Dissertation

As promised. Please don't curse me for the late post, but I have been pretty busy off late to post things, and right now I am actually taking out time off my work time to like write this blog. (We appreciate the efforts Jyotika, you are awesome). Anyhow, here goes the much awaited entry.

Synopsis is the first bit that you need to get past in October if I remember correctly.

HOW TO GO ABOUT THE WHOLE DARN THING:

Topic: Chose a topic and chose wisely. This is only because you will be stuck with this topic for the next 8-9 months till the time you finally have your viva. Which means you should love your topic, or be so indifferent towards the whole process that it shouldnt matter to you.
When you chose your topic make sure that you limit your scope as much as possible. The wider the topic the more problems you will face. Problems in terms of the volume of research, the length of your dissertation and ofcourse you WILL be royally screwed in your viva. (Forgive me for a lack of a better term). For example, my topic was Patenting of transgenic animals, which is vast in terms of the number of articles in terms of the literature you will find. Patenting of Transgenic Animals: A comparative Study (on a private and serious note, this was NOT what I wrote down, but the lack of creativity of certain esteemed persons made the topic so intolerable to my taste and liking) anyhow.
So here is the deal. Patenting of transgenic animals is a huge topic, it was narrowed down by making it a comparative study (which in my defense was not what my dissertation was about). So by making it a comparative study i narrowed down my scope to things that i would compare it with.
In my scope of study i explained what the comparison was, I limited myself to few countries only. I further narrowed my research to be closer to the pharmaceutical industry, and then made it tighter by keeping in mind the hypothesis i was proposing.

So basically this is how you chose a topic. For further topic related queries- you can mail me your doubts. I will be glad to help, but don't expect like a super duper quick response.

Thats how you go about the topic.

then there are two ways of going about the next step. either you make your chapterization before hand and know what exactly you wanna put in or you go by the research first and then chapterisation approach. it works both ways but it depends upon what you are most comfortable with. many people opt for either one of the options. if you find another way like a pre-made dissertation, kudos to you. (:P)
So coming back to this thing on dissertation. I used the chapterisation method and the research method. Why because my laptop crashed while i was making my dissertation, no backup and i had to redo my entire dissertation, it sucks, so be sure to have lot of back up on you.

Once you are sure of the topic, you will also know what all you need to put in the dissertation, for example if you want to put in a brief history of the law and how it was amended and how it stands today, etc.
So a dissertation would have an introduction (which has a fixed format) which will introduce the reader to what your dissertation is generally about, then it will have the whole drill of scheme of chapterisation, survey of literature, hypothesis, objectives etc. (Basically the synopsis that you submit, is your introduction chapter in the final dissertation, you save yourself from writing one chapter for the dissertation, but you however have to ensure that you tweak up your synopsis and make it grand before putting it in.
Then you go on to the next chapter which will be according to the topic that you chose. For example in my dissertation, first chapter was the introduction, second chapter was on USA, third was on EU, fourth was on India, fifth on pharmaceutical industry and Sixth was the conclusion with all my suggestions etc.

so once you know what your chapters are going to be like, you can streamline your entire research work accordingly. When I first started making my dissertation, I found out everything about my main topic, animal patenting, i did not narrow down my research, because i like being extremely thorough. Its like the universal set, you cant miss out on anything relating to animals patenting, then you can find subsets that suit your chapters. After i got all the information I wanted, i started sifting through my research work, marking out portions which would suit my chapters. Now it also happens when you are going through the research you might want to seggregate the information and add another chapter. A good dissertation has a minimum of 6 chapters. So you might want to add a chapter or change a scheme of chapterization.
Once you have seggregated all the information, you start the ardous task of redrafting it, footnoting it etc.
I put chunks of information under the relevant chapters, then i highlighted important parts, marked the repetitions on the same topic but in different articles, then chopped it further down, and then organised it in logical sequence under the particular chapter heading and then i started the drafting.

This is the most comprehensive way of going about it. If you guys have another way, you are most welcome to post a comment.

HYPOTHESIS
This is a challenging part. A hypothesis is a statement, which may be true or false, which you through the course of your dissertation and research work, will prove in your conclusion to be true or false. For example, my hypothesis is ALL DOGS BITE. My research work will be lets say limited to my locality, where i will visit all of my neighbours and see the the street dogs and see if they bite. My research in this case is emperical researc. Through my research i found that not all dogs bite. Therefore in my conclusion i will put forth that the hypothesis stands tested, and it is proved to be false. I can in this same topic, have another hypothesis, which now makes it hypotheses (plural).
1. ALL DOGS BITE
2. DOMESTICATED DOGS BITE IF IRKED
3. STREET DOGS BITE ANYWAY

Okay, like you wont draft your hypotheses so loosely, but this is just an example. In this regard, my set becomes all dogs in my neighbour hood, and the domesticated pooches bite when they are irked- true (depends on emperical research results), and the street dogs bite anyway-true (depends upon the results) So I can say that my hypotheses is true.
But my first hypothesis maybe false, as some dogs domesticated ones might not bite. They might bite only if irked.

Got it?

If I had a chance to redo my dissertation this time around I would love to do it again, just for the fun of it. (haha I sound crazy).


So objectives of the study is basically why you are carrying out this research and what you want to show prove through this. Like compare the laws of two nations, prepare a critique, propose amendments based on the loopholes of the law etc. So thats what your objectives will look like.

Lastly when it comes to the survey of literature, you just have to write down the books u read with the ISBN numbers and give like a summary of it in 20-30 lines. Or the relevant part of the book, if the whole thing wasnt relevant. Same thing with the articles.


So thats more or less the thing about the darn thing. If you have any queries, get back to me. I know this post is made in a hurry, but I think it should clear the initial cobwebs. Get back to me for further doubts.


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