Picking a Dissertation Topic Personal Factor • What academic subject/topic are you passionate about? • Create a topic based on what you enjoy (if possible)
• Are you up to date with the literature on your topic of interest? • How well do you know the topic and how competent do you feel
• What impact will the subject have on your future? • Further academic studies (e.g. PhD, Post Doc) • Employment
External Factor • Is your topic manageable? • Consider time frame, resources, and availability of data sources.
• Is your topic relevant to the course? • Consultation with supervisor and refer to academic handbook.
• Is your topic original? (Has it been done before?) • Consultation with supervisor. • Online thesis databases.
• Is your topic significant in practical or theoretical terms? • Quantitative, qualitative or mixed method studies. • Increase knowledge in academic field. • Publishable.
Immediate goals and objectives • Distinction: Clearly demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of the topic, with a high degree of competence and has excellent usage of relevant literature, theory and methodology. • 70% mark for a distinction
• Merit: Has a critical understanding of the topic, a significant degree of competence and has appropriate usage of the relevant materials. • 60% mark for a merit
• Pass: Evidence of some critical understanding of the topic, can use structured argument, and has a degree of competence when using relevant materials. • 50% mark for a pass • 40% may also be accepted
Research project is usually graded as pass or fail, with occasional universities offering distinction as a classification
Proposal examples • Title: Pharmacological evaluation of thermostabilised GPCRs for structure based drug discovery • Program of Study: Molecular Pharmacology • Purpose of Study: This project is aimed to define the pharmacology of GPCRs which have been mutated to confer thermal stability. These receptors will be used for crystallography to design new drugs for the treatment of neurological disorders
Proposal examples • Example of Quantitative Dissertation Proposal • Title: Analysis of Telephonic Pharmacist Counselling • Program of Study: Public Health • Purpose of Study: This correlational study used the behavioural change model to analyse archival data from a sample of 1,148 participants to investigate the relationships between pharmacist counselling, medication adherence, and medication complexity for one pharmacy benefit management firm’s Medicare Part D recipients.
Thesis/dissertation • No standard format but most institutions require similar elements in a similar order. • Simple format consisting of introduction, three publishable articles and a conclusion • Quite elaborate (see here)
• Word limits/deadlines • Styles (font, paragraph format etc…) • See University guidelines and courses: http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/it/training/#/usingwordtoprepareashortdissertation,wordprocessi ng,usingwordtoprepareyourthesisordissertation
Thesis/dissertation writing training bookable here
Thesis Example
PhD Thesis Simple format consisting of main components • Introduction • Methods • Results/published article • Discussion • Critical analysis • References
Online thesis/dissertation databases • University of Glasgow (http://theses.gla.ac.uk/) • Glasgow Caledonian (http://ilink.gcal.ac.uk/uhtbin/webcat) • University of Strathclyde (http://suprimo.lib.strath.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do)
• University of Stirling • Taught masters : http://libcat.stir.ac.uk/search/X?%28thesis%29&m=f&SORT=D • Research based thesis: https://dspace.stir.ac.uk/
• University of Dundee • http://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/search.html
• UK Wide thesis (UK thesis (http://ethos.bl.uk/Home.do)
Good Luck !