Dissertation Advice for Social Research

A guidebook for doctoral students and their advisors, this book provides a map to the many parts of a doctoral thesis – from the statement of the problem, preparation of the proposal, theory, methods, description, and interpretations of findings to the conclusions and implications for future research and practice.

Divided into six chapters that cover each step of the dissertation process, Dissertation Advice for Social Research outlines a program for research and writing with examples drawn from doctoral dissertations in sociology, social policy, history, and the humanities. Intended to spark students’ imaginations, each chapter contains examples of dissertations with tips on getting started, drafting and revising the manuscript, and checklists addressed to both students and advisors that spell out actions needed to make progress and to demonstrate a variety of analytic methods – ranging from qualitative interpretations and multivariate analysis of large data sets to historical accounts with examples of various modes of analysis, from grounded theory to qualitative comparisons and statistical tests of significance such as multiple regression.

This book is ideal for both doctoral students and their advisors, and will help students get started on their dissertations and to make progress throughout the writing process, regardless of analytic method.