Valeria Reggi

Final Dissertation Guidelines

Overview

Your final dissertation is an important part of your academic education. It is your own project and one of the most important pieces of writing you are going to author. Authoring means enjoying writing but also being responsible for, and aware of, all the processes of planning, testing and revising.

A qualitative Discourse Analysis dissertation is an experimental study; as such, it requires a solid theoretical background, a methodology, accurate planning, a careful choice of materials and (usually) many tests before reaching the best method-material balance. Therefore, if you wish to choose me as your supervisor, or co-supervisor, it is essential that you contact me at least 10 months before the expected graduation session, to allow for a reasonable time span for planning, testing and writing.

When you contact me, please make sure you have a draft project complete with

- one or more preliminary research questions;

- a preliminary title;

- the list of materials you would like to work on;

- a table of contents.

Chapters will be revised from time to time, so it is important to prepare and maintain a good work plan: testing methods and finding the most suitable ones requires time.

Please also consider the other deadlines relating to each graduation session on the course website.

Topic and materials

Remember to choose an original topic: a preliminary literature overview is essential to make sure the topic you like is original and relevant: usually, the more literature you find, the less original a topic is.

Choose relevant material, but make sure it fits your purpose and timeline; careful, in-depth analysis of a limited sample is more advisable than a less detailed study of a wider sample.

Structure

First, you should identify one or more research questions. It will be the aim of your study and you will choose the material and methods to answer it.

The general structure of the thesis will be as follows:

• Introduction
• Theoretical background
• Methodology and materials
• Analysis
• Discussion
• Conclusions

Please note that this list may not correspond to

• the actual division into chapters, especially as far as analysis and discussion are concerned, which may follow a different division according to the type of material you are analysing.
• the order in which you are going to write your thesis, which will be, approximately

1. Methodology and materials
2. Analysis
3. Discussion
4. Theoretical background
5. Conclusions
6. Introduction

Important tips

1. Start from planning your work: keep in mind that you have deadlines and a limited number of pages available. Focus on

• research questions: avoid yes/no research questions. Focus on how/why;
• theoretical framework;
• methodology: you need to have a good command of the theoretical background of the methods you wish to use;
• methods (test them first! If needed, it is important that you adjust them before starting your work) – you may also combine and apply them in an original way;
• materials (you may wish to reduce or expand your sample);
• number of pages; consider that you should allow approximately 5-7 pages for the introduction and the conclusions. Please also consider that original texts, images and tables, for example, may also fit in an appendix, which does not show in the page count; however, please make sure it is not excessively long.
• Once you have tested your methods and planned your dissertation, remember that
  • when you introduce your topic, material and methods, always explain why they are relevant;
  • you are not only expected to describe your analysis, but also discuss your results in depth;
  • you should avoid biases as much as possible and stick to the results of your analysis: if your results disconfirm your hypothesis it is alright – you will discuss them accordingly;
  • you should always declare the strength and weaknesses of your research (typically in the Conclusions section, but some of them may already show as ‘Caveats’ in the Introduction).

2. Style:

• Use a formal, academic style, but avoid complex, long sentences. Find inspiration in academic articles (by authoritative native speakers) you particularly enjoyed.
• Concepts should be expressed clearly and in detail, without taking any piece of information for granted (use a ‘cookbook’ style).
• When you make a statement, remember to justify your claims with relevant literature. Personal opinions must be avoided; only research hypotheses can be discussed.
• References: please refer to academic and state-of-the-art, professional sources.
• One key idea per paragraph only (topic sentence).
• Each paragraph should have one specific communicative function only (e.g. explanation, connection, example…).
• When referring to an author for the first time in the text (not as a reference in brackets), always mention his/her first name. E.g.: As claimed by Roland Barthes… Afterwards, always mention the surname only.
• The referencing style should be consistent. One of the most widely used in Discourse Analysis is APA https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples
• Formatting should follow academic standards and be consistent.
  

For useful tips you may wish to check this website: https://help.open.ac.uk/developing-academic-english 

Our workplan

Together we will agree on a viable plan that works for both of us. I will review you chapters with a focus on the contents and analysis; grammar, style and formatting are your own responsibility. We will work on the same file using track changes to add comments and revisions, chapter by chapter.

For technical information please check Unibo guidelines.