thesis section in library

Dissertations and Theses: A Finding Guide: Introduction

Introduction.

• Cornell Theses
• Non-Cornell Theses
• Open Access, etc.
• Cornell Dissertation Guidelines

McGraw Tower @ Cornell

This guide aspires to be an exhaustive catalog of resources for finding dissertations and theses at Cornell. In addition, it contains some resources for finding theses at other universities worldwide, including those subscribed to by the Cornell University Library. It is intended to be a step-wise guide to searching--a best practices and training guide for staff and library users alike. The term thesis is used to describe work at any level, undergraduate to doctoral. Dissertation is used to describe doctoral-level work.

Find out whether the document desired is a dissertation, a master's thesis, or an undergraduate (usually honors) thesis. Different types require different search strategies.

Dissertations and theses may be available as printed loose-leaf or bound manuscripts, on microfilm, or digitized (usually in PDF) full-text online.

If you are unable to locate a dissertation or thesis, please contact the Cornell University Library reference staff for assistance. If you have additional location information about finding tools for theses that should be added to this guide, please contact Olin Library reference, [email protected].

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If you wish to use or adapt any or all of the content of this Guide go to Cornell Library's Research Guides Use Conditions to review our use permissions and our Creative Commons license.

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• Last Updated: Apr 12, 2024 4:25 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.cornell.edu/dissertations

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LIBRARIANSHIP STUDIES & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

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• Library and Information Science Dissertations and Theses

• General Databases and Collections of LIS Dissertations and Theses
• LIS Dissertations and Theses from the United States, Canada, and European Countries
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• LIS Dissertations and Thesis Bibliography
• Library Cataloging, Classification, and Metadata Research: A Bibliography of Dissertations and Theses
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• Your comments/experiences about your research work
• Knowledge Organization Literature - International Society for Knowledge Organization - Despite their extensive classification and coding (see https://www.isko.org/scheme.php ) you can't search for theses or dissertations specifically, and likely most of what is included here could be relevant for our purposes - but you can browse the lists built for each time period. So, once we nail down our first and then subsequent time periods, that might be the way to go.
• So You Wanna Do A Thesis? Part 1: Preparation
• Suggested Topics for Library Science Research and Publication
• Librarianship Studies & Information Technology blog thanks, Sandra K. Roe (Sandy Roe) , chief editor, Cataloging & Classification Quarterly  journal for suggesting some useful resources included in this list. This article is inspired by her vision of a compilation of a bibliography of research works (dissertations and theses) in the field of library cataloging, classification, and metadata.
• Library and Information Science Encyclopedia
• Salman Haider
• Librarianship Studies & Information Technology
• https://www.librarianshipstudies.com/2018/08/library-information-science-dissertations-theses.html
• 2016-079-12
• Help us improve this article! Contact us with your feedback. You can use the comments section below, or reach us on social media.
• Please suggest new resources be added to this list. Do you find it useful? If yes, then please share it with your friends and online network. "Sharing is Caring." Kindly provide your valuable feedback to make this entry more useful for the researchers of Library and Information Science.
• Sandra K. Roe (Sandy Roe), Librarian, Illinois State University, Editor, Cataloging & Classification Quarterly   [July 17, 2016, e-mail] -- Wow.  This is an amazing compilation, complete with search instructions   - and such a great idea to solicit other sources from the community.  Brilliant!
• Stephen Abram, Librarian and principal with Lighthouse Consulting Inc., and executive director of the Federation of Ontario Public Libraries   [August 1, 2016, in his blog Stephen's Lighthouse] - Great list of sources – fee and free.

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How to find resources by format

Why use a dissertation or a thesis.

A dissertation is the final large research paper, based on original research, for many disciplines to be able to complete a PhD degree. The thesis is the same idea but for a masters degree.

They are often considered scholarly sources since they are closely supervised by a committee, are directed at an academic audience, are extensively researched, follow research methodology, and are cited in other scholarly work. Often the research is newer or answering questions that are more recent, and can help push scholarship in new directions. 

Search for dissertations and theses

Locating dissertations and theses.

The Proquest Dissertations and Theses Global database includes doctoral dissertations and selected masters theses from major universities worldwide.

