How to write a good thesis or a dissertation?

Writing a thesis or dissertation or any project work is required to be done by the students of M.Phil, MBA & Phd Courses in completion of course and to obtain a degree. There are so many other courses like MCA and M.Sc. which also demand the preparation and submission of thesis or dissertation or any project work.
If you want to get good marks and make an impressive thesis then you should follow these instructions carefully. These instructions will lead you to make and submit an impressive thesis in a logical form. Which type of thesis will be prepared depends upon the subject and the topic chosen by the student or the scholar. Preparation of thesis becomes difficult in case of those topics where the collection of the data is required but there may be a lack of sources to collect the data. But there are so many common characteristics which should be there in each type of thesis or dissertation and does not matter what is the subject and what is topic.
Sections, Parts and Chapters
Each thesis must be divided in the sections or the parts and chapters inside for the convenience of the readers and to give it a logical touch and make it impressive. Generally a thesis must be divided in at least 3 parts. Every section of the part of the thesis contains several chapters. This part of the thesis should contain the following chapters in it.
SECTION - 1 (each section contains different chapters)
Chapter – 1 - Introduction
This chapter of part 1 contains the introduction about the topic you choose. For example if your topic is “Effect of Inflation in the life of General Public in area… “. Then in this section you will give the intro about the meaning of inflation and the meaning of life style, habits, earning of money and the causes of inflation etc. The demerits of inflation etc. can also be written in this section. DO NOT insert the information about the area, scope and the limitations of your study and leave if for the next chapters.
Chapter – 2 - Objective or Need of the Study
This chapter will be dedicated to the objective of your study. What is the need and why this study is being conducted or for which purpose this research is being done should be described in detail in this chapter.
This is the crucial chapter of your study and the objectives do not come to the mind easily.
Let us explain some of the common objectives which may fit easily in almost every type of thesis and study:
1. A specific problem which needs a solution.
2. No previous study has been made.
3. Study was made but very much time has passed & changes have occurred and it needs a fresh study now.
4. It will lead to the common welfare of the general public or may be helpful for the government agencies for the improvements and the developments for the country.
5. To find out the reasons or the causes why fact (s) about anything were accepted or rejected at a point of time previously or are being accepted or rejected currently.
There may be many other objectives for your study this was just to ignite your minds.
Chapter – 3 - Scope and limitations of this study
This chapter will describe the scope of the study and the limitation which it has. Scope may be further sub divided into the following parts for example:
Regarding Respondents (Their age, caste, only to male or female etc.)
Regarding Area
Regarding brand/product etc.
If we talk about the limitations then the limitations of the study may be due to the time availability and the cost etc.
Chapter – 4 - Review of the literature
If there is any research done or the study was made previously then that data will be useful for the current study. In this chapter you will describe what kind of literature was available and reviewed by you while making or initializing the study. So many books, articles and the other study material can be described in this chapter which was ready by you as the literature. Study of the literature will guide you about the extent of the work which has been done and which is pending to do.
Chapter – 5 – Methodology of the research
Researches are of many types i.e. descriptive, applied & exploratory etc. which kind of research it is and what kind of methodology has been used will be described in this chapter. With the end of this chapter, section -1 of the report also ends. You may have more than 5 chapters and can provide these suitable names, depending upon the type of research but these 5 chapters must be there in any type of research.
Section – 2
As the section -1 was introductory & was providing information about the objective, scope and the methodology of the research, the section – 2 is the main part of the research report. It also contains the different chapters.
Now there are the variations regarding the chapters & their names in this section. There are the different types of researches and different types of workings are required.
You may add the following chapters in this section in your thesis.
Chapter – 1 – Data Analysis & Interpretation
Chapter – 2 – Case Studies
Chapter - 3 – Processing data with hypothesis for acceptance and rejection.
As it’s a common problem among the scholars that they do not know how to use the statistical tools to analyze the data so most of them just try to mould the data to prove those facts which are almost known. So you are required not to do and are expecting to make genuine only.
Further, there is a whim among the students who do not know the meaning of hypothesis and assume that the formulation & the existence of hypothesis is a necessary part. So there is an advice for those that if you are not sure that which kind of hypothesis should be there in your report then please do not choose. Formulation of a hypothesis is not necessary to complete a research report. Each and every report needs not to contain a hypothesis.
Section – 3
This is the last section of research report and contains the following chapters in it.
Chapter – 1 - Summary, Major Findings & Suggestions
This chapter will describe in short, what did you do & found while making the study. You will insert a conclusion at this point. What according to you is the result of your study can be shown in this part. Making a sub part for the major findings you may tell the readers about those things which were unnoticed or has been changed or are new as compare to the old ones. The major findings will be written in the technical language and must be included in this chapter by making a sub part.
Chapter – 2 - Suggestions & Contribution by the study.
You might have found some of the good and the new things which according to you might be improved with the help of the suggestions. Suggestions must be in the non technical manners so that the layman can also understand it. Contribution of the study towards the progress or to the existing literature can be shown in this chapter by making a sub chapter.
The whole section – 3 should be finished by adding a chapter namely “Scope for the further study.”
Chapter – 3 - Scope for the further study
In this chapter you may describe what were the limitations & the scope of your study and how an enhanced study can be made. For example you may describe in which area the study was made and how the study can be made in the other areas too.
Bibliography – It’s that part of the research report in which you will write the names of those sources which were used during the process of preparation of report & completion of the projects. It will include the names of the books, articles, newspapers and magazines which you used and gone through during the process of your research. The names of websites can also be mentioned here.
Appendix – This must be the last part of the research repot & will include the format & the types of the documents & forms which were used for the collection of the data or some information while making study e.g. questionnaire etc. END OF RESEARCH REPORT