Dissertation and Thesis Writing for Social Science Research: A Practical Guide
Keywords:
Dissertation/Thesis; Citations and References; Ethical and Professional Considerations; Preliminaries; Writer/Researcher.Abstract
Dissertation and thesis writing is one among the scholarly pursuits that involves a number of writing skills and considerations that are used to report a research work and organize it in chapters based on the authorized research guidelines. This paper has shown how dissertation/thesis chapters, citations, references, and preliminaries i.e. declaration, certification, dedication, acknowledgement, copyright, abstract, table of contents, list of tables, list of figures, and acronyms and abbreviations should be appropriately written. It has also shown how supervision and certain ethical and professional issues should be considered for professional guidance, mastery of the topic and competence building among supervisees. Therefore, based on such descriptions, it is concluded that the writers of dissertations or theses should ensure that contents and contexts of the work are in logic, correctly cited, referenced and formatted based on institutional and APA research guidelines. They should also make sure they get in touch with their supervisors for professional guidance that cultivates writing and communication skills, mastery of the topic and professional competence. They should furthermore make sure they adhere to certain ethical and professional issues before, during and after writing the dissertations/theses.
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