• Searchable by subject, author, advisor, title, school, date, etc.
• More information about full text access and requesting through Interlibrary Loan

NDLTD – Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations provides free online access to a over a million theses and dissertations from all over the world.

WorldCat Dissertations and Theses searches library catalogs from across the U.S. and worldwide.

Locating University of Minnesota Dissertations and Theses

Use  Libraries search  and search by title or author and add the word "thesis" in the search box. Write down the library and call number and find it on the shelf. They can be checked out.

Check the  University Digital Conservancy  for online access to dissertations and theses from 2007 to present as well as historic, scanned theses from 1887-1923.

Other Sources for Dissertations and Theses

• Center for Research Libraries
• DART-Europe E-Thesis Portal
• Theses Canada
• Ethos (Great Britain)
• Australasian Digital Theses in Trove
• DiVA (Sweden)
• E-Thesis at the University of Helsinki
• DissOnline (Germany)
• List of libraries worldwide - to search for a thesis when you know the institution and cannot find in the larger collections

University of Minnesota Dissertations and Theses FAQs

What dissertations and theses are available.

With minor exceptions, all doctoral dissertations and all "Plan A" master's theses accepted by the University of Minnesota are available in the University Libraries system. In some cases (see below) only a non-circulating copy in University Archives exists, but for doctoral dissertations from 1940 to date, and for master's theses from 1925 to date, a circulating copy should almost always be available.

"Plan B" papers, accepted in the place of a thesis in many master's degree programs, are not received by the University Libraries and are generally not available. (The only real exceptions are a number of old library school Plan B papers on publishing history, which have been separately cataloged.) In a few cases individual departments may have maintained files of such papers.

In what libraries are U of M dissertations and theses located?

Circulating copies of doctoral dissertations:.

• Use Libraries Search to look for the author or title of the work desired to determine location and call number of a specific dissertation. Circulating copies of U of M doctoral dissertations can be in one of several locations in the library system, depending upon the date and the department for which the dissertation was done. The following are the general rules:
• Dissertations prior to 1940 Circulating copies of U of M dissertations prior to 1940 do not exist (with rare exceptions): for these, only the archival copy (see below) is available. Also, most dissertations prior to 1940 are not cataloged in MNCAT and can only be identified by the departmental listings described below.  
• Dissertations from 1940-1979 Circulating copies of U of M dissertations from 1940 to 1979 will in most cases be held within the Elmer L. Andersen Library, with three major classes of exceptions: dissertations accepted by biological, medical, and related departments are housed in the Health Science Library; science/engineering dissertations from 1970 to date will be located in the Science and Engineering Library (in Walter); and dissertations accepted by agricultural and related departments are available at the Magrath Library or one of the other libraries on the St. Paul campus (the Magrath Library maintains records of locations for such dissertations).  
• Dissertations from 1980-date Circulating copies of U of M dissertations from 1980 to date at present may be located either in Wilson Library (see below) or in storage; consult Libraries Search for location of specific items. Again, exceptions noted above apply here also; dissertations in their respective departments will instead be in Health Science Library or in one of the St. Paul campus libraries.

Circulating copies of master's theses:

• Theses prior to 1925 Circulating copies of U of M master's theses prior to 1925 do not exist (with rare exceptions); for these, only the archival copy (see below) is available.  
• Theses from 1925-1996 Circulating copies of U of M master's theses from 1925 to 1996 may be held in storage; consult Libraries search in specific instances. Once again, there are exceptions and theses in their respective departments will be housed in the Health Science Library or in one of the St. Paul campus libraries.  
• Theses from 1997-date Circulating copies of U of M master's theses from 1997 to date will be located in Wilson Library (see below), except for the same exceptions for Health Science  and St. Paul theses. There is also an exception to the exception: MHA (Masters in Health Administration) theses through 1998 are in the Health Science Library, but those from 1999 on are in Wilson Library.

