Library Services Blog

Dissertation support - Last minute fixes

Even if your dissertation deadline is fast approaching, there's still time to make small changes that can have a big impact on your grade. 

1. Set clear objectives - Research questions help you to articulate the aims of your project – what you’re hoping to find out, solve or answer with your research. The objectives are the how – think of these as stepping stones or milestones that will help you to meet your overall aim. Check the language you’ve used in your objectives to see if there’s a logical flow from one objective to the next:

Example objectives:

• To identify the factors that influence consumer attitudes toward food waste.
• To assess the effective of current food waster reduction strategies that influence consumer behaviour, such as education campaigns, labelling systems and packaging innovations.
• To develop recommendations for effective food waste reduction strategies that align with consumer attitudes and behaviour.

We can see how the dissertation develops through the three verbs used here: identify > assess > recommend. This shows how the project builds from the more basic skill identifying information to evaluating knowledge and formulating recommendations.

2. Be more critical - Read back through your literature review – have you missed any opportunities to be critical of the sources you’ve read? You can do this quickly by comparing your work to a paragraph model like the one below to identify where your critical voice might be.

If the critical voice element is missing from your work, use this online cheat sheet to identify where you could introduce more critical ideas.

3. Reflect on successes and challenges – Use the discussion section to show that you’re a reflective researcher. You should acknowledge any limitations – what could you have done differently, and how might this have resulted in a different outcome? But, be balanced here – you should also bring in the positives and show what you have achieved with the time and resources you’ve had available. Mentioning opportunities for future research to build on what you’ve done is another way to boost your marks here.

4. Take time to implement feedback – Studiosity’s Writing Feedback Service provides detailed feedback on your written work within 48 hours (often less). The feedback focuses on your structure, language and style, spelling and grammar, and referencing, and you can submit up to 5000 words. Remember to give yourself time to reflect on and implement this feedback before the deadline!