Specialist Library Support
The Library provides expert support to students, staff and researchers in the specialist areas of business data, copyright, maths and statistics, referencing support, advanced searching and systematic reviews. This includes:
If you’ve tried our online resources and workshops and need more help, you can get expert help via our online help pages, attending a drop-in session, giving us a call or arranging a consultation.
Thesis and dissertation are terms used to describe a longer piece of written work involving personal research usually done as part of a university degree.
In the UK, the term thesis describes the written part of the submission for a research degree at masters or PhD level. The term dissertation generally refers to an extended piece of writing based on extended reading and some independent research at undergraduate or masters level. However, they are reversed in the US, where dissertation is usually used to describe a piece of extended writing for a PhD. You will see references to both theses and dissertations in the resources in this guide.
As original research is reported in theses, they are a rich source of information about research in your field. They can help you to:
Dissertations: choosing your topic
This resource will take you through the key elements of the early stages of your dissertation such as writing your research question and the objectives for achieving it.
This resource will highlight some of the key stages in planning to write your dissertation. It will also highlight some useful tools to help you along the way.
This resource will give you an introduction to literature reviews. It will also give you advice on what a good literature should include, and how to prepare for writing your literature review.
View all workshops and online resources in this area on the
My Learning Essentials webpages
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