When a candidate enters the final year of his or her bachelor’s degree, the most irritating question looming on his mind is the submission of the final-year project.

The project usually called a thesis, research report or a dissertation are all actually synonymous to each other to some extent despite the changes made in them according to the nature and subject of the study.

It is due to the lack of research trends in Pakistani universities that the students and instructors here are not very familiar with the techniques of carrying out academic investigations. This  adds to the tension of university students. It is in such circumstances that designing a research project feels more like the dropping of a bomb on their heads.

The information provided to them is very traditional and complicated stating six common segments—introduction, literature review, methodology framework, findings, analysis and conclusion.

But even with a template of general guidelines, it is still not a very fruitful practice to be carrying out your research without an interpretation of the paper. And even if the given paper is elaborated, the method employed to elucidate things is too traditional and typical without enough details.

This article, providing a clear description over the design and documentation of a dissertation, offers a solution to all the unfortunate students out there suffering due to getting a bad supervisor. In fact, it may also serve as a ray of hope for the teachers who may have recently entered the profession.

Having already mentioned the basic sections of a dissertation, let’s venture into their details now. The introductory chapter of a research study is composed of eight subsections—introduction, hypothesis, research question, research objectives, scope of study, nature of study and the study outline. This chapter should give a highlight of the whole study. It must comprise the basic information of the study being carried out.

The second part is dedicated to critical review of already conducted researches presenting literary evidences for the provision of giving a firm foundation to the study. This chapter which is in three distinct sections—introduction, literature review and summary—attempts to answer research questions in precise detail. The research questions are investigated from different perspectives which are presented with the support of a variety of authentic sources including scholarly work and first hand data collected by the researcher.

Subsequently, the third portion gives a detailed account of methodology that the researcher employs for the study.

This chapter is divided into eight distinct subsections—introduction, research philosophy, research approach, secondary research, bibliography, research limitation, veracity of the study and summary. The nature of each section is to discuss the related information in detail to give a complete insight into the procedure of this study.

The fourth chapter of a research study deals with representation of research findings whether cultivated through primary or secondary research methods. This section commonly constituents of three subsections including introduction, presentation of obtained data and summary.

After presentation of the gathered data comes the turn to analyse it with the help of scholarly work of different schools of thought in order to make the study more concrete. The existing literature and primary data is carefully reviewed in an analytical manner under this component.

The last part concludes the whole research findings in reflection of a broader discussion held in the previous chapter. This section not only draws conclusions with the assessment of research questions, it also proposes some recommendations with regard to the research subject and future projections.

The writer is an academic research consultant.

mgulahmed@gmail.com