Archival copies (non-circulating)

Archival (non-circulating) copies of virtually all U of M doctoral dissertations from 1888-1952, and of U of M master's theses from all years up to the present, are maintained by University Archives (located in the Elmer L. Andersen Library). These copies must be consulted on the premises, and it is highly recommended for the present that users make an appointment in advance to ensure that the desired works can be retrieved for them from storage. For dissertations accepted prior to 1940 and for master's theses accepted prior to 1925, University Archives is generally the only option (e.g., there usually will be no circulating copy). Archival copies of U of M doctoral dissertations from 1953 to the present are maintained by Bell and Howell Corporation (formerly University Microfilms Inc.), which produces print or filmed copies from our originals upon request. (There are a very few post-1952 U of M dissertations not available from Bell and Howell; these include such things as music manuscripts and works with color illustrations or extremely large pages that will not photocopy well; in these few cases, our archival copy is retained in University Archives.)

Where is a specific dissertation of thesis located?

To locate a specific dissertation or thesis it is necessary to have its call number. Use Libraries Search for the author or title of the item, just as you would for any other book. Depending on date of acceptance and cataloging, a typical call number for such materials should look something like one of the following:

Dissertations: Plan"A" Theses MnU-D or 378.7M66 MnU-M or 378.7M66 78-342 ODR7617 83-67 OL6156 Libraries Search will also tell the library location (MLAC, Health Science Library, Magrath or another St. Paul campus library, Science and Engineering, Business Reference, Wilson Annex or Wilson Library). Those doctoral dissertations still in Wilson Library (which in all cases should be 1980 or later and will have "MnU-D" numbers) are located in the central section of the third floor. Those master's theses in Wilson (which in all cases will be 1997 or later and will have "MnU-M" numbers) are also located in the central section of the third floor. Both dissertations and theses circulate and can be checked out, like any other books, at the Wilson Circulation desk on the first floor.

How can dissertations and theses accepted by a specific department be located?

Wilson Library contains a series of bound and loose-leaf notebooks, arranged by department and within each department by date, listing dissertations and theses. Information given for each entry includes name of author, title, and date (but not call number, which must be looked up individually). These notebooks are no longer current, but they do cover listings by department from the nineteenth century up to approximately 1992. Many pre-1940 U of M dissertations and pre-1925 U of M master's theses are not cataloged (and exist only as archival copies). Such dissertations can be identified only with these volumes. The books and notebooks are shelved in the general collection under these call numbers: Wilson Ref LD3337 .A5 and Wilson Ref quarto LD3337 .U9x. Major departments of individual degree candidates are also listed under their names in the GRADUATE SCHOOL COMMENCEMENT programs of the U of M, available in University Archives and (for recent years) also in Wilson stacks (LD3361 .U55x).

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Home > FACULTIES > Information & Media Studies (FIMS) > LIS-ETD

Library and Information Science Theses and Dissertations

This collection contains theses and dissertations from the Department of Library and Information Science, collected from the Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022

Recreational nastiness or playful mischief? Contrasting perspectives on internet trolling between news media and avid internet users , Yimin Chen

Discourse, Power Dynamics, and Risk Amplification in Disaster Risk Management in Canada , Martins Oluwole Olu-Omotayo

Folk Theories, Recommender Systems, and Human-Centered Explainable Artificial Intelligence (HCXAI) , Michael Ridley

Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021

Exploiting Semantic Similarity Between Citation Contexts For Direct Citation Weighting And Residual Citation , Toluwase Victor Asubiaro

The Use of Intimate Partner Violence Websites: Website Awareness, Visibility, Information Quality, Perceived Usefulness, and Frequency of Use , Sze Hang Lee

Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020

The General Artificial Intellect , Ramon S. Diab

The Public Library as Past Become Space , Greg Nightingale

Making Sense of Online Public Health Debates with Visual Analytics Systems , Anton Ninkov

Information, Employment, and Settlement of Immigrants: Exploring the Role of Information Behaviour in the Settlement of Bangladesh Immigrants in Canada , Nafiz Zaman Shuva

Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019

Accessibility And Academic Libraries: A Comparative Case Study , Claire Burrows

The Information Practices of New Kadampa Buddhists: From "Dharma of Scripture" to "Dharma of Insight" , Roger Chabot

Narratives of Sexuality in the Lives of Young Women Readers , Davin L. Helkenberg

Strategic and Subversive: The Case of the Disappearing Diaphragm and Women’s Information Practices , Sherilyn M. Williams

Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018

Informing care: Mapping the social organization of families’ information work in an aging in place climate , Nicole K. Dalmer

A Study of Six Nations Public Library: Rights and Access to Information , Alison Frayne

Information Freedoms and the Case for Anonymous Community , Rachel Melis

Academic Librarians and the Space/Time of Information Literacy, the Neoliberal University, and the Global Knowledge Economy , Karen P. Nicholson

Theses/Dissertations from 2017 2017

Expertise, Mediation, and Technological Surrogacy: A Mixed Method Critical Analysis of a Point of Care Evidence Resource , Selinda Adelle Berg

The E-Writing Experiences of Literary Authors , Kathleen Schreurs

Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016

Understanding Collaborative Sensemaking for System Design — An Investigation of Musicians' Practice , Nadia Conroy

Laying the Foundation for Copyright Policy and Practice in Canadian Universities , Lisa Di Valentino

Towards Evidence-Informed Agriculture Policy Making: Investigating the Knowledge Translation Practices of Researchers in the National Agriculture Research Institutes in Nigeria , Isioma N. Elueze

Different Approaches for Different Folks , Alexandre Fortier

Creating Context from Curiosity: The Role of Serendipity in the Research Process of Historians in Physical and Digital Environments , Kim Martin

Alternate Academy: Investigating the Use of Open Educational Resources by Students at the University of Lagos in Nigeria , Daniel Onaifo

Theses/Dissertations from 2015 2015

Contentious information: Accounts of knowledge production, circulation and consumption in transitional Egypt , Ahmad Kamal

Multilingual Information Access: Practices and Perceptions of Bi/multilingual Academic Users , Peggy I. Nzomo

Words to Live By: How Experience Shapes our Information World at Work, Play and in Everyday Life , Angela Pollak

Watching Storytelling: Visual Information in Oral Narratives , James Ripley

Theses/Dissertations from 2014 2014

Empowering Women Entrepreneurs in Africa: Investigating Information Access and Use of Information and Communication Technologies by Women-Owned Enterprises in Zambia , Daniel Mumba

Young adults reflect on the experience of reading comics in contemporary society: Overcoming the commonplace and recognizing complexity , Lucia Cederia Serantes

Theses/Dissertations from 2013 2013

Space, Power and the Public Library: A Multicase Examination of the Public Library as Organization Space , Matthew R. Griffis

Knowledge Organization Practices in Everyday Life: Divergent Constructions of Healthy Eating , Jill R. McTavish

Semantics-based Automated Quality Assessment of Depression Treatment Web Documents , Yanjun Zhang

Theses/Dissertations from 2012 2012

Making Sense of Document Collections with Map-Based Visualizations , Olga Buchel

A Critical Historical Analysis of the Public Performance Right , Louis J. D'Alton

Intellectual Property and Its Alternatives: Incentives, Innovation and Ideology , Michael B. McNally

Theses/Dissertations from 2010 2010

The Information Practices of People Living with Depression: Constructing Credibility and Authority , Tami Oliphant

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UW Libraries Search: Theses and Dissertations

How to find theses and dissertations by subject.

1. To search for theses and dissertations by subject from the University of Washington, go to the Advanced Search option on the  UW Libraries homepage .

2. In Advanced Search, select " in subject " from the drop-down menu, and " is (exact) " from the second drop-down menu. Type " theses  [subject/department]" into the search field. For example, if you are interested in finding theses from the History department, you would type "theses history" into the search box and then click  Search .

3. The search results will list all master’s and doctoral theses completed at the UW for that subject. 

Access Theses/Dissertations

• When searching 'theses' in the UW library catalog, this term returns both master's theses and doctoral dissertations. 
• For the most complete listing of UW theses and dissertations that are archived online, visit the  ResearchWorks Archive . There may be a digital copy of a thesis even if it does not appear in UW Libraries Search, particularly in the case of older theses.
• Since 2012, all theses/dissertations are only available in online format.
• You can confirm that the item you are looking for is a thesis in several ways. If it is a print thesis, the location information may confirm you are looking at a thesis. You can also click on the Item Details to look at the subject and publisher information for further confirmation.

