If you are lucky and you have chosen a good advisor, he/she will tell you at once that before writing your dissertation and making further research, you have to make a dissertation outline.
“What dissertation outline? I have already written a dissertation proposal”. That is what you may think and will be mistaken. Dissertation outline is a plan – a plan of your work. After making one, you will have a clear concept of each step that you should make to write a successful dissertation.
What is more, dissertation outline allows you to get the full image of all the logical connections in your dissertation. It also helps you make sure that all your actions are reasonable and useful for successful work.
Now, let us briefly consider the main elements of a dissertation outline.
- Introduction. Here you should state the chosen problem, give its background, give some basic terms, state the purpose of your research, introduce the scope and time limits.
- Literature review. This part of a dissertation outline you will make after collecting all necessary data.
- Methods of research. This component of a dissertation outline describes the methods, paradigms and conceptions that were used for the theoretical part of your dissertation. If you have a practical part in your work, think of the methods, tools, additional materials that will be helpful.
- Research outcomes. Introduce the expected results of your research; think whether it is going to be a solution to the main problem of your dissertation.
- Summary. This final part of a dissertation outline includes the conclusions, discussion and some recommendations for the future researches.
Thus, you see that a dissertation outline is a rather useful part of your big work.