Tracy Dix 00:00
Hello. You're listening to the Wyrd Learning podcast with your hosts, Dr Tracy Dix and Dr Alex Patel. We have a combined 50 years experience of studying, teaching and supporting students to succeed in their university studies. We also work with lecturers to improve the learning outcomes of their students. Our goal in this podcast is to help you make sense of university assignments, whether you want to understand how to write essays be more critical, or how to manage your time better to achieve the grades you want. It gives us the greatest joy when our students tell us how helpful our advice has been. When they say, this is brilliant. I know exactly what to do now, and I feel so inspired to get started today, we're demystifying dissertations. We're confident that this episode will change the way you feel about your dissertation. So let's get to it. Okay, so to begin with, what is a dissertation? Technically speaking, technically and kind of boringly speaking. That's not really a word, never mind, a dissertation is a substantial research project that contributes to your field of study. According to Best colleges.com to many students, it is a long essay, and it could be between five to 20,000 words long, and it's probably your first time undertaking something of this kind of length, so it could feel like a really intimidating prospect. How long are the dissertations that you've worked on? Alex, oh, that's a
Alexandra Patel 01:27
good question. I think the first question is, how many dissertations have I worked on? I think I may have mentioned this before, but I've hung out at University for a long, long time, and I've kept paper copies of some of these wonderful things. So I did a joint honors. So I actually did a dissertation or project in psychology and a separate one in neuroscience as well. So this is my psychology. One is
Tracy Dix 01:54
that your undergraduate dissertation? Yep,
Alexandra Patel 01:56
this is undergraduate and this was about schizotypy.
Tracy Dix 02:00
For those of you who are watching this as a as a video rather than as a recording, Alex is showing off
Alexandra Patel 02:08
I am indeed, yes, very impressive results. Does it say what the word count is? No, it does not. Do you
Tracy Dix 02:15
not remember what the word count was? No, not very many.
Alexandra Patel 02:19
I would say that's lucky to p5 1000 for
Tracy Dix 02:22
less than So, fewer than 5000 words. I think so. I
Alexandra Patel 02:25
think it's quite short. And this one, wow. This. This is my, my, what would you call it? An Opus, magnum opus, or something, your Magnum
Tracy Dix 02:35
work of
Alexandra Patel 02:36
my life? This? No, this is the one where I got 85% which second highest mark in a cohort of 287
Tracy Dix 02:48
students. That is very impressive. I still use that
Alexandra Patel 02:50
on my CV today. So I mean, you do a good job on a dissertation, and you can carry on milking that fame forever. But this one is even lighter. How many pages long is this because again, apparently I didn't think it important to do word counts at all. In fact, I didn't even number the pages in this so there you go.
Tracy Dix 03:13
Your marker clearly didn't care. So you're breaking all the rules and aceing it anyway. Alex, how annoying of you.
Alexandra Patel 03:20
Totally but actually, yeah, you're quite right. So if I had come to a session like this and learnt about useful things like word counts, maybe even a contents page, something like that, and followed useful conventions for dissertations, like using a single referencing system, I think this is the one where I use Vancouver and Harvard intermittently throughout then this, this would have been even better, but it all came down to, I guess, the analysis. So I didn't just summarize what other people had written. I kind of did deep dives into the data that people have published and then re analyzed it and combined it in different ways to create new knowledge. And so that's why I'm so proud of this. Dr,
Tracy Dix 04:09
Alex Patel, Trailblazer, Rule Breaker, okay. Assignment. Acer, my next one.
Alexandra Patel 04:19
This is more of a project. So when I did my research masters, I did two projects on genetic engineering, and they're very exciting, because it was about taking a gene that creates, like a chemical that's involved in wound healing. So, you know, you stick on a wound and it helps it heal, and putting that into plants. So the idea was, if you can get plants to produce this wound healing chemical, you can very cheaply produce something that can be given to lots of people to help heal wounds. And so I really love that kind of, you know, helping people type part of it made it very exciting for me.
Tracy Dix 04:59
And. Like that, and I like the fact that it's plant based as well. Like the plant is the vehicle for making that chemical, rather than a lab produced chemical. Well done, Alex, that's very good, yes, but you have no idea what the word counts are.
Alexandra Patel 05:13
Well, this one's a bit weightier, but I suspect this is because I have lots of pictures, and it was also a longer project. But yeah, you know, apparently I didn't think it was important to have word counts, although my supervisor on this one has noted that page numbers would have been useful just to buy nothing there and then. Should I pull out the really exciting one? This, of course, is my thesis from three and a half to four years worth of research on locusts, which you may have heard me talk about before, so I'm not going to go into that, but yeah, yeah. So you know, really a dissertation is another form of academic writing, you know, the smallest ones really start off as kind of essays, but I guess you could argue that you get even briefer forms of academic writing, you know, like posters and letters to journals, for example. Then you have essays, dissertations and projects, reports, of course, yeah, yeah. And then you start to get masters thesis, theses. And then finally, you know your PhD thesis, which those are your ones, which are an awful lot longer. And I bet I still haven't got a word count in this. I do at least have page numbers, though,
Tracy Dix 06:42
I was going to ask you about your word count. Mine was definitely 80,000 words. How many 80,000
Alexandra Patel 06:50
for my PhD? So how many inches worth of
Tracy Dix 06:54
the final publication? Hard bound is about that thick. Okay. Is that about an inch?
Alexandra Patel 07:00
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mine's about an inch, yeah.
Tracy Dix 07:05
Okay. Anyway, so back to word count. So yes, it is a longer essay, and Alex has said that, you know, it's, it's kind of building up on the shorter pieces of writing that most students would face. I thought I might, I might stop you there when you got to PhD territory, because you might frighten off our listeners
Alexandra Patel 07:26
frightened. We promise to
Tracy Dix 07:27
demystify dissertations, not make them scary. I couldn't think of a good, alliterative word to go with dissertations that were also meant scary, daunting. Daunt full visit. No, that's all word either. Okay, never mind. Forget it. Okay. So these days, the vast majority of students I come across, undergrads who want help with their dissertations tend to be working on ones that are about 5000 words long, and they often look very upset with me when I go, oh, 5000 words. So it's literally a long essay, and they're kind of like you cow.
Alexandra Patel 08:11
But we all know it is definitely quality, not quantity, particularly so with AI and chat GPT, because, I mean, you can ask chat GPT to create you probably write you a whole 5000 word, 10,000 word dissertation, but you could ask it to write separate sections and then cut and copy and paste and stick them together. But I wouldn't read that.
Tracy Dix 08:35
Why wouldn't you, Alex,
Alexandra Patel 08:36
why wouldn't I read that? Because I don't want to waste my time reading something that hasn't had critical analysis and human thought put into it. It upsets me. I guess you could argue, if somebody has used chat, GPT and then gone through and re analyzed stuff and made those critical decisions, it's different. But you know, when you come across these things on the internet, these articles where you just know, it's literally just been copied and pasted out of chat GPT. I hate those. So, yeah, I think we still have a big role for the human mind in in thinking, thank goodness.