Find Online Theses/Dissertations

• Filter your search to online items only by clicking on "Available Online." 
• Click "Online access" for more information.
• In the "View It" section, click "online" to access the online thesis/dissertation. 

Find Print Theses/Dissertations

• Filter your search by clicking on "Available in the Library." 
• To see more information, click on "Available at". This includes information on whether the item is available for checkout and where it can be found in the library.

3. The search results will list all master’s and doctoral theses completed at the UW for that subject. 

More Tips on Finding Theses & Dissertations

Find information on searching for dissertations and theses done at the UW and other universities with our Dissertations & Theses Research Guide.

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• Last Updated: Jan 16, 2024 2:01 PM
• URL: https://guides.lib.uw.edu/research/uwlibrariessearch

Lehigh University Libraries - Library Guides

Dissertation and thesis writing, goal of guide, select a topic, find sample dissertations or theses, research the topic, "literature review central", templates, formatting and submission, publish chapters as preprints, submitting electronic theses and dissertations, publish the final product, other resources, goal of guide.

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.

• 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.

Applying for grants

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.

• 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 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.

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 . 

Writing dissertations or theses (including the literature review)

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.)

• 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.

Writing and Note-taking Tools

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.   

• Writing and Note-Taking Tools by Brian Simboli Last Updated Jan 7, 2024 67 views this year

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

University Templates for Formatting

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
• 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.

Electronic Submission of Theses and Dissertations

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.

Publish the final product

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.

• 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]
• Last Updated: Nov 29, 2023 4:45 PM
• URL: https://libraryguides.lehigh.edu/dissthesis

Theses and Dissertations

Check Cornell’s library catalog , which lists the dissertations available in our library collection.

The print thesis collection in Uris Library is currently shelved on Level 3B before the Q to QA regular-sized volumes. Check with the library staff for the thesis shelving locations in other libraries (Mann, Catherwood, Fine Arts, etc.).

ProQuest Dissertations and Theses

According to ProQuest, coverage begins with 1637. With more than 2.4 million entries,  ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global  is the starting point for finding citations to doctoral dissertations and master’s theses. Dissertations published from 1980 forward include 350-word abstracts written by the author. Master’s theses published from 1988 forward include 150-word abstracts. UMI also offers over 1.8 million titles for purchase in microfilm or paper formats. The full text of more than 930,000 are available in PDF format for immediate free download. Use  Interlibrary Loan  for the titles not available as full text online.

Foreign Dissertations at the Center for Research Libraries

To search for titles and verify holdings of dissertations at the Center for Research Libraries (CRL), use the CRL catalog . CRL seeks to provide comprehensive access to doctoral dissertations submitted to institutions outside the U. S. and Canada (currently more than 750,000 titles). One hundred European universities maintain exchange or deposit agreements with CRL. Russian dissertation abstracts in the social sciences are obtained on microfiche from INION.  More detailed information about CRL’s dissertation holdings .

Please see our resource guide on dissertations and theses for additional resources and support.

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• Dissertation

How to Write a Dissertation | A Guide to Structure & Content

A dissertation or thesis is a long piece of academic writing based on original research, submitted as part of an undergraduate or postgraduate degree.

The structure of a dissertation depends on your field, but it is usually divided into at least four or five chapters (including an introduction and conclusion chapter).

The most common dissertation structure in the sciences and social sciences includes:

• An introduction to your topic
• A literature review that surveys relevant sources
• An explanation of your methodology
• An overview of the results of your research
• A discussion of the results and their implications
• A conclusion that shows what your research has contributed

Dissertations in the humanities are often structured more like a long essay , building an argument by analysing primary and secondary sources . Instead of the standard structure outlined here, you might organise your chapters around different themes or case studies.

Other important elements of the dissertation include the title page , abstract , and reference list . If in doubt about how your dissertation should be structured, always check your department’s guidelines and consult with your supervisor.

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Table of contents

Acknowledgements, table of contents, list of figures and tables, list of abbreviations, introduction, literature review / theoretical framework, methodology, reference list.

The very first page of your document contains your dissertation’s title, your name, department, institution, degree program, and submission date. Sometimes it also includes your student number, your supervisor’s name, and the university’s logo. Many programs have strict requirements for formatting the dissertation title page .

