History Dissertation Writing Tips
United States, January 22, 2016 (Newswire.com) - History is a mysterious discipline that reveals much of our past and even contains some answers for what expects us in the future, and at the same time this discipline still hides many thrilling secrets and mysteries as humanity simply cannot know everything. As a famous saying goes, ‘there are doors that should not be opened’, but there are some doors that await to be opened and share their knowledge with the world. This can also be applied to the writing a history dissertation. Unlike many other types of dissertations, it is the subject where you have to prepare yourself for new, unexpected turns and findings that may well change the whole focus and angle of the paper. Writing a dissertation is a complex process irrespective of a discipline, but history is the vast field with plenty of choices in terms of subject and research areas.
For this reason, today’s article is devoted to the problem of compiling a history dissertation, history dissertation structure and writing tips that may be of a great help, if you bring yourself to the point of writing this piece of work.
Before you begin
There is a beginning of everything, and when it comes to preparing your mind, soul and body for writing and structuring a history dissertation, you should know where to start. In practice, every custom paper should start with a topic and history area choice. Here, you are more or less free to choose yourself and then check on with your advisor to discuss the topic and line of further research. The general advice on this matter is to evaluate your strengths and interests to know for sure that you are interested in this particular event, question, problem, approach, etc. You will not be able to cover the topic and do research to discover new facts, important details and documents and other things important to finalize the work, if you are uninterested in or bored with this area and topic. Many history professors and lecturers, even your tutor or adviser, can tell you that research is an investigation, and the investigation is a great deal of a personal challenge.
After selecting the topic, collecting, reading and scanning through appropriate literature sources is the next step of your work. In this respect, you need to know that there are two basic types of literature and bibliography sources that you will have to look up for the dissertation. They are:
- Primary Sources (they include manuscripts, original documents, letters, chronicles, personal diaries, biographies, drafts, and hard and soft copies of the original documents);
- Secondary Sources (this part includes the existing printed monographies, books, scholarly articles, related dissertations, scientific works with commentaries on the latest findings, reports, both written and spoken materials, interviews, videos, etc.)
Both are immensely important for the theoretical and practical parts of any history written assignment, even for an advanced higher history dissertation. Primary sources are used to look for evidence related to your topic, while secondary sources are meant to support the found evidence and add credibility to the findings. While scanning through these materials, write down excerpts, sentences and facts that fit your history dissertation, and you can also start compiling a bibliography list from the sources that you will use in the paper.
Nonetheless, there is a list of things that you have to prepare when writing a H.D., such as:
- Primary/Secondary Sources
- Readability of Primary Sources
- Libraries
- Scholars With the Previously Published Works On the Subject
- Information Overload
- Tutor / Supervisor Opinion (Especially, if he/she disagrees with your choice).
These are major problems that you have to keep in mind and be patient about while figuring things out, but do not be too strict with yourself and people who help you finish the dissertation.
Revising Collected Material
When the collected material is ready, you need to scan it through once again and narrow it down, since there may be some sources that do not fit the subject of the dissertation. It is quite understandable that every sentence seems like a piece of gold at the beginning of your reading process, but do not hurry and think once again, whether this particular source has some message that can be conveyed in your paper.
Structuring and Writing
The structure of the history dissertation is another important detail of the whole process altogether. Irrespective of a topic, you should know what place can be allocated for a particular fact, theory or legend. Every single detail should be appropriately placed for readers to understand your point and argumentation. In theory, every dissertation has the same structure, for example, abstract, introduction, review, methodology, discussion, conclusion, references, appendices, etc., apart from other obligatory materials to be submitted, like ethical approval and many others, but in practice, its structure may differ greatly from the accepted standard because of a certain university’s requirements and personal preferences of your advisor / tutor. When it comes to writing a history dissertation, or any other history assignment that involves the work with the primary sources and quotes, you should take care of the ethical approval in the first place, otherwise it may well result in big problems. The first thing that you should be quite aware of is that a history dissertation introduction, as well as the conclusion, should be written after all the others. The best history dissertation, in theory again, should give a new solution to old problems, in other words, find or develop a new approach to old-fashioned research standards. Well, of course, no one will object, if you accidentally discover a lost civilization or two along the way, but it’s a matter of luck, really. At this stage you should already have some sketches of the first draft, some sources that you have decided to use in your work to support (or deny) your theory or method. Written material of the discussion paragraph itself should be readable and understandable with the relevant and credible figure and diagrams. Check what you have written after every chapter to make sure that you follow the trail of your thoughts and all of your facts support each other and do not contradict. Try to write as if you are speaking with a real history professional and you are trying to convince him or her of your point of view.
Many people have this somewhat romantic vision of a history as a subject of research and discipline and often mistaken it with archeology, desiring to become one of these crazy adventurous people who are always in the search for lost relics, civilization and treasures. However, such people are terribly wrong because history is a strictly scientific discipline, and its professionals should possess the exact knowledge about the subject of their specialization, that is why it is so important to approach this assignment with clear and sober head and know your strengths and weaknesses before holding your hands to the dissertation like this one. Of course, there is always an easy way out in such matters, because you can always buy a history dissertation from custom writing services, and there is nothing to be afraid of, if you are a mere circumstance in the sphere. Besides, if the service proves reliable, you should consider a possibility of buying your future essays from it.
The article is written by Pro-Papers.com