Tracy Dix 09:16
I feel like chat GPT is quite similar to a lot of other online tools that we come across. So I think with any kind of new technology, it's always about human discretion and kind of exercising your own thinking and your own criticality. Because, I mean, students have admitted in the past to, you know, typing their essay topic into Google, and then with out of what comes up, they somehow cobble together a response, and so that's their essay, but, but there's no criticality there. You know, they haven't exercised their own judgment. They've just taken something at face value. And I think that's the same with chat, GPT and other forms of. Of generative AI, it takes a lot of effort and thinking and understanding how the technology works to actually come up with prompts that will produce you good results, and actually, by the time you've come up with the prompts, evaluated the prompts, part of me feels like it's actually easier to write it myself. That's how I feel about it. I have tried chat GPT. I think there is a place for it. Sometimes, if you're maybe at a loss for words, it's quite handy to have a bit of inspiration, just bit of ideas on like, How can I phrase this differently? Or, how can I you know, but it will never produce a complete answer for you, it will always need your you need to have an overview on it.
Alexandra Patel 10:46
What's interesting is that this really kind of sums up what a dissertation is about. We're not summarizing stuff like chat, GPT or whatever tool, whatever AI tools are out there. What we're doing is trying to create new knowledge. We're trying to draw on research and information conduct analyzes be critical. Think, combine different ideas and create new knowledge
Tracy Dix 11:15
that I would agree with that. So shall we look at the bigger picture for a moment and think about what opportunities are available when you're doing a dissertation. Because I think very often students are stuck in that mode of, I've got to do a dissertation, I don't know what it's all about, and they're, like, really worried and anxious about it. They want it to be perfect. And so there's a lot of stress and a lot of pressure. So thinking about it kind of holistically. A dissertation can be a really good opportunity for you to choose your own topic, so you get to work on a subject that really interests you and perhaps may align to your future goals in terms of further research, future career, or anything like that. In some instances, if your topic has already been chosen. So sometimes you may be given a list of predetermined topics and pick something from there, then your dissertation could be a very unique opportunity to work on an area where that research makes a real difference, and for which there's already a clearly defined need. So your dissertation supervisor may be working in a similar sort of area, and within that there's like a specific niche that needs some focused attention. And you know, an undergraduate or master's dissertation fits that perfectly. It is also a culmination of your developing skills in research, criticality and analysis. So having gone through, you know, your foundation year, if you're doing one your first year, your second year, you know, and all the assignments that you completed, the 1000 word formatives, the 3000 4000 summatives, the report, writing the posters, and so on. Finally, you get to demonstrate how well you've mastered those skills in a longer project. However, you're not, you're still not really expected to be an expert. There is a realistic view of, you know what a dissertation is and what the constraints are that you would face as a student undertaking one. And it's worth stressing that it's also not the end of the process. You know, you may write a longer piece of work now, 5000 to 20,000 words, but it doesn't mean that you're never going to revisit those skills again. In fact, you will probably need them through your career.
Alexandra Patel 13:46
Yeah, so it is a real opportunity. It's basically what you make of it. So you're saying about how it could be working along, sorry, in your supervisors area of expertise, so quite often in science subjects that can lead to some kind of publication. So, you know, we're talking, you know, the the top kind of, I guess 10% it doesn't happen that often, but because you're working in an area where you've got that kind of support and that theoretical understanding from your supervisor already, it can mean that you can contribute to research on a particular project, which can then lead to some kind of publication,
Tracy Dix 14:37
yep, and that, what a unique opportunity that would be, especially as an undergraduate,
Alexandra Patel 14:41
something to go on the CV certainly.
Tracy Dix 14:45
Okay, so dissertations and research projects are terms that are used interchangeably, and they more or less mean the same thing, but perhaps with different approaches. So one of the opportunities with a research project or this. Or dissertation, is that it enables you to identify a problem within your discipline for which there may be very little or no evidence. So there is great opportunity there in terms of, you know, kind of researching the area, you may be able to test an idea or a hypothesis. That's the fancy name for an idea that you have, and see what kind of results you get from testing that idea. You get to consider what kind of research would provide substantive data or information from which you can build your discussion. You get to plan design and carry out research in an area of your choice, as well as to manage the project to completion. So at this station enables you to also build on your project management skills, which is something I think that students kind of often overlook. You know the fact that it gives you lots of transferable skills that you can put on your CV for your future career. So
Alexandra Patel 16:04
Tracy, can you tell us a bit about how many you've done, or yours,
Tracy Dix 16:10
how many dissertations I've done? Okay, so I did an undergraduate dissertation, and I think it was 12,000 words long. I might be making it up, but that's the imprint of my memory. And unlike you, I did a straight, a single honors with a couple of like modules in drama, and I opted for some external modules and languages and a history of art as well. So that was stuff that I kind of found off my own back, just for a bit of variety, you know. And anyway, my undergraduate dissertation was called Shakespearean appetite in Anthony and Cleopatra and Henry the fourth parts one and two. For anyone who isn't aware, I am a three time English literature graduate. I'm not sure it's something to be proud of, but, you know, it is what it is, and I've definitely learned a lot from it. So, yeah, so 12,000 words. I went on to do a master's dissertation. This was interdisciplinary in terms of, you know, incorporating elements of English literature and history. And that was called The execution of housewifery: domestic transgressions in early modern England, something I worked on in 2003
Alexandra Patel 17:28
could you rephrase that with smaller words? Smaller for the lay people like
Tracy Dix 17:32
me, I think that's really funny, because, yeah, people refer to me as their academic friends sometimes, and are like, Oh, that's very interesting. Because I kind of always assume I don't really like big words, and I kind of assume that I shy away from it. But I think maybe it's a kind of discipline specific thing. I think dissertation
Alexandra Patel 17:51
titles, you know, if you there's a lot of complex terminology in any dissertation title,
Tracy Dix 17:58
yes. Okay, so the execution of housewifery was a kind of play on words. So the execution of activities that housewives do, like their doing of it, but with the, you know, but with using the word execution, it kind of implies that someone might be executed,
Alexandra Patel 18:20
maybe eight.
Tracy Dix 18:22
No, that was my undergrad. This was my master's, which was a 20,000 word dissertation. So, yeah. So the subtitle was domestic transgressions. So things that people do that you know, that are kind of naughty within the domestic setting at home. In short, and one of so I analyzed a play called a woman killed with kindness, and in that the wife feed her husband some poison soup. So it's, I think, you know, it's kind of a manifestation of how something that is supposed to sustain and nourish you actually does the opposite. Okay, I was about to say we sometimes see those things today, but no, before anyone wonders about my domestic situation, I do not serve poison.
Alexandra Patel 19:21
I don't make soup.
Tracy Dix 19:23
I do make the other hand, but I don't serve poison soup to anyone, at least not knowingly. It might have been in the freezer a little bit too long, that kind of thing, but that's as far as I go. Just saying. Okay, anyway, so back to the main opportunities connected to my dissertation. For me, I would say that it was a really inspiring opportunity for me to pursue literature, texts that I was interested in, to focus on periods that I was really enthusiastic about, subject areas that. But I was, yeah, that I wanted to kind of focus my attention on a little bit more, because as an undergraduate, you you do have some choice, right? But you have compulsory modules, you have optional modules, and sometimes even the selection within the selection of optional modules, there may be things that you're a little bit less keen on, for example, but you kind of roll with it, because it's the correct amount, the correct number of credits, for example. Whereas the dissertation, I think it was, it was a 30 credit module. I can't really remember now, but it just means that I could really immerse myself in an area that I was really passionate about. And being Singaporean, I am obviously into food, that kind of goes without saying. And I also very much got into, like the early modern period. So it just meant that I could spend all my time geeking out on it, and I got to go and go to a theater to see, you know, how these plays were represented on stage, and kind of look at look at it through the lens of different interpretations.
