Dissertation and Thesis Writing

This library guide points to library resources relevant to the stages of writing a dissertation or thesis. 

The tabs on the left hand side of this page are roughly ordered by the stages of your work.

Contact Yvonne Lee, Ph.D., Director of Graduate Writing "for questions regarding Graduate Writing Support.  She manages consultations, workshops, retreats, and groups in order to help provide graduate students with the resources needed to complete a variety of different types of writing tasks." (From "Our Team").

Consult with your subject librarian for help doing research. Also, please contact your subject librarian if you have any comments about this library guide and its usefulness.

THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS. YOUR SUGGESTIONS WELCOME! Please send them to Brian Simboli.

Don't reinvent the wheel! Your librarian has focused literature searching skills that will help you avoid this.

Tips:

• It's better to start with a narrow topic, research it, then broaden it if necessary. There is so much literature now about any topic that even on a narrow topic, you are bound to find a good deal of relevant literature.
• It can help to focus on a well-defined and focused existing debate and then develop your own position within that debate.  
• As you select a topic, consider the notes in the "Write" section of this guide about writing a literature review that can become the first chapter of your dissertation. The process of writing a review of the literature in your topic of interest can help refine your topic and closely define it.

Some tips follow related to funding your research.

Sources of Information about Grant Funding

See the SPIN database for grant and funding information. Also, consult with your librarian for tips about how to use library databases to identify funding sources. E.g., after doing a literature search on your topic in Web of Science, see the Funding Agencies category on the left hand side of the search results. This can help you identify grants to which you can apply.

Data Management Plans ("DMPs")

Our guide Data Management Plan Assistance for Grants provides resources for writing data management plans required in grant applications. It includes information about data storage options available on campus as well as ideas about how to organize your data collection and management.

TIPS:

• Ask your advisor to recommend some well-done dissertations or theses, done either at Lehigh or elsewhere. Use them as models 
• Dissertations often have very complete bibliographies. Use them as one more source for literature citations.

FINDING

Finding Theses and Dissertations (includes sections about "Finding Lehigh Theses and Dissertations" and  "Finding Theses and Dissertations From Other Institutions".)

ProQuest Dissertations and Theses @ Lehigh University  Complete copies of Lehigh dissertations and masters theses.

ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global Comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses from North America and the UK, offering millions of works from thousands of universities. Includes abstracts for most documents and full-text for about half of the database, weighted toward more recent years.Global coverage note: also covers Europe less comprehensively, and many Chinese universities after 2017. Coverage of other countries and non-English language documents is limited.

ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global: Science & Technology Science and Technology subset of ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT) Global - the world's most comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses, offering millions of works from thousands of universities. Indexing, abstracts and select full-text coverage. Searching in Chinese and other languages may be needed for high recall searching.

The library provides a range of resources relevant to researching your topic. Below are some of them.

Set up an appointment with a subject librarian to discuss these and other resources.

LIBRARY GUIDES

Explore the wide array of library guides to identify relevant literature databases and other resources related to your subject and to researching and writing.

BROWZINE

Consider using Browzine  to easily find, read, and monitor thousands of scholarly journals available from LTS, or through Open Access publishers, covering all disciplines. 

• Browse titles by subject to easily find journals of interest
• Easily view table of contents of current past journals
• Create a personal bookshelf of favorite journals 
• Share with other researchers by posting to Facebook and Twitter

REVIEW ARTICLES

Make heavy use of review articles, which summarize the literature in a sub-discipline. Some literature databases enable one to filter search results for this type of article. Also, you can often tell from its title whether an article provides a high-level review of a field.

EMAIL ALERTS

Early on, set up email alerts, for example from library databases such as Web of Science, or Google Scholar, for new literature relating to your field. If you like a particular article or book, set up an email alert for literature that cite it. This is very important for purposes of tracking late-breaking literature as you do your research. Your librarian can help you design alerts.

CITING/CITED LITERATURE SEARCHING

Don't forget the importance, when researching, of finding an article or other document, then finding who has cited it. This is a very important way to build a bibliography, arguably one of the best. Librarians can assist you with this type of search as well as other approaches to searching. 

DISSERTATIONS AS A SOURCE OF BIBLIOGRAPHY

In addition to looking at dissertations to get ideas about how to write a one, they can provide valuable bibliography. Include them in your literature searches. See Finding Theses and Dissertations.

