1、How to Write a DissertationIn English 黄国文黄国文 M.Ghadessy高等教育出版社Introduction10.1Creating the overall plan10.2Outlines and section headings10.3The proportional suggestion10.4Chapter 10Writing(3):Writing and RevisingDeveloping the first draft and possible problems10.5Researching before writing10.6Revisi
2、ng the first draft10.7Summary10.8Exercises10.910.1 IntroductionHow to write a dissertation in English The purpose of this chapter is to deal with issues concerning the writing and revising of the dissertation.Before you start to write,you should have created the overall plan for the dissertation.One
3、 thing that needs to be done before you begin to write is to work on an outline,as detailed as possible,which should include the main points in each section and chapter.As the different elements of structure in the dissertation have different functions and play different roles in the dissertation,we
4、 suggest that a dissertation,like a house or a building,should have a proportional structure,which means that the researcher should be clear about the general length of each chapter.In this chapter we will also predict and analyse the possible problems that young researchers may encounter when he is
5、 writing the first draft,and we will suggest that research must be completed before you start to write.Finally,we will talk about the revision of the first draft,advising young researchers to pay attention to both content and form.10.110.210.310.410.5 10.610.710.8 10.910.2 Creating the overall planH
6、ow to write a dissertation in English In a number of places,we suggest that a dissertation is like a house in that both have obligatory and optional elements of structure.We also suggest that the following elements are generally found in a dissertation:(1)Title,author,matriculation number,tutor,affi
7、liation,year of submission,etc.,(2)Abstract,one in Chinese,one in English;key words,(3)Introduction,which includes brief information concerning the research background,the aims and objectives,research questions,research method,theoretical framework,data,the structure of the dissertation,(4)Literatur
8、e review and theoretical preliminaries,(5)Research method,data analysis,(6)Results and discussion,(7)Conclusion,and(8)Notes,Appendix,References,Acknowledgements.In previous chapters(especially Chapters 3,5,6,7,8,9,10),we dealt with many of the elements in our discussion,some briefly and some in more
9、 detail,and in one of the10.110.210.310.410.5 10.610.710.8 10.910.2 Creating the overall planHow to write a dissertation in Englishexercises in Chapter 8 a sample table of contents of an MA dissertation was provided.Here our focus is on the final outline of a dissertation.10.110.210.310.410.5 10.610
10、.710.8 10.910.3 Outlines and section headingsHow to write a dissertation in English There are basically two formats for an outline,one being the decimal pattern and the other the number-letter sequence.For example,(a)Decimal pattern1.Introduction1.1 Rationale for the study1.2 Aims and research quest
11、ions1.2.1 Aims and objectives1.2.1.1 General aims1.2.1.2 Specific objectives1.2.2 Research questions1.2.2.1 Thesis statement1.2.2.2 Research questions and research objectives1.3 Data and research method1.3.1 Data and data collection1.3.2 Research method1.4 Structure of the dissertation2.Literature r
12、eview.10.110.210.310.410.5 10.610.710.8 10.910.3 Outlines and section headingsHow to write a dissertation in English(b)Number-letter sequenceI.IntroductionA.Rationale for the studyB.Aims and research questions 1.Aims and objectivesa.General aimsb.Specific objectives 2.Research questionsa.Thesis stat
13、ementb.Research questions and research objectivesC.Data and research method 1.Data and data collection 2.Research methodD.Structure of the dissertationII.Literature review 10.110.210.310.410.5 10.610.710.8 10.910.3 Outlines and section headingsHow to write a dissertation in English With the decimal
14、pattern,the numbering is like this:1.1.11.1.11.1.1.11.1.1.1.11.1.1.1.1.11.1.1.1.1.1.1 With the number-letter sequence,you have:I.A.1.a.(1)(a)i)The table of contents in your final version of the dissertation looks like the outline here,but in most cases it is not as detailed as the outline,since the
15、latter is designed to be as detailed as possible for the writing plan so that no important points are missed orleft out.10.110.210.310.410.5 10.610.710.8 10.910.3 Outlines and section headingsHow to write a dissertation in English If you follow the decimal pattern in organizing your dissertation,Cha
16、pter One of your dissertation may look like the following:Chapter 1:Introduction1.1 Rationale for the study1.2 Aims and research questions1.3 Data and research method1.4 Structure of the dissertation If you compare the chapter and section headings suggested here with the decimal outline presented ea
17、rlier,you can see that the outline is more detailed and specific.Recall that in Chapters 4,5,6,and 8 we used the example of researching on the tense forms in the as if clause.If we want to work on this topic,the decimal outline of10.110.210.310.410.5 10.610.710.8 10.910.3 Outlines and section headin