Alexandra Patel 21:06
Yeah, I think that's probably something I'd agree with in terms of what I think the opportunity was, for me, it was to really get immersed in this area. So for me, my dissertation title was originally looking at cannabis as a medicine. So, you know, got my way onto Google, or whatever I used back then. This was 2001 maybe that kind of time. So a long time ago. And you know, the first thing that pops up is about two months prior to me starting it, there'd been this enormous symposium with all the greatest minds on, you know, cannabis as a medicine, had got together and debated this, and I just thought, well, they've already done it. At this point, I'm not going to be able to add anything to this.
Tracy Dix 21:59
You're refining, you're refining the research. But also, Alex, I need to ask you this, this big, fancy sounding symposia, was it just an excuse for a lot of people to get together and smoke weed and get a little high and have fun?
Alexandra Patel 22:14
Probably, I think it was, you know, proper, proper scientists probably sounded like it at the time. I don't remember the details.
Tracy Dix 22:21
Okay, well, if they were smoking weed and having fun and getting high, they did not invite you, did they?
Alexandra Patel 22:31
No, I wasn't a known figure in the field at the time. No, I think it was a proper academic thing. And, you know, it was all the traditional kind of arguments for and against, oh, this will need to drug use and blah, blah. And I just found that really boring. So what I did was I spoke to my supervisor and said, you know, can I, you know, change the dissertation topic a little bit? And what I was really into at the time, and still am, actually, I just don't get to do this very often. Is pharmacology, and I love it, because it's all about logic and how things fit together. So you've got drugs, you've got receptors and how they combine, and you know, you can really puzzle things out. So anyway, my supervisor said, Yes, you can do that. So I did, and like you, I immersed myself into this kind of world. I think I saw myself as a bit like a Sherlock Holmes detective, and I was going to solve how these endogenous cannabinoids, so cannabis like chemicals in the body, how they actually work, what they do, what's the mechanism of action? Um, and actually, I think I did pretty well in, you know, making some of these suggestions. I'm not sure anyone picked up on my thesis, particularly, but I would put that down to a very weak conclusion.
Tracy Dix 23:59
Have the impact it should have done. Isn't that the one that you scored 85% on? It is? It
Alexandra Patel 24:04
is. But I looked at the conclusion a moment ago, and literally, all I did was summarize the things that I'd kind of proven. And so it's just like a shopping list of like this, this, this and this. And it shouldn't be that, you know, it should summarize, yes, but then it should pull everything together and kind of say, well, this is what this dissertation has shown, and this is why it's so important. This is why it has impact. And maybe if I've done that, you know, I I would be invited to those international cannabis smoking symposia.
Tracy Dix 24:42
So why didn't you think you that written your conclusion the correct way? Why did, why did you just apply this list of you know what the findings were? Actually,
Alexandra Patel 24:51
I know exactly why. So for me, I and I would do this in essays and whatever I would do, lots of thinking, lots of initial work. Reading, etc, etc, then I would lay it all out in like a results section, maybe a discussion, if I got that far, but the conclusion by then, I've totally run out of steam, so I would just cobble anything together at that point. And actually, I would argue now that your conclusion is probably one of the most important parts of a piece of writing, because that's the thing that the reader remembers. You know, that's your message, yeah,
Tracy Dix 25:30
yeah. Your last chance to make an impression, yeah.
Alexandra Patel 25:32
So you need to, you know, set aside time to make a really strong impression where they'll, you know, go away and say, You know what? I need to tell somebody about this work.
Tracy Dix 25:46
There's that advice, isn't there? The quite conventional advice, I would say, like for your conclusion, you should say what you said. But I don't find that particularly helpful, because I think it just leads many students to just repeat what they've already said, but summarize it, because they don't know what else to do with Yeah, with a confusion. And also, that's
Alexandra Patel 26:06
part of it, but you need to, you know, you summarize, remind the reader what you've said, but then you answer your your research question as a whole. You kind of bring it all together and say, so, you know, cannabis uses medicine. Yes, it's really great. All government should be investing in it. But there are concerns around, you know, potential drug use, etc, etc, because you always include limitations
Tracy Dix 26:36
and maybe,
Alexandra Patel 26:40
but then you have to think bigger picture. So what does this mean? So, you know that was the case, cannabis should be used as a medicine. You would then say, well, and what this means is that we should be giving advice to governments, or we should be investing in such and such, and that's where you really kind of spell out the implications, and you make it real for the reader, that's where you get
Tracy Dix 27:05
your impact. So I wonder what you would have scored if you'd done that. So okay, Alex, you were talking before about losing steam when it came to your conclusion, so you just summarized it and just submit it and you were happy to be done with it by that point. So with that in mind, what kind of research would be plausible to undertake within the scope of a dissertation, I think it's worth thinking quite carefully about this, because obviously, in your case, you should make perhaps been slightly less ambitious with what you were doing, and it could have meant, you know, not necessarily redesigning the research or anything, but just in terms of time management, maybe adapting your editing slightly, so you're spending a little bit less time editing the rest of the the piece of work, and had a bit more time just for that last conclusion, just to make it a little bit young to you, so not a huge tweak there. So we have some questions that are worth thinking about if you're just starting on your dissertation or just thinking about what you'd like to work on. The first one is, what do you think is realistic with the time and resources that you have? And if you're an undergraduate, we're bearing in mind here that your resource might be close to nothing, in the sense that, okay, you'd have access to the University Library and those resources, but you're not going to have a massive budget to, I don't know, like
Alexandra Patel 28:36
interviews, focus groups,
Tracy Dix 28:40
studies, yeah, or perhaps to like travel a long way, you know, to visit really specialized libraries. Or, yes, the the participants that you might have access to are relatively limited, so you have to get creative with it. Yes. And you know, in terms of the time we talked before about, you know, you're not expected to be an expert, because your markers are going to know that you've got a couple of months to spend on this dissertation, typically, if it's an undergraduate one. And so what you can achieve is going to be something realistic within that time frame, bearing in mind that you're probably also balancing other assignments and perhaps a bit of a social life and relaxation and things as well. So the idea is, you don't kind of knock yourself out completely because, you know, you go, you you start working on something that's a little bit too ambitious. It's worth thinking about what kind of research you might enjoy. So both of us have talked about, you know, the privilege of being able to focus on specific areas that really kind of light us up. You know, what lights the fire in your belly and is going to keep you motivated? Because it is an extended bit of work you might lose steam at the end, and you. Are expected to kind of manage your time and accountability quite independently. So that's worth thinking of in terms of who is part of your network. So say you know you want to interview participants, or you want to run focus groups, or you want to disseminate surveys, it's worth thinking about who you have access to, who are going to help you fill out those things and participate in in focus groups, and how easily you can get to them. So, you know, obviously dissemination online is a really big, easily accessible way of doing this. But equally, sometimes you may disseminate and things kind of disappear into cyberspace and you never get anything back. So it's worth kind of considering those challenges.
