Writing a thesis or dissertation requires extensive critical thinking and writing skills. A well-written thesis or dissertation is like an orchestrated piece of art, having the right topic, internal consistency, coherence, clarity, and addressing a research gap is crucial to achieving a positive outcome. We will examine the five key mistakes that can disrupt the orchestration of a thesis or dissertation.
Selecting a too Narrow or too Broad Topic
The topic is the foundation of a thesis or dissertation. If the topic is too general, it may not attract the attention of your supervisor. If it is too narrow, you may find difficulty in collecting literature or secondary data, particularly if you are doing secondary research. Consider a broad topic, “psychological contracts in the New Zealand police,” which you can narrow down to “impact on wellbeing” with a research question, “how does leadership behaviour impact the maintenance of psychological contracts and the retention of New Zealand Police officers?”
When selecting the topic, conduct preliminary research to identify if it has sufficient data on the internet. If you want to study political views or how politicians represent a specific issue, you need to identify whether you’re chosen country for research has a database and government website where parliament debates and politicians’ press releases are available. Therefore, always give sufficient time to select a topic that is not too broad or too narrow.
Lacking Clarity
Clarity in a thesis or dissertation means that when you write a sentence, an idea, or a definition, it must convey what you want to convey. Let’s understand it with some practical examples.
- Unclear: Several factors were important for the results.
- Clear: Three factors—sample size, lighting conditions, and observer training—most strongly affected accuracy.
- Unclear: It was decided that interviews would be conducted.
- Clear: The research team conducted 18 semi-structured interviews with nurses between March–May 2024.
- Unclear: This study improves education.
- Clear: This study improves reading fluency in Year-4 students by introducing 15-minute daily echo-reading.
These examples show how unclear sentences can waste a good topic. If the examiner marks a thesis or dissertation with unclear sentences, there is a very real risk that your thesis will not do well. Thus, it is very important to clarify everything in your work.
Lacking Internal Consistency
Lack of internal consistency in thesis writing means making statements that are not in keeping with the sort of analysis you have done, or providing summaries in the discussion chapter that don’t reflect the analysis that you have presented in the findings chapter. In such a situation, the examiners will wonder about whether you really understand what you have done in the thesis, and this would be a serious concern.
Another simple mistake that reduces internal consistency is saying something different in the introduction and writing something different in the body. For example, if you are writing a dissertation on opening an ethnic restaurant but after researching you find out that barbeque restaurant is more preferable among your target market, so in this case you have to revise the introduction and discuss about barbeque restaurant otherwise this will reduce the internal consistency. Likewise, if you introduce a new idea in the conclusion, it will also affect internal consistency.
Poor Paragraph Structure
Another key mistake in thesis writing is a poor paragraph structure. While the structure of a paragraph depends on your writing style and genre, each paragraph must include some typical components. You have heard about two basic models to structure paragraphs:
TEEL: Topic, Evidence, Analysis, Link
Or
TEAL: Topic, Expand/Elaborate, Evidence/Examples, Link.
Below are the examples to understand this:
- Topic sentence
- Evidence and example
- Analysis
- Link
Marketing
Considering the promotion, our target market, Generation Z, wants personalised communication and quick response, especially in the information collection stage of the consumer journey (Jones, 2017). This explains the exclusion of traditional marketing strategies and highlights the importance of digital touchpoints. Oliver (2022) argues that more than 70% online purchases in Australia are attributed to Generation Z. Moreover, during the pandemic and post-pandemic period, online sales increased by 50% before the pandemic (Oliver, 2022). Thus, Enigma’s marketing strategy must be digital-led. However, this must include two-way digital communication, which will allow the brand to respond to customer queries quickly that fulfilling Generation Z’s needs.
Environmental management
Firstly, vegetarianism is more environmentally friendly than an omnivorous, meat-based diet. Crop production can reduce greenhouse-gas emissions; estimates suggest a reduction of about 3,267 pounds of emissions per person per year if individuals adopt vegetarian diets (Vegetarian of Washington, n.d.). This translates to roughly the CO₂ savings achieved by switching a four-wheel-drive vehicle to a hybrid (Eshel & Martin, 2006, as cited in Coelho, 2011). Livestock production contributes about eighteen percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions, compared with fifteen percent from transport (Steinfeld et al., 2006). It is also the leading anthropogenic source of ammonia, a driver of acid rain, releasing about two-thirds of atmospheric ammonia (Steinfeld et al., 2006). Energy efficiency further favours plant proteins: producing plant protein requires ~2.2 kilocalories of fossil energy per kilocalorie of protein, versus ~25 kilocalories for meat protein (Pimentel & Pimentel, 2003). Because fossil-fuel combustion is the largest source of greenhouse-gas emissions. Thus, animal-based diets impose a greater warming burden than plant-based diets.
Nutrients
Onion juice serves as a natural remedy that can promote hair growth and reduce hair loss, offering a simple alternative for those seeking healthier hair. Rich in sulfur compounds and antioxidants like quercetin, it nourishes the scalp by improving blood circulation, strengthening hair follicles, and combating inflammation that contributes to thinning. For instance, a clinical study on individuals with alopecia areata found that applying onion juice twice daily led to noticeable hair regrowth starting after two weeks, with up to 87% of participants showing improvement after six weeks, compared to minimal results in control groups using tap water. These findings underscore onion juice’s potential as an accessible, evidence-supported option for hair care, though individual results may vary and it should complement professional treatments for optimal outcomes.
These examples demonstrate how good paragraphs can be written using TEEL or TEAL structure which will help achieving good outcomes.
Poor approach to Address Research Gap
The discussion chapter is where you address the research gap. Everything in the discussion chapter needs to be directed at addressing the gap you identified in the existing literature (i.e, there is lots of research on the specific issue and lots on the various reasons/drivers, but not enough exploring WHY the issue is occurring). The gap that you identified is what led to your research question(s), so the discussion chapter is where you directly answer research question(s) and therefore address the gap in the literature.
This chapter requires careful thought. It’s the chapter where you explain how your findings can help you answer your research questions, and how they can address gaps that you identified in the literature. Look carefully at the end of your findings chapter and take careful note of the main ideas that help you to answer those two questions. Use those ideas to structure an argument in your discussion chapter, and then read back through your literature review chapter to see how your answers relate to themes and arguments in the existing literature.
To sum up, thesis writing requires considerable effort and time. A rush in this case can be catastrophic. Based on this, the following are the recommendations:
- The student must give considerable time to select the topic
- Reread sentences or paragraphs to make them clear, consistent, and structured
- The discussion chapter is the most challenging one but keep in mind the process I suggested (review findings, structure arguments and read back literature
If you are still unsure whether your thesis, dissertation, or any academic work is not up to your expectations, don’t worry about that. You can take The Online Academic Help proof reading and review services to make it look better.