18、gsHow to write a dissertation in EnglishChapter 2 will look like the following:2.Literature Review2.1 Introduction2.2 Analyses in traditional and pedagogical grammars2.2.1 Fowler and Folwer(1906)2.2.1.1 Influences from Latin and Greek2.2.1.2 Data and description2.2.2 Poutsma(1916)2.2.2.1 2.2.2.2 2.2
19、.3 Jespersen(1928)2.2.3.1 2.2.3.2 2.2.4 Pedagogical grammars2.2.4.1 2.2.4.2 10.110.210.310.410.5 10.610.710.8 10.910.3 Outlines and section headingsHow to write a dissertation in English2.3 Meaning-based studies2.3.1 Wood(1969)and Close(1975)2.3.1.1 2.3.1.2 2.3.2 Quirk et al.(1972,1985)2.3.3 Other s
20、tudies2.4 Corpus-based studies2.4.1 Biber et al.(1999)2.4.1.1 2.4.1.2 2.4.2 Huddleston and Pullum(2002)2.4.3 Carter and McCarthy(2006)2.4.4 Other studies10.110.210.310.410.5 10.610.710.8 10.910.3 Outlines and section headingsHow to write a dissertation in English2.5 Evaluation of the existing analys
21、es2.5.1 Linguistic facts and linguistics descriptions2.5.1.1 2.5.1.2 2.5.2 Relationships between form and meaning2.5.3 A functional view of language2.6 Summary10.110.210.310.410.5 10.610.710.8 10.910.3 Outlines and section headingsHow to write a dissertation in English This detailed outline can be r
22、evised and modified so that it will form part of the table of contents in the final dissertation:Chapter 2:Literature Review2.1 Introduction2.2 Analyses in traditional and pedagogical grammars2.2.1 Fowler and Folwer(1906)2.2.2 Poutsma(1916)2.2.3 Jespersen(1928)2.2.4 Pedagogical grammars2.3 Meaning-b
23、ased studies2.3.1 Wood(1969)and Close(1975)2.3.2 Quirk et al.(1972,1985)2.3.3 Other studies10.110.210.310.410.5 10.610.710.8 10.910.3 Outlines and section headingsHow to write a dissertation in English2.4 Corpus-based studies2.4.1 Biber et al.(1999)2.4.2 Huddleston and Pullum(2002)2.4.3 Carter and M
24、cCarthy(2006)2.4.4 Other studies2.5 Evaluation of the existing analyses2.5.1 Linguistic facts and linguistics descriptions2.5.2 Relationships between form and meaning2.5.3 A functional view of language2.6 Summary10.110.210.310.410.5 10.610.710.8 10.910.3 Outlines and section headingsHow to write a d
25、issertation in English For the table of contents in a BA dissertation,we feel that the above version is a bit too complicated and that it may be simplified by only having the major headings:Chapter 2:Literature Review2.1 Introduction2.2 Analyses in traditional and pedagogical grammars2.3 Meaning-bas
26、ed studies2.4 Corpus-based studies2.5 Evaluation of the existing analyses2.6 Summary The reason for having a detailed outline is that on the one hand we do not want to miss any important points and on the other we want to be sure that we have sufficient content in each section.By contrast,having too
27、 detailed a table of contents will distract10.110.210.310.410.5 10.610.710.8 10.910.3 Outlines and section headingsHow to write a dissertation in Englishthe readers attention and the whole dissertation will look untidy.The outline of the concluding chapter will be formulaic in that almost every piec
28、e of work will have more or less the same components.In Section 8.9 of Chapter 8,we cited the concluding chapter from an MA dissertation to illustrate the structure of this final chapter in a dissertation.The following can be a possible decimal outline for a dissertation,assuming that this final cha
29、pter is Chapter 6.6.Conclusions6.1 Introduction6.1.1 Purpose of the chapter6.1.2 What will be dealt with in the chapter6.2 A summarizing overview6.2.1 Major points discussed6.2.2 Answers to the research questions6.2.3 Major findings10.110.210.310.410.5 10.610.710.8 10.910.3 Outlines and section head
30、ingsHow to write a dissertation in English6.3 Implications6.3.1 Theoretical implications6.3.2 Implications and applications6.4 Limitations and suggestions for further studies6.4.1 Limitations6.4.2 Suggestions for further studies6.5 Concluding remarks10.110.210.310.410.5 10.610.710.8 10.910.3 Outline
31、s and section headingsHow to write a dissertation in English If we have the above outline for the final chapter,we can have the major elements as part of the table of contents.Chapter 6:Conclusions6.1 Introduction6.2 A summarizing overview6.3 Implications6.4 Limitations and suggestions for further s
32、tudies6.5 Concluding remarks Researchers,especially those experienced scholars,prefer to organize their writings in a way that best presents their ideas,and this will mean that there are variations in terms of the organization and heading in the dissertation.However,there is one thing that is certai
33、n:no matter what variations one prefers,the essential elements of structure should be there because they form the core of a dissertation.10.110.210.310.410.5 10.610.710.8 10.910.4 The proportional suggestionHow to write a dissertation in English In Section 4.2,we talked about the importance of time
