Carrying out research is one of the most important stages of writing your masters dissertation. Our article on research resources opens up a wealth of options for the dissertation researcher, with information and advice on a whole range of different resources available, and tips on how to use them for the best possible results.
Be sure to use them for an outstanding, top-class masters dissertation.
Before university, you may have been able to submit handwritten essays. Once you start your university course your essay has to be typed on A4 paper. If you haven’t started to get to grips with computing software that improves the essay format, then now is the time to learn about Word. By learning just a few commands you will have enough information to type up your essay, save it and print it. Here are a few notes on Word 2007 to help you put your essay in typed format.
Starting an undergraduate or postgraduate dissertation means that you are going to be spending plenty of time in libraries and archives. There are a range of library classification systems that are in use in the UK and it is well worth taking a little time to understand them. Some university libraries use several systems (for example the Bliss system and the Dewey system) which can make the researcher’s job that little bit harder. Often this is the result of two collections having been brought together in one library, or that the library decided to change systems and work is in progress! As you start your dissertation writing, make sure you are familiar with the most common classification systems:-
An assignment is a piece of work that you are given by your tutor to be completed outside class time. If you are given research assignments, often the material collated from the research will appear in essay format. For example, an assignment which requires an investigation into the impact of the smoking ban on the English pub, might require the student to problem solve by developing a questionnaire to discover people’s opinions. The results would be collated and presented in an essay format. In this case, assignment writing will need the same skills that would be used for academic essays.
Effective note-taking is an essential skill for study and forms the basis for essay writing. Let’s say you’re in a lecture and as the teacher speaks you make your notes. You write as fast as you can and you try to write down every word they say. At the end of the lecture you’re exhausted and you can’t really remember much of what was said because you were taking dictation rather than really listening to what the lecturer was saying.