Alexandra Patel 30:52
This was my psychology project, schizotypy, population density and season of birth in relation to schizophrenia. Okay, so really interesting, and it was actually really simple, so I just took a couple of bits of separate research. One of them was saying that, I think it was around schizophrenia that people who develop schizophrenia are more likely to be born at a certain time of year, and the idea is that while they're in the womb, their mothers may well have caught a virus because it was winter time during, you know, second trimester, or whenever in the pregnancy, and that that may have caused changes in the developing Brain. So I wasn't going to be working with people with schizophrenia. However, there's this idea that people in the general population have traits of schizotypy, which are, you know, much more toned down, but they have traits or signs or characteristics, and you can use a lovely questionnaire for that. So this is one that had already been designed and developed, the O life questionnaire, so already being validated by really expert researchers. So my plan was, I'll get that and then use it with participants and then map it onto some of their characteristics, such as when they were born, and see if there was a connection. Now the interesting thing, there was a connection, but it was the exact opposite of what it was supposed to
Tracy Dix 32:28
be. Oh, dear. Was that? Is that a bad thing, though?
Alexandra Patel 32:33
So when I drilled down into the information, and this is why it comes on to you know, who was part of your network. The reason I felt was strongest for this discrepancy, this difference, was that I'd used psychology students because, you know, working in the psychology school psychology, those are the people you have access to. They have to take part in these experiments, basically. And they're mostly, you know, like 90% female, and they're also a very specific age group as well. And there are gender differences between men and women in how they score on this particular questionnaire. So I think that skewed my results. And it really, you know, careful bit of planning initially I might have spotted that that could be an issue, that gender would automatically skew those results. So yeah, thinking about who you have access to, who you're going to be working with, is a really, really important issue. But I should say that even though you could argue that, you know, it didn't work, it did work. I did a successful research project. I came up with the results, analyzed them, interpreted them, you know, I still got a very pretty decent mark for it, because it was the process of doing the research, not coming up with the right result that actually mattered.
Tracy Dix 33:57
I think it's important to embrace the fact that you kind of got the wrong results, in a way, because it shows that you're kind of open to, you know, whatever results came back. Yeah, yeah, right. And there weren't any kind of preconceived ideas or, I mean, there would have been, that's a hypothesis, but at the same time, you weren't, like, so determined to prove it that you would have skewed the results no matter what, in order to prove that hypothesis? Yeah,
Alexandra Patel 34:24
yeah. Because we're not trying to prove a hypothesis just for the sake of it. What we're trying to do is understand the world better. So if we've got the wrong hypothesis, absolutely fine, we just try and make sense of it.
Tracy Dix 34:36
Yeah. So in that context, failure is actually still kind of a good thing. It's a useful thing because it at least eliminates possibilities. But also, in terms of research design, you learn something about how to design a project in future, don't you?
Alexandra Patel 34:51
Exactly? Yeah, yeah. It's always about, what can we learn from this? You know, what went wrong? Well, it's not what went wrong, what happened and what can we learn? Learn from it. What could
Tracy Dix 35:01
you have done differently? I have another question about the questionnaire. So you said that the questionnaire had been designed by very experienced researchers already, so presumably it had been used, had it been used in your field, or was it just, you know, something that's been designed by, say, scientific researchers. So it was
Alexandra Patel 35:24
designed by psychologists, so schizophrenic traits, so schizotypy in the general population. And so they'd linked that to other things. I don't think anybody had ever linked it to season of birth and the facts I was looking at.
Tracy Dix 35:42
Okay, so in in this situation, it made sense to kind of use that questionnaire again, but with, like, a different sample group, for example, because I was wondering, in some respects, wouldn't it also kind of bring a new perspective to the research if the questionnaire had been redesigned, well, maybe not completely, but at least tweaked, you know, in order to perhaps address previous limitations and results that had come up before where you might want to drill down into specifics and try and understand more about particular areas.
Alexandra Patel 36:17
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But using a questionnaire is a really good approach for something like psychology or education or social sciences. So if you take something that has already been validated and tested and then, yeah, like you're saying, Tracy, you can tweak it a little bit. You would need solid justification, but that's all part of the process. But because it's already been out there and you've got information to compare it against already, it means it's an accepted tool, which you can then take and use in a different context, and by putting it in different contexts, you are creating new knowledge.
Tracy Dix 36:58
Point four, are there any ethical issues to consider within your research, Alex, I feel like you're in a better position to elaborate on this given that there were no I could, I could research murder in my dissertation and there were no repercussions,
Alexandra Patel 37:16
yeah, as the non native crazy scientist, yeah, there are A lot of ethical issues to think about in psychology, but also in experimental work. So usually for dissertations, what will happen is, you know, it depends on the discipline, but if everyone's doing the same kind of work, it might be that a blanket ethical approval will have been given, but to cover all the types of student work that are going to take place. So as long as yours falls within that, then you're fine. But in some areas, so probably psychology, where you need to think about specifically what, what is being asked of any human participants. It might be that each dissertation project will have to go to some form of ethics committee where it will be reviewed and checked to make sure it's not going to do any kind of lasting harm to the people getting involved in it. Make sure that you know, they're treated fairly. They have all the opportunity to step away from the research, if they're uncomfortable or anything like that.
Tracy Dix 38:25
So yes, aside from ethical issues, your supervisor will have the final approval on your topic. The good thing about that is they should ensure that whatever the scope of research you've chosen to undertake is that it would be realistic for the time frame, and there should be enough material out there for you to go on as well, so you're not likely to get stuck. You're hopefully not likely to fail, although, obviously it also depends on how the final dissertation comes together in the structure and the presentation of these things, they would also kind of have some oversight on the ethical issues like Alex has mentioned. So there might be a What did you say, like a blanket approval on student research projects, so as long as they kind of fall in line with what has been specified, then you would be okay there. But either way, you know, if you have any doubts on this, it's a good idea to speak to your supervisor and try to maintain a regular relationship with them.
Alexandra Patel 39:31
Okay, so we talked a little bit about research. So sometimes people get into thinking about something called research paradigms. And to me, this always sounds really, really confusing. And some disciplines, such as for scientists, you know, we don't really talk about this much at all. So this is more of a kind of a social science perspective. However, it's really, really useful. So. Um, there are a number of different research paradigms, and basically it's a way of understanding how different disciplines and the people who work and research in those subject areas, how they understand what knowledge is, where it comes from, and how something can be proven. So in science, so might be biology, engineering, genetics, geology, it tends to be very positivist, and that means that we kind of all believe that, you know, the world is out there. It's a single reality. What we need to do is have the right tools and we can go out and measure it, and then we'll get something called a fact. So it's, in a way, it's a simple way of looking at the world, saying, you know, what you see is what you get. This is how we think everything works. And then you kind of come away into some of the social sciences. So sociology, criminology, marketing, where we start to appreciate that all people have biases and different perspectives. And there's this appreciation that, you know, that will influence how different researchers see something. But it kind of it does go a lot more beyond that. And it's this idea that, you know, how can we actually ever really know anything that that's out there? So we're interacting with the world. We're doing experiments, we're conducting research, but all we're doing is kind of trying to capture a snapshot, and we're interpreting that. So even if you're taking a ruler and measuring something, you know, that's almost an interpretation, because it's going to depend on a lot of different things, such as, you know, temperature, the technique you're using to look at the ruler like parallax error. But really, what we're doing is interpreting things, and this is even more the case when we move towards social sciences and areas where there's not necessarily a single widely accepted perspective. So you know, most of us are happy in terms of how we use a ruler. So if we're thinking about what's going on in the mind of or what causes schizophrenia, there are so many different explanations or possible ideas. You know, it could be childhood, it could be brains, you know, abnormalities damage all sorts of things. And so, you know, when you've got all these different opinions, we are really kind of interpreting whatever evidence and whatever signs we're seeing, it's down to interpretation. Quite a lot.
