The Final Dissertation- from a Faculty View

In my inbox I have received all five chapters of the dissertation from a student, what am I looking for? First, I will carefully read the abstract; this is all that the CAO will see, so it has to be written as well and as complete as possible. I will make sure that the student mentions the theory used, details about participants, analysis, some results, and ends with social change.

I will review c. 1-3 to make sure anything about the study is now in the past tense. I will carefully read c. 3 the methods and then read c.4, the results. First, I double-check the consistency between what they said they would do in c. 3 and what they actually did in c. 4. Any changes must be detailed and explained.

Chapter 4 should review the methods actually used and any problems that arose. It should also fully explain the analyses, and the results. Chapter 5 should explain the results by linking them back to the literature and to theory. This is where the student should show that they understand what they found and that they understand the implications. They also should discuss what the next steps should be in research in this area and the social change implications.

Of course, there should be no misspellings and the APA should be correct throughout.

Next time, we will take a look at searching for articles. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Send me an email with your ideas. leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu