Tips for Describing Methodology in a Thesis or Dissertation
Writing excellent scholarly text is challenging, and this is particularly the case if you are new to the composition of long and complex research-based documents, as many thesis and dissertation students are. To describe and explain the procedures and findings of advanced research effectively, an academic or scientific author must achieve accuracy and precision amidst a maze of detail and ensure that a thorough approach is guided by a clear and concise logic. This will certainly be the case when you are describing the research methods for your thesis or dissertation. There will be a great deal to think about and each research project will present its own complexities, but the general tips listed below will apply in many situations.
• It is absolutely vital that your primary supervisor, other members of your thesis or dissertation committee and ultimately the group of specialists who examine your work understand your methodology. You will therefore need to write prose that is absolutely clear and correct in every way. If you require assistance to do so, seek it from a fellow student, a generous mentor, the writing clinic at your university or a professional proofreader or editor who specialises in working on academic or scientific documents.
• Determining before you begin writing exactly how extensive the description of your methodology should be and the format it should take is a good idea. A chapter dedicated to methodology is common and often contains several sections, but you may instead be expected to describe your research methods more briefly in a shorter section within another chapter of your thesis or dissertation. Especially complicated methodology is occasionally discussed in two or more chapters, particularly if different methods are mined or combined to form your own.
• Be as specific as possible and focus on the concrete facts, actions and details associated with your work. Describe, for example, the settings and subjects (texts, people, animals etc.) of your research. Indicate the variables you considered and the instruments you used. Explain exactly how you have collected and analysed data at each stage of the research process.
• You should also explain why your methodology is appropriate – indeed, the best methodology possible – and perhaps innovative for investigating your topic. This explanation will ideally involve a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of various aspects of your design, the reliability and limitations of your instruments and procedures, and the use of controls and other rigorous methods for checking and guaranteeing the validity of your results. Returning to any research questions or hypotheses that you formulated and presented in the introductory sections of your thesis or dissertation will allow you to discuss with precision how and why you think your research methods will answer and test them.
• If you are using unusual or complex equipment in your research, you may want to include figures to illustrate it, and diagrams can be extremely effective for showing readers the procedural processes you will be following, especially when several trials and stages with slight variations must be described. Be sure to label any figures you use with care and precision, ensuring that the meanings of all nonstandard symbols and abbreviations are clarified for your readers.
• If you find yourself stuck for the right words to describe your methodology precisely or perhaps its relationship to previous scholarship in your area of specialisation, it may prove helpful to look back at your textbook, notes and assignments for research methodology or theory classes you may have taken and to reread any studies that were particularly influential as you designed your own research methods.
Why Our Editing and Proofreading Services?
At Proof-Reading-Service.com we offer the highest quality journal article editing, dissertation proofreading and online proofreading services via our large and extremely dedicated team of academic and scientific professionals. All of our proofreaders are native speakers of English who have earned their own postgraduate degrees, and their areas of specialisation cover such a wide range of disciplines that we are able to help our international clientele with research editing to improve and perfect all kinds of academic manuscripts for successful publication. Many of the carefully trained members of our manuscript editing and proofreading team work predominantly on articles intended for publication in scholarly journals, applying painstaking journal editing standards to ensure that the references and formatting used in each paper are in conformity with the journal’s instructions for authors and to correct any grammar, spelling, punctuation or simple typing errors. In this way, we enable our clients to report their research in the clear and accurate ways required to impress acquisitions proofreaders and achieve publication.
Our scientific proofreading services for the authors of a wide variety of scientific journal papers are especially popular, but we also offer manuscript proofreading services and have the experience and expertise to proofread and edit manuscripts in all scholarly disciplines, as well as beyond them. We have team members who specialise in medical proofreading services, and some of our experts dedicate their time exclusively to dissertation proofreading and manuscript proofreading, offering academics the opportunity to improve their use of formatting and language through the most exacting PhD thesis editing and journal article proofreading practices. Whether you are preparing a conference paper for presentation, polishing a progress report to share with colleagues, or facing the daunting task of editing and perfecting any kind of scholarly document for publication, a qualified member of our professional team can provide invaluable assistance and give you greater confidence in your written work.
If you are in the process of preparing an article for an academic or scientific journal, or planning one for the near future, you may well be interested in a new book, Guide to Journal Publication, which is available on our Tips and Advice on Publishing Research in Journals website.
