Manage Your Dissertation Research Using Simple Tips & Tools
As a doctoral student, the dissertation is one of the most important projects you’ll do throughout your college career. Not only will it let you showcase your knowledge but also highlight what you’ve contributed to your field of study.
Even more, this work will help you hone key skills valued in any career such as project management, data analysis, communication, organization, leadership, and many more.
In the beginning, you may feel inspired. Brimming with excitement, you can’t wait to begin writing. Perhaps you view yourself as modern-day Sherlock Holmes, a master detective, ready to uncover groundbreaking knowledge to solve important problems.
However, when you sit down to write, your words vaporize into thin air. What happened to your brilliant ideas?
Know your experience is common. The dissertation writing process causes students distress because research and writing are labor-intensive for key reasons:
- Many students don’t understand the research and writing process, and
- They don’t know how to identify the appropriate literature and critique it.
Thus, stress, fatigue, and anxiety creep in along the dissertation journey.
Searching and Identifying Literature
Whether you’re pursuing a master’s degree or doctoral degree, all thesis and dissertation research require a thorough literature review to justify your study and position it in a wider context.
Conducting a comprehensive literature search on your topic is a rigorous process. To find the right information, you’ll need to search multiple databases such as Google Scholar, your local library, government libraries, and the academic libraries where you’re enrolled and possibly employed.
As you search for relevant materials, keep a record of what you read. Later, you’ll need to describe the process of how you chose the selected literature and other pertinent materials included in your dissertation. Therefore, you need to make sure you’ve systematically gathered and sourced a sufficient amount of relevant literature within your field to conduct your study.
Although this may sound daunting, following are some valuable tips and tools to help you identify and manage all of the reference materials you use.
Keywords
To begin, you’ll need to develop a keyword tracking system and identify keywords and keyword phrases that describe your work. Using relevant keywords when searching online databases will improve your chances of locating appropriate articles while quickly eliminating nonessential material.
As an example, my (Dr. Michelle Wicmandy) thesis explored social media use in the business-to-business context. At the time, research exploring social media use for B2B purposes was in its infancy. I began my search using the keywords “social media marketing.” This keyword phrase produced approximately 52,000 results in the academic library. Next, the co-keyword “B2B” was added to trim the literature, which narrowed the results to 792. From there, additional parameters were included to restrict the search to articles published in the English language with a date range limited to the last five years, 298 articles remained. Next, the search was limited to only peer-reviewed academic journals, leaving 224 articles remaining. Then, removing duplicate search returns reduced the number of potential articles to 210 articles. After skimming the articles, 19 were quickly considered irrelevant for my study and, thus, eliminated from the list. Then, 54 additional articles were included by conducting a backward search, or chain search, which involved identifying and examining references in acceptable articles. By doing this exercise, I found the materials most relevant to my study.
Uncovering all of the necessary information is an ongoing process. New discoveries are published all the time, and you’ll be expected to know about these advancements in your field. An easy way to keep up with the release of new literature is to create alerts. For instance, Google Scholar includes the option to create these alerts, and new literature will be sent directly to your inbox.
Document Your Search Strategy
In addition to using keywords to find meaningful materials, you will need to keep a record of each document you consider and classify it to save yourself significant time later. For instance, you may classify resources into categories that relate to your topic from those that do not. This means your database (not your reference list) should include everything from relevant to irrelevant resources to avoid duplicating efforts.
To help you manage your research, many cloud-based citation generators and reference management programs are available. Citation generators, such as EndNote and MyBib, are useful for automatically formatting citations from books, journals, webpages, and more. In addition, these platforms also create alphabetized reference lists that can be downloaded and added to your document. A more powerful option for organizing all of your research is the use of a reference management tool. Offering more functionality than a citation generator, reference management software helps you collect and store all materials, make notes, add tags, categorize research, organize citations, and create bibliographies. For my thesis, I used Mendeley. Because it integrates directly with Microsoft Word, the citations and references were automatically generated within my document, which saved significant time. The platform also allows for tags and the ability to make detailed notes. Other reference management software programs with similar functionality include Citavi and Zotero. As a word of caution, be sure to double-check the accuracy of your citation as styles frequently change.
