Overview: Structuring a dissertation or thesis by Phoebe Winton
For the Students of the Merrimack Valley Program.
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Title page
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Acknowledgements page
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Abstract (or executive summary)
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Table of contents, list of figures and tables
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The core chapters (the “meat” of the dissertation)
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Chapter 1: Introduction
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Chapter 2: Literature review
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Chapter 3: Methodology
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Chapter 4: Results
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Chapter 5: Discussion
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Chapter 6: Conclusion
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Reference list
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Appendix
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.:
1.
The introduction chapter presents the core research question and aims.
2.
The literature review chapter assesses what the current research says about this question.
3.
The methodology, results and discussion chapters go about undertaking new research about this
question.
4.
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 welldefined question(s), investigating, and then answering the question – see below.