Essential Qualities of a Well-Written Undergraduate Dissertation

No matter how good a student you are or how well you’ve done in your classes, your undergraduate career will be judged mostly on one document: the dissertation. For this reason, it’s important to spend as much time as possible working on this project and to do everything possible to raise it to a standard that exemplifies all the hard work you’ve put into your undergraduate career.

A Direct Thesis Statement

The first and perhaps most important quality of a well-written undergraduate dissertation is direct thesis statement. In a research study of this scope, students often get tripped up when trying to present their argument in a single concise sentence. You should keep revising your thesis until you have stripped it down to its bare but most important components.

Clear and Concise Writing

One of the most important qualities of great dissertation is clear and concise writing. You need to be highly critical of your writing during the revising, editing, and proofreading stages. Don’t use overly complicated sentences that can confuse the reader or opt for longer and more academic sounding words. Both of these choices can be detrimental to your work. Write clearly and concisely and always choose simple sentence constructions and word choices over complex ones.

Well Organized Sections

Appropriately organizing your sections is essential to a well-written undergraduate dissertation. Every discipline will have its own way of structuring dissertation sections in a logical manner. You can usually download a template straight from the department website, but you can also search for templates or sample dissertations in a number of places online.

Answers to All Questions

It’s important that you provide an answer to every research question you brought up in the introduction. If for any reason you can’t give an answer to one or more questions, then you must revise the content of your undergraduate dissertation so that you provide an explanation for the limited reach you have in this particular research study.

A Well-thought Conclusion

Finally, your conclusion must be thoughtful and bring your research study to a close. This isn’t to say that you absolutely have to answer every question your area of study poses, but you do have to bring the discussion points you have explored to an end. Acknowledge that more work could and should be done, but admit to the fact that you have reached the limits and accomplished all that you set out to do.