While many software tools are available, many researchers still prefer to keep a manual record of their literature search in an annotation table using a Word document, Excel spreadsheet, or note cards that can be arranged alphabetically. Similar to the electronic software, you’ll record each piece of literature reviewed and include the In-text citation or reference information along with the other pertinent information such as the Purpose of the Study, Participants and Setting, Methodological Information, Relevant Findings, Notable Conclusions, and more. Unlike software that automatically downloads the reference information, you’ll need to make sure all important details are recorded accurately to avoid losing any resources.
Types of Journals
In addition to searching for relevant articles, you should also be selective with the resources you collect to write your dissertation. While academic journals normally account for a majority of your references, knowledge creation also comes from corporations, non-profit organizations, and government entities to name a few. Regardless of the source, the information you gather needs to come from credible sources. If you’re uncertain about the quality of your research, you can check them via the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme or the Joanna Briggs Institute.
Following are the three types of resources you’re likely to encounter throughout your research process: Peer-reviewed articles, Gray literature, and Predatory journals.
Peer-reviewed Journals
The bedrock of academic research appears in peer-reviewed journals. In peer-reviewed work, the author’s peers review the article and determine whether it should be published in the respective journal. Generally, peer-reviewed work is discipline-specific, university-centered, and controlled by subject matter experts such as college professors. Many researchers produce peer-reviewed research to propel a body of knowledge. Peer-reviewed research is divided into two categories: Primary Research and Secondary Research.
PRIMARY RESEARCH
Primary research represents the researcher’s original ideas, findings, and reports. No one else has critiqued, interpreted, or analyzed it. These first-hand sources offer excellent insight for answering historical and biographical research questions. Following are examples of primary sources:
- journals, diaries
- blog posts
- a speech
- data from surveys or polls
- scholarly journal articles in which the author(s) discuss the methods and results from their own original research/experiments
- photos, videos, sound recordings
- interviews or transcripts
- poems, paintings, sculptures, songs, or other works of art
- government documents (such as reports of legislative sessions, laws or court decisions, financial or economic reports, and more)
- Newspaper and Magazine articles that report directly on current events (although these can also be considered Secondary)
- Investigative journalism (sometimes considered Secondary as well)
SECONDARY RESEARCH
While primary research represents original work, secondary sources are written by authors who didn’t conduct the research personally. Considered reliable, these studies summarize, interpret, critique, analyze, or comment on others’ research. Secondary sources are useful because they combine knowledge from many primary sources to give you a broad overview of the topic, but experts recommend you don’t rely on them exclusively. Examples of secondary sources include:
- summaries of the findings from others’ research
- interpretations or analyses of primary source materials or other people’s research
- histories or biographies
- political commentary
- newspaper and magazine articles that mainly synthesize others’ research or primary materials (remember, newspaper and magazine articles can also be considered primary, depending on the content)
Gray Literature
Gray literature is information shared outside of traditional academic channels such as trade journals. It is also an excellent source for finding information about new topics that haven’t been widely explored in peer-reviewed journals. Often, the knowledge from gray literature helps teams and/or individuals solve problems more efficiently and enhance processes to achieve success. Examples of gray literature include:
- government reports
- trade journals
- conference presentations
- dissertations/theses
- blog posts
Predatory Journals
Predatory journals focus on self-interest instead of scholarship and are characterized by false or misleading information. They lack transparency and are known for being aggressive and indiscriminate in their solicitation practices. Because they’re shady, you should avoid using predatory journals. Two popular sources for checking journal quality include a Journal Evaluation Tool from LMU and Beall’s List
Bottom Line
The early stages of the dissertation research are overwhelming.
In fact, it’s hard to know where to start. But don’t despair.
Here’s your action plan in 5-easy steps to get your dissertation moving:
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- Take a step back and breathe.
- Develop a system that works for you to track your search of the literature.
- Focus your literature search and select materials that align with your topic.
- Remember, each idea throughout your dissertation needs relevant references to support it.
- Check the quality of your reference materials.
Rather than aim for perfection, strive to write each day because that’s how you’ll make progress. And finally, many others just like you have successfully completed their dissertation, and so will you.