Dissertations and Major Projects

Depending on your degree, you may be able to choose a topic for your dissertation/project, you might choose your topic from a list, or you could be assigned a topic.  You must carefully read the guidance provided by your department to find out how your dissertation/project topic will be decided.  If you are unsure, you should contact to your advisor or your personal tutor for guidance.

If you are allowed to choose your own topic for your project or dissertation, you should think about:

• choosing a topic you are interested in, which is also related to your coursework and/or your career goals
• researching an area where you would like to develop your own knowledge
• if your project/dissertation needs a literature review, choosing a topic where you will be able to find enough articles to create this literature review, but isn't so broad that you are overwhelmed with information.  (You could carry out a "scoping search" to see how much information has been published on your topic - a scoping search is a rough search where you get an overview of a topic to see how much information is available.)  

Remember to take guidance from your supervisor about the topic you select, and where to focus your research.

If you are writing your own research question, make sure that the question has a clear focus, as this will help you with your literature search.  The Academic Skills Centre has advice on how to choose and refine a research question.  

You should consider:

[Text description of image: This diagram has a central circle with the word "topic", which is linked by arrows to four more circles.  The additional circles contain questions to consider when researching a topic: What research has already been done on this topic? What are the sub-areas if the topic you need to explore? What other research might be relevant to your investigation? How do these sub-topics and other research overlap with your investigation?]