Tracy Dix 42:46
I would agree with that. I mean, that really chimes with me, because in the arts, interpretation kind of underpins everything we do in research. Like, you know, you don't even have to explain that you're making and you're coming up with an interpretation of something, because that is just so built in to how we do things. But the positivist approach, I think, is quite interesting, because in some ways, would you also say it's reductionist, in the sense that you know, there's one reality, it has to be measurable. It has to be something that you can replicate as well. Yeah,
Alexandra Patel 43:23
yeah, totally. So reductionism is where you, you know, you set up a scenario, you've got your experiments, and what you're doing is removing all your different kind of confounding variables and reducing it to the simplest way of proving a point. But the issue is, actually the whole world is tends to be an awful lot more complex. So if we were to think about drug discovery, you could say, okay, when we add this drug to these cells here, boom, it does this. Yay. We wanted,
Tracy Dix 44:00
okay. So is that why the sciences tends to favor in vitro experiments? Because, well, can you explain what in vitro experiments are, please, Alex, because I'm not very good at that.
Alexandra Patel 44:11
So in vitro comes from the meaning in glass, so it's, you know, basically kind of stuff done in a petri dish. So you might have some cells, and you're taking a drug of choice, putting it in, seeing what happens. So, you know, if it works there, that's awesome. However, you know, the human body is an awful lot more complex, and that's without, you know, even thinking about if it was a drug working on the brain, then you've got the whole idea of kind of like cognitive psychology, developmental trauma and things like that. And actually, currently, medical science doesn't really tend to think about childhood traumas and childhood experience and. And being connected to depression and drugs for depression, which, personally, I think, is a huge kind of, you know, whole really, that's too reductionist. It is
Tracy Dix 45:10
a bit of a blind spot at the moment, but I feel like that kind of thinking is starting to gain a bit of traction. So I feel like it's probably, you know, where future research is likely to move towards Yeah, yeah, which is a good thing.
Alexandra Patel 45:24
So the opposite of reduction is complexity. I believe I read something about this in terms of research into education, and it was interesting. And the issue with that, of course, is in order to fully represent the complexity of any system, you know, you would have to fully replicate that system. You know, the amount of research is actually just so impossible. It could never be done. So really, all research has to be reductionist. To some extent, we have to simplify things, just so our small brains can have any hope of understanding it. I guess
Tracy Dix 46:07
to some extent, like different research projects have to be, you need a variety of kind of evidence, don't you, so you kind of need to, you need to mix it up a little bit because, like, you know, positivist is, you know, one extreme, and then what's the other one, complex certificate. So I feel like, if you can't say it, we should not do it. And
Alexandra Patel 46:33
that's the problem, you know, when people say research paradigms, it's like, oh my god, there's all these really big words. I don't really know what they mean, but it's basically people's beliefs about how you do research. Yes, what can you prove with certain types of experiment? And so that brings us nicely onto the last one, which is pragmatists, and they're saying, you know, that there are limitations. It's really hard to know what we should do is think about what we're trying to prove and take the most appropriate methods plural to do that. So it might be using, you know, surveys, getting your ruler out, measuring something, all sorts, whatever it is, will give the strongest kind of conclusions or proof for that particular question. Okay,
Tracy Dix 47:25
I wonder. Okay, this seems like a really good opportunity as well to just help our listeners feel a little bit better about things. Because, remember, Alex said that research paradigms are not really something you engage with particularly, they're not for me either, you know, so it's useful to kind of have an awareness of this, but if all this feels like a lot and quite baffling to you, you don't need to worry about it. Just understand that they're there and think about, you know, the type of research approach that would best fit your dissertation and your supervisor would guide you through that. So don't think this is the be all and end all, and you're going to, like, fail in this in your dissertation, if you don't know what constructivist is or anything like that, that is not true. Yeah, yeah. I think what I really
Alexandra Patel 48:13
want to do is just open up the discussion about, how do we know what we know? But like Tracy says, in your discipline, there will be accepted ways of proving you know if something works. So in genetics, genetic engineering, it might be running a gel to show you've got that gene in the restriction digest you're looking for job done. But the thing to be aware of is, if you you know, perhaps use chat, GPT or something, and it throws up some rather unusual experimental ideas from a totally different discipline, then it could be quite hard to take those from that discipline and incorporate them into your research In a different subject area. It's not say you shouldn't do it. It's just that there are, there will be expectations of what proving something looks like in your subjects area. And that's the kind of thing that your supervisor will help you with, and you'll also pick up on what's accepted as proof from your reading you know, all the academic journals and articles and research experiments other people are publishing that have been accepted by the community. That is what is accepted in your area.
Tracy Dix 49:31
Okay, a slight digression, but I think this is quite an important thing to talk about in terms of the accepted ways of conducting research. How far do you think it's possible to challenge those ways?
Alexandra Patel 49:46
That's really exciting, because if you're able to prove something from a different like, from a different perspective, sometimes that can be even stronger proof. And. Sometimes that is really when you're generating new knowledge because you're doing something that hasn't been done before. So like I said, it's not to say that you shouldn't, it's you have to be confident that you're able to justify it and communicate it. So those are the types of discussions you'd want to have with your supervisor, and to really, are you able to persuade them that the methodology you're suggesting is something that will contribute to your discipline?
Tracy Dix 50:29
Yeah. And I suppose a good way of kind of proving that your approach is valid would be by citing some literature. Yeah. So just to give an example, I was in a session with an academic recently where we were discussing dissertations with students and helping them to understand the expectations. And I remember this academic saying, well, for like, a bit of a quick and dirty search to see what's out there, you can go on Google Scholar and just have a look at, you know, current articles around the area. And she said, you know, in terms of the gold standard when it comes to research, it is about randomized, controlled trials. I can see why that's the case. I would say, in some respects, that's, you know, going back to the positivist kind of approach. However, there is a bit more of a push, I guess, towards thinking about data in disaggregated ways. So kind of, instead of, you know, just maintaining anonymity for your participants and treating everyone exactly the same, thinking about, you know, with the results that have come back, you know, what proportion of your participants were male, what proportion were female? Were there any variations, for example, between race, different age groups and, you know, different demographics like that. We
Alexandra Patel 51:46
just outlined some of the typical experimental approaches you might see so positivist, we were saying that is your traditional kind of science group. So biologists, chemists, engineers, whatever that is, where we believe the world, as we see it is real. We can demonstrate facts. We just need to get the right tool to measure it. Job done. So what you see quite often, there is lots of quantitative stuff, so literally measuring, putting numbers on what it is we're looking at. So that might be experiments, sampling, measuring, often brings in a lot of statistical analysis. Might also be qualitative, so questionnaires, focus groups, interviews, but it's this idea that we can directly measure what we see in terms of constructivist and interpretive, these are usually more kind of qualitative. So it's about trying to capture the complexity, understanding that there are different perspectives going on. So these might be interviews, observations, you know, having an exploration of a case study, looking for different themes in whatever issue we're looking at. And lastly, we mentioned the pragmatist approach, which is, you know, pick the right tool for what it is you're looking at. So, you know, you kind of sum it up as mixed methods. It's drawing on whatever is appropriate for this particular question you're looking at.