Graduate Writing Contact Yvonne Lee, Ph.D., Director of Graduate Writing for questions regarding Graduate Writing Support.  She manages consultations, workshops, retreats, and groups in order to help provide graduate students with the resources needed to complete a variety of writing tasks. For an overview of graduate writing resources, visit Graduate Writing Support. 

Finding models for dissertations and theses

See the section of this guide "Find Sample Dissertations or Theses"

Resources about writing literature reviews for a dissertation or thesis 

Consult books and e-books in Lehigh's library catalog about writing theses and disserations. Examples are below. Chapters about doing the literature review are identified.

(Note about doing literature reviews. If you are writing a dissertation or thesis, you may be required to write a chapter or section that reviews the literature. Determine whether you will write a dissertation that is relatively continuous, or one whose chapters consist of self-contained research articles. You may have (in effect) to write more than one literature review. Check with your advisor.)

Examples:

• Writing a graduate thesis or dissertation See chapter 4
• Dissertations and theses from start to finish : psychology and related fields See chapter 6, "Reviewing the Literature".
• Writing a successful thesis or dissertation : tips and strategies for students in the social and behavioral sciences See 7. Writing the Literature Review Chapter
•  A practical guide to dissertation and thesis writing  Has focus on social sciences
• How to prepare a scientific doctoral dissertation based on research articles See chapters1 3 and 17.

It is critical at the outset to consider your "writing platform", as well as a place to do your notetaking. See the guide below. NOTE: If you are writing a dissertation or thesis that requires equations, see the section about Overleaf.   

How can you keep track of all the citations you come across and copies of the associated full text? 

One way to do so is to use RefWorks. For information, see these library guides:

• RefWorks
• RefWorks - Versions: Legacy RefWorks and New RefWorks.
• New RefWorks

TIPS:

• To manage journal articles that you have printed out, consider numbering them and then putting the number into the corresponding RefWorks record for the article. That way you can use RefWorks as a search engine to find your print version of the article. 
• Make use of the electronic folders in RefWorks that enable you to sort articles by subject area. 

Below are some university resources that address how to format your dissertation or thesis. They are given here for your convenience. 

*Contact your adviser to review your department's expectations, guidelines, or templates for submission.*

• College of Arts and Sciences "PhD Graduation Manager" [Scroll down to see "Ph.D Dissertation Guidelines and Dissertation templates"
• College of Arts and Sciences Thesis Template
• College of Engineering and Applied Science Thesis and Dissertation Guidelines
• College of Engineering and Applied Science Instructions for the Final Dissertation Forms Packet
• College of Education Doctoral Program Requirements and Procedures

NOTE:

• Students can upload all the files provided (rename Dissertation.tex to main.tex) to an overleaf project and start writing by creating a separate file for each chapter and appendix.
• CAS has an approved TeX template, that what CAS folks should be using and modifying based on departments additional requirements.

For information about how to submit electronically your Lehigh dissertation or thesis, see the library guide about how to do so.

Contact Ilhan Citak (x4506) for details about the submission process. 

Preprints (scroll down a bit) are an increasingly important form of publishing. A preprint is a publicly accessible version of your research. Preprint servers serve as a place to publish an initial version of your research prior to seeking publication.

As you write successive chapters, consider publishing them as preprints, even as you submit them as journal articles...but first ascertain that the journal to which you submit your article allows "pre-publication" in a preprint. Or when your dissertation or thesis is done, consider publishing it as a preprint.   

See here for benefits and caveats about publishing preprints.

As you write your dissertation, submit chapters as articles. When your dissertation or thesis is complete, consider publishing it as a book. Not only will this help you get a job, but it is a way to make available to the world the fruits of your hard labors.

TIPS:

• See the library guide Writing an Impactful Journal Article: Resources and Tips
• See the library guide about Enhancing Research Impact for steps you can take before and after you publish to get exposure for your research. For example, spend time considering the best place to publish your work.
• See the library guide Authors' Rights and Publishing
• Here's a resource of possible interest: From dissertation to book by Germano, William P.

For books about writing a dissertation or thesis, do a search in Lehigh's online catalog, ASA. Here is a general search of this kind:

This is a search of ASA over (AllFields : writing OR AllFields : write) AND (AllFields : dissertation OR AllFields : thesis)

Check with a librarian about resources at Lehigh comparable to those mentioned in these guides:

• Writing a Dissertation or Thesis: RU Grad School Resources [Rutgers]
• Dissertations & Theses: Writing Your UCSD Thesis or Dissertation [UC San Diego]