dissertation scope

A student's doctoral dissertation is a substantial piece of scholarly writing that contains a significant contribution of new knowledge to the field of study. It presents the results and an analysis of the student's original research, and should be significant enough to be published in the refereed literature. The dissertation must be a coherent document that provides a complete and systematic account of the student's research. It may incorporate work from submitted, accepted or published journal articles, which may or may not have co-authors. The dissertation should reflect the student's ability to do the following: Critically analyze the relevant literature Use and describe in detail the appropriate methodology for the research undertaken Conduct research and present findings that result in a significant and original contribution to knowledge Verify knowledge claims and sources meticulously Locate the work of the dissertation and its findings within the broader field or discipline Communicate the research and analysis effectively In most fields, a doctoral dissertation will range from 60,000 to 80,000 words in length, exclusive of footnotes, bibliography, and appendices. As a courtesy to examiners, if the dissertation will be over 100,000 words long the student must notify the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies when the Appointment of External Examiner for Doctoral Dissertation form is submitted. See also The Instructions for the Preparation of the External Examiner's Report.
Although a thesis or dissertation will be checked at the time of submission, it is your responsibility to ensure that the copies meet the requirements of the Faculty of Graduate Studies, the University of Victoria repository (UVicSpace) and your academic department. Thesis and dissertation structure For an overview of the purpose and scope of your thesis or dissertation, see the university calendar entries for master's theses and doctoral dissertations. You should also check the sample thesis timeline. It outlines the activities required to complete a thesis and the proposed sequence of activities, and the guide to completing a thesis or project proposal. These useful tools will help you plan and organize your thoughts and ideas, as well as understanding the purpose of a proposal. Formatting requirements The Faculty of Graduate Studies formatting requirements for theses and dissertations are outlined below.  You are responsible for ensuring that the final document conforms to these formatting standards and you should consult your supervisor regarding additional departmental requirements. Both an MSWord template and a LaTex template are made available.  Use of these templates is voluntary and does not ensure approval of the format of your thesis/dissertation by the Faculty of Graduate Studies.  We are not able to offer technical assistance with the templates. The Faculty of Graduate Studies does not have formatting requirements for Master's projects (non-thesis programs), so departmental formatting standards apply. The parts of the thesis/dissertation occur in the order given below, although not every thesis/dissertation will include all the items mentioned. Except for the title page, all preliminary pages should be numbered with lower case Roman numerals.Title pageEach copy of the thesis/dissertation must have a title page. The form of the title page must follow that.
Wendy Hardman, Taught graduate courses, co-advisor for grad students, PhD in Education in 2004The scope of PhD research and dissertation is bigger than an MA thesis. These examples are in humanities and education fields.  For example if you were studying a group, an MA research project might be a literature review of a topic or if original research be small - such as including 6-10 participants in a online discussion over a period of 4 weeks.  A doctoral study, exepcted to be original work, might include a larger group of participants or a longer time frame, and/or possibly gathering data  from several different perspectives - say other stakeholder groups involved.  Your supervisor helps you to set the parameters, so you don't drown in data, yet you scope your research appropriately to demonstrate you can carry out research, analyze the results and write it up (thesis).  A commonly asked question at a defense is what/how does your research add to your field of study?Work towards an MA Thesis counts approx. as two semester courses.  In some schools the student has the option to replace the Thesis with two courses. There is no requirement that the work is original.  For example, it can be a survey of the current literature or a combination of known work with some minor variations.  Some times it is original work.  Most times it is nothing more than an independent study. Most times the topic/problem of the Thesis is given by the advisor.A Ph.D dissertation is supposed to be original work extending the current state of the art in a field. It may take anywhere from 2 to 8 years to complete. The student is supposed to identify the problem with some partial help from the advisor.Written 23w ago • Answer requested by Farshad MasoomiCarol Thompson, Wrote my dissertation 2 years agoIn most fields, a doctoral dissertation will range from 60,000 to 80,000 words in length.
In my PhD program, I was required to register for various research and dissertation related courses to fill the required 9 credit hours to be a full-time student. Those course ranged from 3 to 5 credit hours depending on what I needed. Those courses never met, and I did not receive a letter grade for them. They seemed to have two purposes: 1. existing to fill my schedule after my actual coursework was done (so that I was listed as being enrolled as a full-time student and so that they had something to charge me for), and 2. giving my advisor credit with the department for supervising a research or dissertation student. The mostly seem to be a bureaucratic slight of hand. Edited to add: I was also paid 20 hours per week to work as a Graduate Research Assistant, but I basically worked about 40-50 hours per week on going to class (until I was done with my required hours) and working on my research. Towards the end, when I was writing my dissertation, it was more. The hours I was officially paid and the credit hours I took, never really aligned with much, except that a 3-credit hour actual course (like Functional Analysis ) met for 3 hours every week.