The title page is often used as cover when printing and binding your dissertation .

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The acknowledgements section is usually optional, and gives space for you to thank everyone who helped you in writing your dissertation. This might include your supervisors, participants in your research, and friends or family who supported you.

The abstract is a short summary of your dissertation, usually about 150-300 words long. You should write it at the very end, when you’ve completed the rest of the dissertation. In the abstract, make sure to:

• State the main topic and aims of your research
• Describe the methods you used
• Summarise the main results
• State your conclusions

Although the abstract is very short, it’s the first part (and sometimes the only part) of your dissertation that people will read, so it’s important that you get it right. If you’re struggling to write a strong abstract, read our guide on how to write an abstract .

In the table of contents, list all of your chapters and subheadings and their page numbers. The dissertation contents page gives the reader an overview of your structure and helps easily navigate the document.

All parts of your dissertation should be included in the table of contents, including the appendices. You can generate a table of contents automatically in Word.

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If you have used a lot of tables and figures in your dissertation, you should itemise them in a numbered list . You can automatically generate this list using the Insert Caption feature in Word.

If you have used a lot of abbreviations in your dissertation, you can include them in an alphabetised list of abbreviations so that the reader can easily look up their meanings.

If you have used a lot of highly specialised terms that will not be familiar to your reader, it might be a good idea to include a glossary . List the terms alphabetically and explain each term with a brief description or definition.

In the introduction, you set up your dissertation’s topic, purpose, and relevance, and tell the reader what to expect in the rest of the dissertation. The introduction should:

• Establish your research topic , giving necessary background information to contextualise your work
• Narrow down the focus and define the scope of the research
• Discuss the state of existing research on the topic, showing your work’s relevance to a broader problem or debate
• Clearly state your objectives and research questions , and indicate how you will answer them
• Give an overview of your dissertation’s structure

Everything in the introduction should be clear, engaging, and relevant to your research. By the end, the reader should understand the what , why and how of your research. Not sure how? Read our guide on how to write a dissertation introduction .

Before you start on your research, you should have conducted a literature review to gain a thorough understanding of the academic work that already exists on your topic. This means:

• Collecting sources (e.g. books and journal articles) and selecting the most relevant ones
• Critically evaluating and analysing each source
• Drawing connections between them (e.g. themes, patterns, conflicts, gaps) to make an overall point

In the dissertation literature review chapter or section, you shouldn’t just summarise existing studies, but develop a coherent structure and argument that leads to a clear basis or justification for your own research. For example, it might aim to show how your research:

• Addresses a gap in the literature
• Takes a new theoretical or methodological approach to the topic
• Proposes a solution to an unresolved problem
• Advances a theoretical debate
• Builds on and strengthens existing knowledge with new data

The literature review often becomes the basis for a theoretical framework , in which you define and analyse the key theories, concepts and models that frame your research. In this section you can answer descriptive research questions about the relationship between concepts or variables.

The methodology chapter or section describes how you conducted your research, allowing your reader to assess its validity. You should generally include:

• The overall approach and type of research (e.g. qualitative, quantitative, experimental, ethnographic)
• Your methods of collecting data (e.g. interviews, surveys, archives)
• Details of where, when, and with whom the research took place
• Your methods of analysing data (e.g. statistical analysis, discourse analysis)
• Tools and materials you used (e.g. computer programs, lab equipment)
• A discussion of any obstacles you faced in conducting the research and how you overcame them
• An evaluation or justification of your methods

Your aim in the methodology is to accurately report what you did, as well as convincing the reader that this was the best approach to answering your research questions or objectives.

Next, you report the results of your research . You can structure this section around sub-questions, hypotheses, or topics. Only report results that are relevant to your objectives and research questions. In some disciplines, the results section is strictly separated from the discussion, while in others the two are combined.

For example, for qualitative methods like in-depth interviews, the presentation of the data will often be woven together with discussion and analysis, while in quantitative and experimental research, the results should be presented separately before you discuss their meaning. If you’re unsure, consult with your supervisor and look at sample dissertations to find out the best structure for your research.