Tracy Dix 53:25
I think I'm a strong advocate of the pragmatist approach.
Alexandra Patel 53:29
Yeah, yeah, it's quite persuasive, isn't it? Pick the right tool, people. Job done. Pick
Tracy Dix 53:33
the right tool. But also, I think it encourages you to be quite evaluative in terms of, like, what you need, and it kind of builds in some flexibility to think about what's going to produce the most helpful results for you to understand, like the problem that you're trying to solve. If you found the discussions in this episode useful, please be sure to subscribe and tell your friends about it. It will go a really long way in helping us to reach and help more students. If there's anything you've heard today that's made a really positive impact in how you handle the challenges of studying at university, do leave us a review wherever you get your podcast to tell us what that is. It would really make our week. And we promise to continue sharing our knowledge and developing this podcast so it continues to benefit all of you. Thank you.
Alexandra Patel 54:20
Tracy, you were saying about your dissertations English literature. Could you pick one of those and explain how you would create new knowledge in that area, like, what kind of research were you doing?
Tracy Dix 54:35
Okay, I mean, I would say, with all of my dissertations and even at PhD level, the approach was very similar, like I said, it's very interpretive. You know, what we do in English literature. So with, Okay, so with my undergrad dissertation, Anthony Cleopatra and Henry the fourth parts one and two. So there was a place by Shakespeare that were, you know, written in. The 16th century, and in terms of creating new knowledge on I guess, in a nutshell, it's about, it's about kind of looking at it through the lens of today, you know, through through our lens, but kind of understanding that we're not being fully objective at the same time, because it's not really possible. You know, you can't you can't put Shakespeare in a glass dish and analyze it that way. You have to kind of filter it through the richness of human experience and emotions and try to understand it, but also realizing that, you know, the 16th century was a very different time in some ways, but also there are lots of similarities in terms of how we experience emotions, how we respond, and so on. So it's about kind of unpicking through those nuances and trying to understand it a little bit better. In terms of my sources, so I looked at the place just like an edited version of it. I didn't kind of look at manuscripts or anything like that, which some scholars do. There were at the time VHS recordings of television features of those productions that have been captured. So I had to, you know, go to our technician and be and say, can I borrow those videos, please? And then sign them out. And, you know, I got to, I got to take them home, actually, those, and watch them and think about, you know, what decade, for example, were those productions created in? And how does that differ from modern productions? So to some extent, it's okay. What productions do I have access to as an undergraduate, bearing in mind I didn't have the budget to travel, never mind, all over the world, all over the UK, to find productions of King Henry or Anthony and Cleopatra to compare them. But also that would be a little bit biased anyway, because all of those productions would have occurred around the 2000s so they would have been influenced by, you know, whatever was kind of current at that time. So those are my sources. But I also looked at what scholars were saying about the plays, you know, their interpretations of it, what Shakespeare's inspiration was in creating those plays, what kind of social commentary he was trying to make by writing them. And also think about, you know, where they were performed, and how the audiences would have related to it, because Shakespeare, a lot of that was performed in the round. And you had, you know, the kind of cheaper tickets at the bottom with a riff raff, you know, the people who kind of came in and got, like, wines built on them and things, and then you had the seats that were higher up, and so it was a bit of a display of status, and acknowledged that, you know, Shakespeare was something that was performed to, kind of all levels of society, but at the same time, they were addressed in different ways, because they were positioned differently in the Globe Theater. Oh, from your point of view, how do you create new knowledge?
Alexandra Patel 58:29
Okay, so I've worked in a few different kind of fields. So we've talked about psychology a little bit. Um, I'm going to go with more of a biological sciences type thing. So, but, you know, drawing it back to a dissertation. So one of the differences, potentially, between a research project and a dissertation is a research project, you might be doing lab work, whereas usually dissertation, it's more like a literature review. You're working with other people's published research articles. So what I did in my now world famous cannabinoid receptor in the human brain dissertation, okay, so one of the bits of analysis I did was to look at these different naturally occurring cannabis molecules in the body. They're called endocannabinoids, endogenous cannabinoids, and they float around in the brain, in the kind of the rest of the body, and they bind to these specific receptors. There's two different receptor types, which I always found quite interesting, that you know that the body has this system that is particularly tuned into using cannabinoids, and it's separate from other receptors and pain relief systems, which is interesting. So what I did was to look at the structures that had been published by different researchers of these compounds and thought a little bit about what were the similarities and. Differences. And then I proposed, you know, these being the important groups that might actually bind to different parts of a receptor. And so this might be how they're working. And so it was taking other people's information, reanalyzing it in a different way, and then presenting what my kind of analysis is and trying to make a strong argument for
Tracy Dix 1:00:22
that, yeah. So in some ways, it's still interpretive, isn't it?
Alexandra Patel 1:00:25
So in a way this is quite interpretive, because I'm not seeing these molecules up close. I don't actually know they look like this. These are kind of diagrams that we're saying we think it looks like this, we're going to represent them in this way. But actually it is a bit of a leap of faith, in a way, but
Tracy Dix 1:00:48
in terms of, like the receptors, and the what you were saying about the effects of cannabinoids on the receptors, and then what happens next? I feel like some of that, because you were saying about reinterpreting some of the previous research,
Alexandra Patel 1:01:05
yeah, yeah.
Tracy Dix 1:01:07
It isn't it interesting when people from two different disciplines come together and try to make sense of each other's work. But I think this is like one of the merits of talking about your research project to someone who's not subject specialist, because they'll approach it in a different way, and they'll relate to it differently, whereas a subject specialist is likely to kind of see things according to like, the accepted ways of doing stuff, you know, the accepted processes and So, you know, I mean, and if they've trained you, you know, if they're your module tutor, they've taught you a certain way, you're likely to follow suit, but it's actually quite interesting to, for example, if you live in halls or a house with other students who are studying something different, to kind of use that as a sounding board for your research, because they're more likely to spot things that you've not thought about. Definitely. I think we've definitely found that's the case when you and I get together.
Alexandra Patel 1:02:09
Yeah, and it goes back to the idea of, you know, if you understand something, you should be able to explain it in really simple terms to somebody else. And if you can't do that, you've not understood it.
Tracy Dix 1:02:20
You need to pick it a little bit more, don't you need to kind of simplify it.
