation ceremony this month after earning her doctoral degree at 17.

Dorothy Jean Tillman II told " Good Morning America " that she was homeschooled in her early years before entering college at age 10.

In 2020, she said she earned a Master of Science degree, and then, one year later, at age 15, was accepted into the Doctorate of Behavioral Health Management program at Arizona State University.

In December 2023, at 17, Tillman successfully defended her dissertation to earn her doctoral degree in integrated behavioral health from ASU's College of Health Solutions.

On May 6, she walked at ASU's spring commencement ceremony.

Tillman told "GMA" she has always held education in such high regard in part due to her family's background.

"People in my life like my grandmother, who was part of the Civil Rights movement, she of course harped on the importance of education and consistently learning something always," Tillman said. "But the way I always held education so high on my own, aside from being raised that way, was finding different things to be educated about."

She continued, "I feel like that urge to learn something new just never didn't exist for me."

Teen who battled leukemia and homelessness as a child graduates college at 18

Dr. Lesley Manson, a clinical associate professor at ASU, told "GMA" that Tillman is the youngest person in school history to earn a doctoral degree in integrated behavioral health.

Manson said she oversaw Tillman's dissertation for the doctoral program offered through ASU Online.

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During her studies, Tillman wrote a journal article of her dissertation and completed an internship at a university student health center, according to Manson.

"She really led change and worked on different forms of management to really reduce healthcare stigma and improve that student population there to be able to enter and accept student health services," she said of Tillman. "It was wonderful to see her and help her navigate some of those personal and professional interactions and grow through those experiences."

Manson described Tillman as an "inquisitive" and "innovative" student, and emphasized just how rare it is to accomplish what she has so far.

"It's a wonderful celebration ... but this is still something so rare and unique," she said. "She has innovative ideas and motivation, which is wonderful, and truly, I think what is inspiring is that she embodies that meaning of being a true leader."

Manson said she hopes Tillman continues to inspire people with her love of learning, saying, "That curiosity is always there, and I think all learners come with that, but it's great to be able to see it in someone so young as well."

Her inspiration and how she gives back to community

Tillman said her own journey wouldn't be possible without the support of her mom, who she said is one of her biggest motivators.

"Seeing my mother consistently work so hard to continuously uphold our family's legacy, and be that person that everyone was able to go to, if they needed anything ... always seeing [her] like [a] 'wonder woman' definitely made me want to grow up [into] an accomplished person," she said.

An advocate for education, Tillman is also the founder and CEO of a leadership institute that emphasizes the arts and STEM.

"I feel like adding art and putting a focus on it throughout science, technology, engineering and math makes the kids excited to learn all those things," she said. "And it opens them up to all of the possibilities and all the knowledge provided in that area of just STEM."

'Super dad' graduates with master's while working 3 jobs

As for her plans after graduation, Tillman said she is "just like any other teenager, still figuring out what my specific dreams and goals are."

"I'm really just grateful that the world is my oyster, and that I've done so much so young," she said. "And I have time to kind of think that through."

Tillman added that she hopes young people will take away from her story that it's OK to continually figure out what you want to do in life.

"Always remember that everyone has points in their life where they feel like they're figuring it out," she said. "And so figuring things out, not knowing what you want isn't a bad thing. But making the choice not to sit down and try to figure it out is."

Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional quotes from Tillman since its original publish date of May 13, 2024.

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Amtrak, NJ Transit announce new Portal North Bridge halfway complete and on budget

Amtrak and New Jersey Transit announced Monday that the new Portal North Bridge is halfway complete.

It is the biggest transportation project in the nation, they said, and it is making good progress.

While trains are still running over the old Portal Bridge, the passengers can see what will be the new bridge and catch a glimpse of the future taking shape.

The steel and concrete girders are in place, creating a new pathway for New Jersey Transit and Amtrak trains to travel on in the future.

The replacement of the 114-year-old Portal North Bridge kicked off in August 2022.

Not only is the work moving forward but the hope is this large project may come in under the massive $1.5 billion budget.

Today those in charge took time out to celebrate this accomplishment.

"There's a myth that you can't do big projects, megaprojects, in the Northeast region on time and in budget... and we are proving that wrong with this project," said Kevin Corbett, President and CEO, NJ Transit. "The progress that we have made with our partners at Amtrak - really, Stephen Gardner as an ally - is really remarkable, and I think is a testimony to that cooperation."

This project needed the support of the federal government and state and local leaders and the funding from the president's massive bi-partisan infrastructure legislation.

Some 400 workers are at the project daily and their efforts are paying off.

If the weather holds up and there are no major delays, the hope is the official opening of the new and improved portal bridge will take place in 2026.

It will ultimately make it possible for riders to get to work - and most importantly, to get home to be with family - on time.

ALSO READ | Rutgers doctoral student gives birth on same day she defends dissertation

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