Hundreds of thousands of full-text searchable publications (books, peer-reviewed journals, strategic studies, academic dissertations and educational videos) from the Arab world’s leading publishers across a diverse range of topics, with more being added every week.
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT) Global is the world's most comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses from around the world, offering millions of works from thousands of universities. Each year hundreds of thousands of works are added. Full-text coverage spans from 1743 to the present, with citation coverage dating back to 1637.
Getting started with your thesis or dissertation
A thesis or dissertation is a long research paper which you develop over the course of your degree or academic position. Writing a thesis or dissertation may be daunting yet an important undertaking. Typically, writing a thesis follows the following common steps:
1. What topics, trends, or theories you are interested in? What would you like to learn about? Do you feel that there is a gap in the literature that does not cover what you want to learn?
2. Once you come up with a solid question, you can begin consulting the primary resources, theories or frameworks relevant to the topic.
Tip: Search the library databases, trade magazines, the internet, or popular press.
3. Once you develop stronger knowledge about your topic, you should be able to suggest a purpose for your thesis/dissertation. Once you are able to articulate this purpose clearly, you are ready to write your draft proposal. You draft proposal specifies the purpose of the study, its significance, a tentative review of the literature on the topic, your research questions and/or hypotheses, and how you will collect and analyze your data.
4. Once your proposal is final, you can start writing the main body and arguments, each section at a time.
Tip: Write the main body of the thesis one section at a time as attempting to write your entire thesis at once is not a manageable progress and is a challenging mental task.
A thesis statement explains the main argument that you are presenting based on your research. Depending on the length of your thesis, your thesis statement may be stated at the end of the introduction part, or in its own dedicated section. Your statement can be explanatory, argumentative or analytical, depending on how much detail you want to go into before presenting your evidence. Your statement should be clear and explains your stance on the topic. Check out this guide from Purdue university on how to develop strong thesis statements and the Tips and Examples for Writing Thesis Statements guide which provide an excellent start for your thesis writing journey.
The library provides access to SAGE Research Methods which includes valuable resources that can help you with every stage of your research.
For instance, if you need help defining a topic (assuming you don't have one in mind or your teacher did not assign one to you), search the word "topic" on SAGE Research Methods and you will get thousands of resources to help you selecting and refining a topic. You may also be interested in this book chapter entry, “Choosing a Topic”