Alexandra Patel 1:02:24
Dissertations are very much an exploration. It's a bit like going out into the wide world. There's no particular end in sight, there's no limits, and it's a bit unknown. And the risk is that students won't know, perhaps where they're going, where they're aiming for or how to get there. And the problem with that is there's the potential for wasted work, going off on side routes, getting misled, and doing stuff that you don't end up kind of including in your dissertation at all. And this can lead to a feeling of being lost, and generally low motivation. And if you get low motivation, that tends to mean your kind of pull back from working on the dissertation, less time on the work will impact the kind of grade you get at the end. So you have to be quite careful to make sure that you stay on track, so you stay focused. You know where you're going. So do you want to feel confident that you know where you're going with your dissertation? So this might include kind of knowing what your dissertation is about, what your role is, what your supervisors role is, and how to interact with them. This might cover thinking about what your research question is, and being very clear on what its limitations and boundaries are, but also in refining it to something that you feel really passionate about. So it's something that really motivates you to immerse yourself in it. It might involve identifying the different tasks that you know you need to accomplish before you submit your dissertation, and being able to break those down and allocate, you know, set deadlines for each of these so you're able to hold yourself accountable and keep on track over the course of the three to four months you spend on your dissertation, it might involve, finally, kind of communicating that research with passion and clarity. So you're really emphasizing your kind of takeaway points, your conclusion with the reader, so they're left thinking, wow, that was impressive. I've learned something really important here. So if you want to be confident with your dissertation, then join us for our dissertation master class, you'll get the strategies and techniques that have helped us and hundreds of dissertation students that we've worked with to turn their dissertations into a powerful journey of discovery. The first session is on Tuesday the 25th of February, at 7pm and in this master class. We will help you to design your research question, to plan your research strategy so you know what you're going out to find and how to do it, and to set yourself meaningful milestones that can keep you accountable. And because it's a live session, you can bring your questions and get help from Tracy and myself on those specifically, if you're interested, then click on the link below for more info and book your place. Tracy, you do a lot with students, don't you? I do terms of consultations. So what would you say are the three most common questions that students ask you about dissertations?
Tracy Dix 1:05:39
Okay, so I would say the most common one is a bit of a I've never done a dissertation, and I have no idea what to do or what to get, like, how to start, or what even is a dissertation. Sometimes they get a little bit more specific, and, you know, they'll say something like, so what should be in a literature review. Or, you know, what should a systematic review look like? So it might be about a specific part, and then I might see them again, and then they'll ask me about, you know, how do I do the discussions? And then for students who've made more progress on their dissertation, like, a very common thing that they would ask is whether what they've already written looks okay. And of course, that's a really challenging question to answer without reading through the entire piece of work, which I shouldn't be doing, because if I were to kind of make any substantial suggestions, there is a risk that, you know, the authorship of their work could be compromised and they could be investigated for cheating. Yeah, yeah. So yes. And
Alexandra Patel 1:06:49
about proofreading, isn't it? You know, a good proofreader will kind of highlight areas that need improving, or where they have questions, but they won't actually go in and change text and say, I think you should written it like this.
Tracy Dix 1:07:03
Yeah. And they wouldn't necessarily tell you what to do to make it right, you know? I mean, there could be suggestions on how to improve it. So what I would do sometimes is if I can see, like, persistent problems with someone's piece of writing, and if the student is struggling to understand how they can improve it, I might give them a couple of examples, but usually it's with the caveat of, you know, this is my second draft version, so it's a little bit clumsy and a little bit rough around the edges. You should, you know, review that within the context of your work and decide how you want to refine what I've just told you. And also, you know, the thing is, a dissertation is a very personal project. It's something that the student has been working on for an extended length of time, and I don't want to influence what they're doing too much, because who am I to say? You know, do your dissertation in this way, because in I feel like I'd be cramping their style a little bit to intervene too much. So I think it's very much about, you know, a student developing their own voice, and sometimes understanding that it's not perfect, but it's part of the process, and they will get better. They just keep working at it.
Alexandra Patel 1:08:21
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So the process is about developing your academic writing and your ability to put, you know, some complex ideas into an arguments and to kind of structure that carefully. So if, short, if you don't do that, you're not developing those skills. And really, at the end of the day you leave university, you want to have those types of skills, you know, some agility for that. So would you ever kind of put some of this, like a draft into chat, GPT or an AI tool, and ask it to rewrite it, you know, rewrite it in academic language, improve, improve the clarity, restructure it. For me,
Tracy Dix 1:09:04
so generative. A generative AI is a really hot topic at universities at the moment, and they are scrambling around and in some cases, not knowing what to do with it. So there's a whole range of responses, you know, and some schools just want to stick their head in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist and tell their students they're not allowed to use it. In some universities, there's like a kind of traffic light system with assignments whereby you know your module convener will tell you whether you can use AI or not. So. Red light means No, don't touch it with a barge pole. Green light means yes, embrace it, you know, and apply it to the to the assignment as best you can. Orange is frustrating because there are no clear boundaries. So that often leads students quite confused. I have played around with a. I just to see how it works and to try and understand it. You know, because it's new technology, I don't think it's going away. So we might as well learn to how to roll with it and how best to roll with it. So yes, sometimes when I'm feeling stuck, I do put maybe a paragraph or a small piece of writing in and ask it to reword that piece of writing. And often, I find that you need to keep refining your prompts to make it more specific so the results might come back and I go, Oh, no, this is not quite right, and so I need to identify what was lacking from my previous prompt, and what would kind of give me more specific, more helpful results that are specifically target, specific, that are specifically aimed at my readership and and then it's a case of, you know, you've got several versions that have come back from chat GBT, compare it with my original and refine it. And if I'm honest, I'm not keen on it because I've spent over 20 years developing my writing and communication skills. So I would say that it's quite decent. Of course, I need to keep drafting and redrafting things like the first draft is never perfect or never how I want it to be, but working with five drafts is overwhelming. So I would say, you know, if you're a student, especially if you're kind of not a mature student, and you are developing those skills. Work on developing your skills. And you know, if you're asked to engage with chat, GPT, have a play around with it, but don't depend on it for producing your academic work, because you are missing out on the opportunity to cultivate your critical thinking skills.
Alexandra Patel 1:12:00
Yeah, yeah, like you I've played around with chat GPT, so I did a little bit of analysis where I took, I guess, two different ideas and, you know, linked them across. And I did that all, you know, probably on a Word document, something like that. And then I put it into chat GPT and said, you know, rewrite this, improve the language, make it a bit clearer. And it messed it up. It it changed the text in a way that it no longer carried the same meaning. And I was quite disappointed at that. And I think I spent a bit of time saying, no, like, go back. Stop, stop deleting things. I want it to be this long. I just want you to, you know, improve the clarity, yeah, get rid of typos, improve the grammar. Stop erasing things.
1:12:52
Do you start to I have a
Alexandra Patel 1:12:54
lot of AI stuff at the moment, to be honest.
Tracy Dix 1:12:58
And also I felt like it kind of takes more time because I start feeling the need to be polite to chat GPT when I know it's not a person, it's a robot, right? But then it'll offer me these results and try to speak to me in a quite human kind of way. And then I go, Oh, well, that was a really, really good attempt. But can you try this and incorporate, you know, kind of this perspective into it, or something like that. And then I kind of think, what am I doing? Yeah, but equally, I guess we don't. We don't want chat GPT to start being rude to people,
Alexandra Patel 1:13:28
do we? Yeah. And also, one observation I have is that at the university, people who are experts in AI, they're always really polite to chat GPT and treat it with respect. Okay? I think that's a sign that we should have, like, follow suit, you know, to the point where, in case it does reach, was it a sentience and becomes our robot overlord, that type of thing?