34、management.Here we would like to emphasize the importance of having a proportional structure for a dissertation.To say that a dissertation should be proportional in terms of its elements of structure means that you should be clear about the general length of each chapter.Although it is very difficul
35、t or even impossible to decide on the number of words in each section or chapter in a BA dissertation,we feel that it is useful to give the undergraduate some sort of a general picture for reference.In most cases,the table of contents usually has about two pages.The acknowledgements should not norma
36、lly be more than one page.The abstract of a BA dissertation has about 200 English words and the Chinese abstract has about 400 Chinese characters,each of which will be no more than a page of A4.As for the list of10.110.210.310.410.5 10.610.710.8 10.910.4 The proportional suggestionHow to write a dis
37、sertation in Englishabbreviations,the list of figures and the list of tables,if there are any,each will be on separate pages.The number of references will be about 15,which occupy one to two pages.Finally,the appendix,if any,will have one to five pages.Suppose that you need to write a BA dissertatio
38、n of about 6,000 words,based on each page(1.5 spaced)having 300 words,you will need to write about 20 pages.Here is a general suggestion for balancing the number of words in each of the chapters in the dissertation:(1)Introduction(600 words,2 pages),(2)Literature review and theoretical preliminaries
39、(1,500 words,5 pages),(3)Research method,data analysis,and results(2,400 words,8 pages),(4)Discussion(900 words,3 pages),and(5)Conclusion(600 words,2 pages).The following table can serve as a checklist:10.110.210.310.410.5 10.610.710.8 10.910.4 The proportional suggestionHow to write a dissertation
40、in English10.110.210.310.410.5 10.610.710.8 10.910.4 The proportional suggestionHow to write a dissertation in English Note that the number of words and pages are estimated and predicted on a normal case,and the student researcher is asked to change the allocation according to the actual circumstanc
41、es,e.g.the subject matter,the research topic,the type of data,the research background and situation,etc.10.110.210.310.410.5 10.610.710.8 10.910.5 Developing the first draft and possible problemsHow to write a dissertation in English If you have worked on a detailed outline of all the chapters in th
42、e dissertation and if you have a general plan in terms of both the essential elements of structure and their estimated number of words and pages,you should have no difficulties in putting the information in the appropriate places in the dissertation.If you are not sure of what to include in a certai
43、n chapter or section or if you are not sure of where to put a certain kind of information,that will suggest that either you are not clear about the essential elements of structure of a dissertation or you are not clear about the function of each of the elements of structure.In that case,we suggest y
44、ou go through the process of doing the research and the process of writing the dissertation,to take the yo-yo approach introduced in Section 1.4 in Chapter 1.If you are not clear about a certain chapter or section,you must also try to understand the function of that chapter or section.For example,if
45、 you are not familiar with the research situation and the research10.110.210.310.410.5 10.610.710.8 10.910.5 Developing the first draft and possible problemsHow to write a dissertation in Englishbackground of your research topic,it is unlikely that you will write the section/chapter on previous stud
46、ies/literature review well.If you find that you have very little or nothing to state after analysing the data,the problem may be that you have not chosen the appropriate data that can be used in your research or that you do not have enough theoretical ideas that can support your research.That would
47、mean that you had not done enough reading of the relevant literature before you began to conduct the primary research.10.110.210.310.410.5 10.610.710.8 10.910.6 Researching before writingHow to write a dissertation in English A very successful piece of academic writing depends on two factors.One is
48、whether you know how to do research and whether you have done the research(both primary and secondary research,see Chapter 3),and the other is whether you know how to report your research to the academic community by writing.We suggest that any kind of academic writing is based on the research that
49、one has undertaken.If you have not done any research,you will have nothing to state in your writing.This is true of both primary and secondary research,since reading the existing literature and synthesizing other peoples work is also research,i.e.secondary research.Therefore,if you have little or no
50、thing to say in your academic writing,the most likelypossibility is that you have not done enough research.We can make this commentbecause research is necessary before writing.10.110.210.310.410.5 10.610.710.8 10.910.7 Revising the first draftHow to write a dissertation in English Different scholars
