Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

Open Up Study Skills

Succeeding With Your Master'S Dissertation: A Step-By-Step Handbook

Rate this book
Succeeding with your Master's Dissertation is a step-by-step guide to completing your Master's dissertation.

346 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2008

34 people are currently reading
126 people want to read

About the author

John Biggam

3 books2 followers

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
76 (52%)
4 stars
47 (32%)
3 stars
18 (12%)
2 stars
3 (2%)
1 star
0 (0%)
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
Profile Image for Erin.
11 reviews18 followers
September 11, 2012
I was assigned this book as part of my Master's dissertation course and it has been a lifesaver. Our instructors were found of not giving a lot of guidelines, so all the structure suggested by this book was very helpful because it gave me somewhere to start. I consulted it repeatedly during the process of writing my dissertation and modeled my paper pretty closely to what it recommended.

I would advise giving it a quick read through before even beginning work on a dissertation. Had I done so, instead of waiting till my research was already underway, my work would have been much more organized and effective. And, even though the examples were on very different topics from mine, they still helped me get a better idea of what my work should look like.

A quick word of warning though, my advisor has had me change some of the things I only wrote because this book advised me to, so know that it only provides guidelines. In the end, always go with what your advisor tells you to, since generally he or she is one of the people marking the paper anyway. Still, I would have been pretty much completely in the dark without this book, so I definitely recommend it to anyone undertaking a Master's dissertation.
Profile Image for Ayat Saleh.
118 reviews10 followers
March 8, 2018
I can’t describe the chaos that I had when I started my masters' dissertation. What should be my research objectives? What research questions I am trying to answer? How do I proceed with my literature review, my findings, my analysis and discussion and finally, my conclusions? If you are a postgraduate student, I am sure you can relate to this.
The best resource that helped me to structure my dissertation was this golden book!
The book clarifies the whole Dissertation Life Cycle and the steps that you need to follow during that process. Each chapter in the book may correspond to a chapter in your research; therefore, you don’t have to read the entire book at one time. Instead, you can read it chapter by chapter according to the current stage of your research.
The book has a separate chapter for each main stage of your dissertation: the introduction, the literature review, the research methods, the findings and finally, the conclusions. Interestingly, when you feel like running out of useful verbs, the book can also be very useful because it has an appendix that you can use for this purpose.
1 review
May 27, 2019
Hands down THE best guide for research writing out there. 4th Edition.

I have read this for my PhD dissertation. This book should not only apply to MA students. Perfectly set out with clear and concise examples. Repetitions just as you'd find in research writing to emphasize the most important points. Discusses, in my view, simple and obvious points about the research process that shall appear logical to most. In this sense left me with a great feeling of self-esteem while reading!

Highly recommend for those pursuing graduate studies and if i ever do graduate i will be recommending this guide to my students.

A+++ well done John
Profile Image for Sala.
19 reviews15 followers
August 22, 2021
Grateful to my professor who suggested this book and said it’s a must read one. If you’ve never written an academic paper or a thesis then this is the best guide for you to read during your first semester.
Profile Image for Olwen.
770 reviews14 followers
June 13, 2017
Useful - retrieve again (Griffith e-book) for revision during dissertation process.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
5 reviews
April 10, 2020
Very clear, and the structured step-by-step organisation of this book makes it a great companion throughout the writing process. It got me through some really bumpy areas.
Profile Image for Rebecca Barber.
77 reviews7 followers
August 20, 2020
I read this on the recommendation of my academic advisor and found it really clear and helpful and it made the whole process of planning and writing my MA dissertation much less overwhelming.
Profile Image for Chloe.
675 reviews7 followers
August 2, 2021
Really helpful. I would say essential reading for anyone writing a dissertation. Really handy tips and examples of different sections.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.