Examining Dissertation

What Examiners Look in Dissertation

It doesn't matter what subject you study or in what level you examine it, from age 14 onward you will undoubtedly discover that you are tasked with writing an essay. . .and those lucky people who go on to study an academic field at University will locate themselves writing half a dozen essays each month or two. Within instruction it's almost impossible to prevent the dreaded job of essay or dissertation writing.

Essays and dissertations are predominately used in two manners:

1. An essay title or dissertation topic is set, and students are given a limited quantity of time to go away and find out more about the subject, and build a well informed essay that responds to either the subject matter put forward for discussion, or that responses the particular essay question that's been set.

2. The conclusion of an essay sits within a timed examination. Students are led into a test room, given a newspaper which includes a number of essay titles that they will need to respond to, and they are given a short quantity of time (generally no longer than 3 hours) to compose an essay on this topic or against the presented essay name. In this instance it is recognized that the degree of research which goes into the essay is going to be restricted, given that the pupils will not (normally) have access to text books, reference material and all important World Wide Web.

Nearly all students will see that they have to experience both types of composition writing requirements at some time in their life. And the one crucial theme that runs through both these different essay writing requirements is that. . .the aim of the essay written ought to be to match the examiner's or mark's requirements as best as possible. The success of your essay or dissertation lies in just how well you tick all of their boxes so to speak!

So what is it that examiners are searching for when they indicate an essay or dissertation?

- They need to see you have addressed the thesis question that has been posed. So many students make the deadly mistake of writing down what they know about a subject matter, without actually considering what the question is asking. Marks will be lost (and significant marks at that) should you simply write down everything you know about the topic matter. Less is more sometimes with articles, so consider including only the material that's pertinent to the specific question raised - nothing longer.

- They want to finish reading the article and come away with the impression that you really did understand the subject matter. Very good ways to do that are to include quotations, examples and case studies.

- They'll look to see whether you're able to form an argument. This may include things like making up your mind about a specific topic, or it might be analyzing the arguments of other people and deciding which you more strongly agree with.

- They'll look to determine how well your technical dissertation writing skill is. Can you form decent sentences? Is your grammar and spelling accurate? Have you ever muddled your tenses?