Putting the Pieces Together

Usually, things come together in the end. But in a dissertation, they need to come together far sooner.

Already, in your introduction chapter, you need to piece everything together.

Albeit at a high level, you need to establish a balance between the background to the research problem and its foreground and have a balanced view of the main debates in the theoretical literature related to your topic. Once you have established the perspective from which you’re viewing the problem and have recognised the various theoretical viewpoints, you can piece together your argument for doing your research.

Whether you’re using a qualitative or quantitative methodology in your research, you may find it useful to follow the guidelines of Van de Ven (2007) when writing the argument of your research and motivate for your conceptual framework. His guidelines are based on a modification of Toulmin’s (2003) structure for presenting a scientific argument. They go as follows:

First present the background, context or problem for the theories you’ve selected. Then present your proposition or claim, and the reasons for your claim together with evidence for these reasons. Next, explain the qualifiers/boundary conditions/delimiters or assumptions of your claim. End with the reservations or limitations of your argument.

You may wish to use this structure briefly in Chapter 1 and expand on it in your Literature and theory review chapter.

Contact me at [email protected] if you need help with your thesis or dissertation. I guide students from conceptualisation to completion.