The First Meeting with your supervisor:
The first meeting between a supervisor and a student usually, perhaps necessarily, focuses on the proposed content of a dissertation, rather than the regulations or administrative process – understandably, supervisors tend to find the proposed topic more interesting than the administrative process. It is also possible that supervisors will not be familiar with the regulations or the administrative process. Equally, supervisors often assume, sometimes incorrectly, that students will have read and understood anyThe first meeting between a student and a supervisor is usually very significant, as you focus on the content proposed for the dissertation. Your main objective is to discuss the potential content of a dissertation rather than regulations or any kind of administrative process.
Supervisors understandably, prefer to talk about the proposed dissertation topics rather than the administrative processes. It could be a huge possibility that your supervisor doesn’t have the knowledge of regulations and administrative processes. Students should read the pre-commencement documentation, before their first meeting. Despite these factors, the meeting with the supervisor is very helpful.
The Proposal:
The proposal is the blueprint or the idea as to what are your intentions regarding the dissertation. You have to show why are you writing this and why would it be useful to your investor or sponsor. The relevance of your proposal will determine its feasibility to your university. The proposal must contain an introduction or the first draft that clearly shows your objectives and your outcomes. The more detail you provide will make your draft stronger in the eyes of your academic supervisor. Your proposal describes your plans up ahead for the dissertations so it would be sufficient that it takes 1-3 pages.
Chapter 1 Introduction:
Use your introduction chapter to set the tone for the dissertation ahead. Your introduction should catch the eye of the reader as you want to build interest for the reader so he can read the whole dissertation ahead. Keep your introduction easy to understand and mention the objectives for the dissertation at the end.
Chapter 2 Literature Review:
The main objective of the literature review is to provide the readers with an idea of your research. You don’t have to sugar quote your research but instead, you have to be a little unique and give your own touch to the research. This will add up to making an interesting read for students.
Chapter 3 The Methodology:
This is the make-or-break chapter. Your dissertation depends on this chapter as it is potentially the most difficult chapter in the dissertation. The issues around the research methodologies are very complex. This chapter determines the knowledge and understanding of the research methodology. This chapter is equally difficult for the academic supervisor to determine the level of knowledge a student has or has gained from the methodology. It is better for students to either choose a quantitative or qualitative approach to the methodology. Don’t try to put your feet in both boats as the mixture of both approaches can create a lot of confusion.
Chapter 4 The Result and Its Discussion:
More often than not your results will involve data that is not widely available in already published papers. Your data should be unique and the understanding for your final result should come out from the derived results from the data you created. In respect to this chapter, you have to provide the facts from the conclusions and the outcomes that you have derived. Inadequate data must result in inadequate ‘outcomes’.
Chapter 5 Conclusion and The Outcomes:
In this chapter, you have to summarize the dissertation as a whole. YOu have to give an overview of the dissertation with your research and the final observation that you have come up with in light of the conclusion and facts that you have stated. This chapter should also have a take as to your opinion on the success and failure of this study. You have to highlight whether this study was a success or a failure in your opinion.
