Dissertations - The Conclusion Chapter

In previous posts, I've blogged a few ideas about how to tackle Dissertations.

Now its time to think about what to put in the Conclusion...:

This is a key section of your work, where you draw together the main points from your qualitative and/or quantitative analysis, then definitively answer your Dissertation question.

There should be no new information in this section; everything should have arisen naturally from your earlier work.

It is often helpful to revisit the Aims and Objectives set out in your Introduction at this point and determine whether or not they were fulfilled. If you devised hypotheses earlier in your work, state explicitly whether they were proven or disproven by your work; if there were Research Questions, what is the answer to each in turn?

Before you finish, outline a suggested course of action or a series of recommendations as a result of your findings:

• Should a new policy or approach be adopted? (What?)
• Is more research needed in a particular field? (Which?)

Finally, it might well be worth redrafting parts of your Introduction at this point, in the light of what you have done in your study, and what you have put in your Conclusion. Things are bound to have changed over the course of your research and the opening chapter written all those months ago may no longer adequately reflect your project.

Reflective Review

Some courses ask for a Reflective review at this point, a self appraisal of each stage of your Dissertation, from the planning stage, through the execution of the fieldwork and analysis, to the final conclusions – what did not go well, what could’ve been better (how?), what would you do differently next time? …and don’t forget to point out any particular successes!

Reference List and Bibliography

Remember to include a Reference List (details of all the sources you USED) and/or a Bibliography (details of all the sources you READ) before you finish your Dissertation. This section should come immediately after your Conclusion, but before any Appendices (where you include interesting relevant though not essential information).

Help and advice on how to set out your Reference List / Bibliography to Harvard standard is available in the Harvard Referencing section of this blog.

Further information and guidance for writing extended projects is available in the "Dissertations" folder here.