In the results section it can often be helpful to include tables, graphs and charts. Think carefully about how best to present your data, and don’t include tables or figures that just repeat what you have written  –  they should provide extra information or usefully visualise the results in a way that adds value to your text.

Full versions of your data (such as interview transcripts) can be included as an appendix .

The discussion  is where you explore the meaning and implications of your results in relation to your research questions. Here you should interpret the results in detail, discussing whether they met your expectations and how well they fit with the framework that you built in earlier chapters. If any of the results were unexpected, offer explanations for why this might be. It’s a good idea to consider alternative interpretations of your data and discuss any limitations that might have influenced the results.

The discussion should reference other scholarly work to show how your results fit with existing knowledge. You can also make recommendations for future research or practical action.

The dissertation conclusion should concisely answer the main research question, leaving the reader with a clear understanding of your central argument. Wrap up your dissertation with a final reflection on what you did and how you did it. The conclusion often also includes recommendations for research or practice.

In this section, it’s important to show how your findings contribute to knowledge in the field and why your research matters. What have you added to what was already known?

You must include full details of all sources that you have cited in a reference list (sometimes also called a works cited list or bibliography). It’s important to follow a consistent reference style . Each style has strict and specific requirements for how to format your sources in the reference list.

The most common styles used in UK universities are Harvard referencing and Vancouver referencing . Your department will often specify which referencing style you should use – for example, psychology students tend to use APA style , humanities students often use MHRA , and law students always use OSCOLA . M ake sure to check the requirements, and ask your supervisor if you’re unsure.

To save time creating the reference list and make sure your citations are correctly and consistently formatted, you can use our free APA Citation Generator .

Your dissertation itself should contain only essential information that directly contributes to answering your research question. Documents you have used that do not fit into the main body of your dissertation (such as interview transcripts, survey questions or tables with full figures) can be added as appendices .

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How to Write a Thesis or Dissertation Introduction

Published on September 7, 2022 by Tegan George and Shona McCombes. Revised on November 21, 2023.

The introduction is the first section of your thesis or dissertation , appearing right after the table of contents . Your introduction draws your reader in, setting the stage for your research with a clear focus, purpose, and direction on a relevant topic .

Your introduction should include:

• Your topic, in context: what does your reader need to know to understand your thesis dissertation?
• Your focus and scope: what specific aspect of the topic will you address?
• The relevance of your research: how does your work fit into existing studies on your topic?
• Your questions and objectives: what does your research aim to find out, and how?
• An overview of your structure: what does each section contribute to the overall aim?

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Table of contents

How to start your introduction, topic and context, focus and scope, relevance and importance, questions and objectives, overview of the structure, thesis introduction example, introduction checklist, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about introductions.

Although your introduction kicks off your dissertation, it doesn’t have to be the first thing you write — in fact, it’s often one of the very last parts to be completed (just before your abstract ).

It’s a good idea to write a rough draft of your introduction as you begin your research, to help guide you. If you wrote a research proposal , consider using this as a template, as it contains many of the same elements. However, be sure to revise your introduction throughout the writing process, making sure it matches the content of your ensuing sections.

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Begin by introducing your dissertation topic and giving any necessary background information. It’s important to contextualize your research and generate interest. Aim to show why your topic is timely or important. You may want to mention a relevant news item, academic debate, or practical problem.

After a brief introduction to your general area of interest, narrow your focus and define the scope of your research.

You can narrow this down in many ways, such as by:

• Geographical area
• Time period
• Demographics or communities
• Themes or aspects of the topic

It’s essential to share your motivation for doing this research, as well as how it relates to existing work on your topic. Further, you should also mention what new insights you expect it will contribute.

Start by giving a brief overview of the current state of research. You should definitely cite the most relevant literature, but remember that you will conduct a more in-depth survey of relevant sources in the literature review section, so there’s no need to go too in-depth in the introduction.

Depending on your field, the importance of your research might focus on its practical application (e.g., in policy or management) or on advancing scholarly understanding of the topic (e.g., by developing theories or adding new empirical data). In many cases, it will do both.

