A dissertation is written by an applicant for an academic degree. It must contain an essential element of scientific novelty, although serious discovery is not a requirement for protection. All the harmonious, beautiful forms that architecture delights us with are the result of long days and nights spent in calculations or specialized software products. A degree is a chance to enter and make yourself known in the scientific community. But it’s also a vehicle for career growth and a reason to demand a raise. Many companies would be honored to have a PhD on staff. In this case, we recommend reading the Guide to Writing and Defending a Dissertation.
Mistakes and Problems in Writing a Dissertation: A Guide for Architects
A dissertation is a complex piece of scientific work that involves a lot of calculations, computations and other visuals related to research. In the time allotted for the preparation of a dissertation, the applicant should have time until a scientific degree to select a relevant topic with scientific news, to formulate justified regulations for the defense of scientific work, to develop an appropriate research methodology, to select a dissertation and submit strictly according to the requirements.
You can use essay writing service to order the essay or dissertation but we recommend to read this useful article. Below we try to briefly describe the most important points to consider when preparing and defending a dissertation.
Preparation for a Thesis
First and foremost you need to give yourself an exact answer to the question – why do you personally need a dissertation? You need very, very serious motivation to start this work. This is demanding and often unpleasant work, which requires several months of very intensive work and will constantly hang on the sword of Damocles for at least several years.
Never confuse science and dissertation. You can spend your whole life doing real science and not get a degree. You can defend a dissertation that has nothing to do with science.
Dissertation – Scientific qualification work. This means that a doctoral student must demonstrate sufficient qualifications to be considered a scientist. If you have read about the ancient tribes’ dedicatory rites, the scriptures and protection are very similar. You go through artificially constructed circles of hell to prove you’re worthy.
Choosing a caregiver is important but not critical. Because it is not a fact that he will help you at work. He is a critical figure in the first and last stages – when he has to decide where and where to dig, and when he has to make suggestions on how best to formalize and protect the finished work.
But if you’re lucky and the leader is genuinely interested in your work, you’ll appreciate it. Don’t let his enthusiasm burn out, show progress regularly.
Measure input and output. If you put too little soul into the work, it becomes very boring. If you invest a lot, you may be very disappointed to find that few people need a job other than you.
It is necessary to clearly understand how the thesis is analyzed. In the worst case, the dissertation itself is read by exactly one person: yourself. In a typical one – three more, opponents and supervisors. The researchers examine the accompanying documents. For the council itself, defense speeches are more than enough to assess the work. But the synopsis can already be read by a few dozen people. And the introduction to the abstract (i.e. the first 5 pages) is already read by a hundred.
Simple Rules for Writing a Dissertation
From this follows a very simple rule: the greatest amount of time and effort should be devoted to that which is most carefully studied. As a matter of fact:
- introduction;
- scientific news;
- defense clauses;
- the applicant’s job list;
- opponent and leading organization.
Where to start – take one. Topic search. This is where the help of a supervisor is needed – he should throw ideas and tasks, one of which should interest you. If you’re interested, just search the web to find out how much has been done on it (I highly recommend looking at foreign languages as well. As a last resort, use translate.google.com or similar services – these and sites can auto-translate) .
Also remember – if the topic is boring and uninteresting – see point 1. Boredom kills motivation.
It is not necessary to take a subject in which there is either practically no work, or a lot. In the first case, there will be a lot of comments from researchers, in the second, you will get tired of proving news.
Yes, and an obvious, but important little thing – everything you find, save it somewhere.
When there is a theme but nothing else. We recommend compiling the content of the dissertation (possibly take publicly accessible dissertations from the subject from the internet/library and see how it usually looks).
The content makes the picture very clear – but since you don’t yet know exactly what to write in the review or in the system architecture, you already understand that such parts should be included in the work. It can be done many times until you feel that you theoretically have something to write for each element or know how to go about it. Well, and consequently, when all the points are filled, you get a coherent story about solving a specific problem.
Most of the time the content looks like this:
Chapter 1. Relevance of the problem. Overview of available methods. Advantages and disadvantages. perspectives.
Chapter 2. Theoretical part of what I proposed. methods. algorithms. comparison and niche.
Chapter 3. The practical part of what I suggested. Architecture. performance study. comparison with competitors.
Chapter 4. Practical Application. Task – problem, solution, results.
Quite often a graduate student (especially in a university) is perceived as a freelance worker.
Avoid. Or haggle – because everything you do brings you closer to your goal – your dissertation. It does not have to be the text of a dissertation. Also, an article, program or just rhetoric, acquaintances and good connections are necessary.
Tips and Typical Mistakes Made by Students
It’s immensely easier to defend yourself in your “resident” council.
In this context, it is sometimes useful to ask which disciplines and topics are relevant and can, in principle, be taken into account by the Council. Each council has its own specialty. You can find the definition and passport of the disciplines on the Internet.
Don’t delay writing articles until the last minute. At least 10 publications are now required for the thesis.
If it is a finished more or less finished part of the article, it must be described and published. If you want to finish, write in the article about the improvement plans. And when you’re done with that, write another article. Of course, not every sneeze needs to be described, but polishing it to a mirror finish is pointless.
Attending conferences, studying other abstracts, or simply attending the pre-defense/meeting at the department is also useful—the more examples others have in mind, the clearer the requirements and expectations become.
Write down any questions or ideas you have while writing the text in a separate file.
Typical mistakes and problems – lack of scientific news.
A very big problem that is in many works. People are not able to formulate exactly what is new (and sometimes do not think about it when writing – because this is rarely necessary for a diploma, for example). But a PhD is about 10 degrees of complexity.
For each element of scientific novelty, we recommend a triad formulation:
A <proprietary idea> is proposed, differing in <specificity of proposed approach>, allowing for <pragmatic advantage>.
Typical mistakes and problems – lack of comparison with competitors. Typical errors and problems – limitations of the proposed method. It is always necessary to clearly articulate under what conditions the method is applicable and gives good results compared to analogues, and where it should be used cautiously, or in combination with others, or not at all.
Typical mistakes and problems – disregard of the special passport. One of the most terrible problems – because. the proof automatically leads to the rejection of the dissertation. It is recommended to study the passport for the specialty, indicate which sections of the passport the work corresponds to, and even include certain words and phrases from these sections in the goals and results.
Be friends with the Scientific Secretary of the Council. This is your first experience, he/she sees dozens of applications every year and knows all the requirements. listen carefully Follow generally accepted rules. See point 3 – this is a qualified work. And unfortunately or fortunately not the best place to show your individuality.
Don’t think other people are stupid. If you proceed to a public defense, there is a high probability that you will understand your subject better than most, if not all, members of the doctoral committee. Just because it’s a narrow niche that you’ve personally carved out over the past three years. And they can have completely different scientific interests. However, this does not mean at all that they cannot in a very short time assess what you have done and find all the shortcomings of what you have forgotten or omitted to do. Here it can help to have respect for others. A separate part of this rule – don’t look at your opponents as idiots. Do not engage in plagiarism and copy-paste (including translations of foreign articles). There are almost no people who do not know how to use the Internet. Only those who are reluctant to take your hand.
You shouldn’t think of others as enemies either – almost never, and nobody has any specific purpose to hurt you, fill you up, or catch you.
The most important thing to always remember is the main rule – rescuing drowners is the work of the drowners themselves. There are many good people in life who are able and willing to help. But anyway good luck to you.
