Whether you’re pursuing a Ph.D., a DBA, or another Ph.D., your dissertation is the pinnacle of your Ph.D. program. That’s why being aware of common, but avoidable problems ahead of time will make the process smoother. We have summarized six problems commonly encountered when preparing a dissertation for review and what you can do to easily avoid them.
- The preliminary pages of your dissertation are missing, incomplete, or out of order. Preliminary pages include all pages before the start of the main dissertation text. it is essential that the preliminary pages are not only formatted correctly but in the correct order. Make sure you are referencing your Ph.D. program thesis template rather than guessing what these pages should look like.
- The abstract of your dissertation is longer than one page. You have done a lot of interesting research for your thesis and reached unique conclusions that you are ready to share with the world. This excitement, not to mention all the knowledge you’ve gathered, can often make it difficult to summarize your research in a one-page abstract. However, regardless of whether you are attending a mainstream or online university, it is essential that the abstract conforms to your school’s specific doctoral dissertation guidelines. Naturally, this dictates that the abstract be no more than one page.
- Your thesis contains more formatting problems. The formatting of your dissertation is as important as its content. When writing your dissertation, you should be familiar with the guidelines for formatting your Ph.D. program. But even at the peak of your Ph.D., mistakes can still be made, especially in a long document. Refer to your program’s thesis template to make sure all formatting is correct, including your preferred citation style, page numbering, margins, and indents.
- Your thesis contains words from the proposal stage. Since you’ve spent months, even years, looking at the same document, it can be surprisingly easy to overlook the time changes required as your dissertation progresses. Thankfully, this is an easy problem to solve. Using the “find” function of your word processing program, search for words such as “proposed” or “proposed”, then change them to words that reflect the completed study versus the proposed study.
- Your thesis contains violations of academic integrity. This may seem obvious, especially for those at the doctoral level, but academic oversights can occur, even if you haven’t planned them. This is especially true of plagiarism, which is more than just a word-for-word replication of someone else’s prose. Ideas themselves can be plagiarized if they are not quoted correctly. Carefully review your college or university’s online doctoral program guidelines on academic integrity, then make sure you abide by them … without exception. Otherwise, not only could it have serious consequences for your thesis, but it could jeopardize your entire Ph.D.
- Your thesis contains grammatical mistakes, jargon, vague paragraph organization, and other common writing errors. We are not all professional writers. That’s why most universities provide students with writing guidance, often in the form of on-campus or online writing centers.
- These centers are equipped with writing experts who are happy to review your writings. Not only will they point out and help you correct mistakes, but they will work with you to prevent you from repeating them: a service that will help you with your thesis and throughout your career.