Tracy Dix 1:13:57
Yes, then at least, yeah, be on the right side of AI, sounds like a good strategy. Alex,
Alexandra Patel 1:14:06
what do you think a good dissertation looks like?
Tracy Dix 1:14:11
Okay, so earlier on, I covered what students often want to ask me, and I think maybe I might disappoint them somewhat, because usually if they show me a piece of writing their dissertation and it doesn't have their title on it, that's the one thing I would ask to see. So I would normally look for Okay, especially if I feel like the style of writing and the dissertation is not particularly clear, it might start off being quite general or a little bit vague, or the the kind of ideas are not well developed to the point where the language is specific. So if I can identify those problems with a dissertation, usually just from reading parts of it, I would want to have a good look at the. Title, and I would be looking for a clear, detailed or specific title. So just to give you an example, if we were someone, if someone was interested in looking at the impact of HS two and that was their title, I would say, Well, I don't think that's specific enough, because HS two can have lots of different impact. You know, for example, are you looking at what the impact would be on commuting times once it's set up and when running and ready to go? Or are you looking at other things, such as, you know, what is the impact of HS two on the environment in the construction of HS two, because it would have a different type of impact once it's been built. And, you know, we're thinking about, for example, traffic pollution and those sorts of things. So there are lots of different dimensions when it comes to a general topic. And it's really important to think about. You know, what specific aspect do I want to focus on? So just to give you a few more examples, could we be looking at the impact of HS two on pollution levels if we compare? So once HS two is up and running, what would the impact be on pollution, traffic pollution levels compared to before HS two was established. For example, are we thinking about the overall carbon impact of HS two? Are we thinking about the impact of HS two on biodiversity and fauna in surrounding areas? So the reason I would do that is because if you have a very clear idea of what your research is focusing on, then it's likely that the rest of the argument is going to follow suit in terms of being able to convey that clarity, whereas something that's not been fully developed is likely to end up being very vague. You know, you'll talk about HS two in very general terms, and your marker will probably say things like, well, this is quite vague, or this is a sweeping statement. It's over generalized. You should develop that point further. Or they might say, I can't see the connection between your ideas,
Alexandra Patel 1:17:22
yeah, yeah.
Tracy Dix 1:17:26
Does that make sense so far? Yeah. Okay, so okay. Then in terms of the body of the writing, for example, I would say that a clear, well structured and well developed argument would show up as having specificity in terms of your word choices. So okay, so just to give you an example, if you're talking about congestion, then you would be kind of demonstrating your awareness that you know there could be different types of congestion, for example, at, for example, you might be comparing, say, different times of the day and acknowledging that at certain peak periods. You know, congestion is always going to be bad, but you would have an awareness of that. And so the kind of language you would use would be more specific. So with congestion, you know, is it completely stand still traffic, or is it, you know, traffic, that is, that keeps moving, even if it's very busy. So that would be a bit more nuanced to what you're saying than just it's really congested. So this might seem like a bit of a contradiction. Your tone of voice would also be quite tentative, because you would be applying you know your findings in terms of the validity of it. So we talked before about limitations, didn't we, and so how far your observations apply, depending on you know your sample, your participants, for example, or Yeah. So like, yeah, how far the evidence applies, and what those limitations might be. So you kind of have a full understanding of how far your research is valid and what the kind of shortcomings could be because, bearing in mind, if you're working on an undergraduate dissertation, you're limited by having two or three months to work on it, which means about a month for your research. So there's only so much you can do, and there will be lots of limitations. And so a marker would be looking for your awareness of those limitations.
Alexandra Patel 1:19:41
So so far, we've covered quite a lot of information to kind of demystify what dissertation is about. We've looked at, you know what a definition of a dissertation is. Tracy and I have both talked about the examples of what we've done, often more than one in. And we looked at the opportunities that they can provide. So, you know, really thinking about how a dissertation is a chance for you to really immerse yourself in something you're passionate about and to develop those really good quality academic writing and communication skills. We looked at the different types of kind of research that can be done. You know, how different disciplines think of research in different ways and some of the beliefs around it, such as the positive, positivist approach that scientists use, the interpretist approach that is often seen in social sciences. And lastly, the pragmatist approach was very practically, draws on elements from different fields of research in order to find the most appropriate method for that particular research question. And then we kind of wrap things up by thinking about, you know, what are the main challenges that students have with their dissertations, and, you know, the challenges that myself and Tracy also experienced?
Tracy Dix 1:21:11
So we hope you found all that useful. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Wyrd learning podcast. Don't forget to subscribe if you're enjoying it and share it with your friends if something we've covered today has really landed for you and helped up level your understanding of what you need to achieve at university, please share this with us by leaving us a review wherever you get your podcasts, it would mean the world and really make a difference to us, so we can keep improving this podcast and help more students thrive at university. Thank you. Thank you so much. This episode has been produced by Patricia Marie Solis and her wonderful team at MVA and Co. Our thanks also to Defekt Maschine for our soundtrack,
Alexandra Patel 1:21:52
dissertations are very much an exploration. It's a bit like going out into the wide world. There's no particular end in sight. There's no limits, and it's a bit unknown. And the risk is that students won't know, perhaps where they're going, where they're aiming for or how to get there. And the problem with that is there's the potential for wasted work, going off on side routes, getting misled, and doing stuff that you don't end up kind of including in your dissertation at all, and this can lead to a feeling of being lost and generally low motivation. And if you get low motivation, that tends to mean your kind of pull back from working on the dissertation, less time on the work will impact the kind of grade you get at the end. So you have to be quite careful to make sure that you stay on track, so you stay focused. You know where you're going. So do you want to feel confident that you know where you're going with your dissertation? So this might include kind of knowing what your dissertation is about, what your role is, what your supervisors role is, and how to interact with them. This might cover thinking about what your research question is and being very clear on what its limitations and boundaries are, but also in refining it to something that you feel really passionate about. So it's something that really motivates you to immerse yourself in it. It might involve identifying the different tasks that you know you need to accomplish before you submit your dissertation, and being able to break those down and allocate, you know, set deadlines for each of these so you're able to hold yourself accountable and keep on track over the course of the three to four months you spend on your dissertation. It might involve, finally, kind of communicating that research with passion and clarity. So you're really emphasizing your kind of takeaway points, your conclusion with the reader, so they're left thinking, wow, that was impressive. I've learned something really important here. So if you want to be confident with your dissertation, then join us for our dissertation master class. You'll get the strategies and techniques that have helped us and hundreds of dissertation students that we've worked with to turn their dissertations into a powerful journey of discovery. The first session is on Tuesday, the 25th of February, at 7pm and in this master class, we'll help you to design your research question, to plan your research strategy so you know what you're going out to find and how to do it, and to set yourself meaningful milestones that can keep you accountable and because it's a live session, you can bring your questions and get help from Tracy and myself on those specifically, if you're interested, then click on the link below for more info and book your place.
