PhD Doctorate Literature Review

"The selection of available documents (both published and unpublished) on the topic which contain information, ideas, data and evidence written from a particular standpoint to fulfil certain aims or express certain views on the nature of the topic and how it is to be investigated, and the effective evaluation of these documents in relation to the research being proposed".

Some of the questions where LR can answer

Difference between Master’s Thesis / What is a Thesis? According to the definition of Webster’s New collegiate “a proposition that a person advances and offers to maintain by argument”. There are three elements under this definition.

• A thesis is a Proposition: Since it advances an idea, a hypothesis or a recommendation
• A PhD thesis offers an argument: It presents a rationale for accepting the proposition made, rather than simple asserting a point of view
• The argument of the thesis should be maintained it should be made convincingly by appropriate logic and sufficient evidence.

Writing the Thesis / Dissertation – Purposes There are three perspectives which we need to examine the purposes First, the Institutional purpose: To ensure that the degree holder has made a contribution to his/her respective field and to uphold an honoured academic transition. Further, candidate’s fitness to conduct and publish research and for institution generating and disseminating new knowledge is a important purpose. Second: Personal Purpose is to earn your PhD degree but apart from that you should see it as a way of learning. Only when you write the dissertation, you will able to understand much about yourself and about the topic you have researched. Further you can make your PHD dissertation / thesis better one if you consider seriously the expectation that you will make a contribution to scholarly knowledge. Third, the communication purpose: You have to write dissertation /thesis to inform with clarity but not to express personal feelings or to entertain. It should be clear at the same time simple. All the above three purposes helps to shape the PhD dissertation /thesis in a special way. Important elements of Thesis:

• What is the question or issue?
• What method will be used to address these questions?
• What evidence can be applied?
• What logic integrates the above?

General Guidelines for thesis Formulation: All the PhD research scholars need to consider research objective, expected novelty, technical selection, algorithmic implementation etc. For non technical research scholors should consider predominantly research question, method, evidence and logic simultaneously. The basic checklist helps you to formulate your thesis.

Question

• Do you have a hypothesis, a question, or a point to be made about an issue? Note that this is different from a general topic.
• Is this hypothesis refutable? Does your question potentially have different answers?
• Who might be interested in the answer to the question?
• How does this potential audience now understand the issue?
• How does your question address their concerns?
• Are you yourself interested in the question?

Method

• Do you have the resources to apply this method (the time to learn it, the equipment or program to carry it out, the money to pay for it?
• Do you already know how to apply this method?
• What is the proposed method, speci?cally?

Evidence

• What kind of data does your method and question require?
• How much of it do you already have in hand?
• How sure are you that you will be able to obtain what you require within your deadline? What obstacles might prevent you from obtaining what you need?
• Will you have a “fail-safe” plan, so that you can complete the work even if you do not get the data you want?

Logic

• What logic will you use to argue your hypothesis?
• What kind of results do you expect to get from applying your method to the evidence?
• What does your audience currently know or believe? What logic will it take to take them from where they are now, to the message you want to leave them with?

Characteristics of dissertation / PhD thesis

The average length of dissertations seems to run around 200 pages, usually ranging between 125 and 225 pages. However, there are differences in fields of student. PhD thesis in the natural sciences tends to be shorter than those in the social sciences. Further, ethnographic investigations in general will be longer than those reporting experimental studies.

Secondly, thesis / dissertation are replete with citations of previous research and as a research scholar you are expected to know the previous literature and be able to cite it appropriately. Nevertheless, you cannot simply make assertions but document them.

For example Author writes, “Consumers feel more confident these days”. You cannot simply copy the same rather the scholar has to rewrite According to several recent studies, consumers surveyed report feelings of greater confidence about the economy.

Third, PhD thesis / dissertation should sound scholarly, formal rather than an informal essay, or colloquial, or an editorial and is objective not subjective.

Style of Dissertation: In general thesis or dissertation follows very specific rules with reference to their style, particularly requirements such as tables, headings and documenting source. Hence, its always better to check with your dissertation faculty member / mentor / guide for university preferred guidelines. Or Check out your previous colleagues PhD thesis / dissertation university guidelines