Your dissertation is an essential part of your academic journey which shows:
- Your ability to work independently to investigate an area that you’re particularly interested in. It is an opportunity to manage your time, resources, and challenges without constant supervision.
- Your ability to consolidate information and skills gained from previous learning. This might be from lectures, from reading or some other activity. You will be encouraged to draw together different aspects of this previous learning in order to address your topic.
- Your ability to think critically and make sense of complex information; you’ll engage with existing theories, identify patterns or contradictions in research, and draw out what really matters. This involves not just summarising what others have said but evaluating it and forming your own insights.
- Finally, your dissertation is an opportunity to communicate your ideas clearly and convincingly. A strong argument isn’t just about having the right evidence, but also about how you explain it. That means structuring your work logically, presenting your ideas in an engaging way, and backing them up with solid reasoning.
In brief, your dissertation or final year project tests a variety of skills:
- Synthesize new material with previous learning,
- Develop and present a convincing argument,
- Manage yourself, your time and your project effectively,
- Demonstrate some level of originality. The originality can be in the choice of topic, your approach to the topic, the development of your argument, or some other factor that you have used within your project.
- Develop independent learning skills and demonstrate them.