Ultimately, your introduction should explain how your thesis or dissertation:

• Helps solve a practical or theoretical problem
• Addresses a gap in the literature
• Builds on existing research
• Proposes a new understanding of your topic

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Perhaps the most important part of your introduction is your questions and objectives, as it sets up the expectations for the rest of your thesis or dissertation. How you formulate your research questions and research objectives will depend on your discipline, topic, and focus, but you should always clearly state the central aim of your research.

If your research aims to test hypotheses , you can formulate them here. Your introduction is also a good place for a conceptual framework that suggests relationships between variables .

• Conduct surveys to collect data on students’ levels of knowledge, understanding, and positive/negative perceptions of government policy.
• Determine whether attitudes to climate policy are associated with variables such as age, gender, region, and social class.
• Conduct interviews to gain qualitative insights into students’ perspectives and actions in relation to climate policy.

To help guide your reader, end your introduction with an outline  of the structure of the thesis or dissertation to follow. Share a brief summary of each chapter, clearly showing how each contributes to your central aims. However, be careful to keep this overview concise: 1-2 sentences should be enough.

I. Introduction

Human language consists of a set of vowels and consonants which are combined to form words. During the speech production process, thoughts are converted into spoken utterances to convey a message. The appropriate words and their meanings are selected in the mental lexicon (Dell & Burger, 1997). This pre-verbal message is then grammatically coded, during which a syntactic representation of the utterance is built.

Speech, language, and voice disorders affect the vocal cords, nerves, muscles, and brain structures, which result in a distorted language reception or speech production (Sataloff & Hawkshaw, 2014). The symptoms vary from adding superfluous words and taking pauses to hoarseness of the voice, depending on the type of disorder (Dodd, 2005). However, distortions of the speech may also occur as a result of a disease that seems unrelated to speech, such as multiple sclerosis or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

This study aims to determine which acoustic parameters are suitable for the automatic detection of exacerbations in patients suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) by investigating which aspects of speech differ between COPD patients and healthy speakers and which aspects differ between COPD patients in exacerbation and stable COPD patients.

Checklist: Introduction

I have introduced my research topic in an engaging way.

I have provided necessary context to help the reader understand my topic.

I have clearly specified the focus of my research.

I have shown the relevance and importance of the dissertation topic .

I have clearly stated the problem or question that my research addresses.

I have outlined the specific objectives of the research .

I have provided an overview of the dissertation’s structure .

You've written a strong introduction for your thesis or dissertation. Use the other checklists to continue improving your dissertation.

If you want to know more about AI for academic writing, AI tools, or research bias, make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

Research bias

• Survivorship bias
• Self-serving bias
• Availability heuristic
• Halo effect
• Hindsight bias
• Deep learning
• Generative AI
• Machine learning
• Reinforcement learning
• Supervised vs. unsupervised learning

 (AI) Tools

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The introduction of a research paper includes several key elements:

• A hook to catch the reader’s interest
• Relevant background on the topic
• Details of your research problem

and your problem statement

• A thesis statement or research question
• Sometimes an overview of the paper

Don’t feel that you have to write the introduction first. The introduction is often one of the last parts of the research paper you’ll write, along with the conclusion.

This is because it can be easier to introduce your paper once you’ve already written the body ; you may not have the clearest idea of your arguments until you’ve written them, and things can change during the writing process .

Research objectives describe what you intend your research project to accomplish.

They summarize the approach and purpose of the project and help to focus your research.

Your objectives should appear in the introduction of your research paper , at the end of your problem statement .

Scope of research is determined at the beginning of your research process , prior to the data collection stage. Sometimes called “scope of study,” your scope delineates what will and will not be covered in your project. It helps you focus your work and your time, ensuring that you’ll be able to achieve your goals and outcomes.

Defining a scope can be very useful in any research project, from a research proposal to a thesis or dissertation . A scope is needed for all types of research: quantitative , qualitative , and mixed methods .

To define your scope of research, consider the following:

• Budget constraints or any specifics of grant funding
• Your proposed timeline and duration
• Specifics about your population of study, your proposed sample size , and the research methodology you’ll pursue
• Any inclusion and exclusion criteria
• Any anticipated control , extraneous , or confounding variables that could bias your research if not accounted for properly.

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George, T. & McCombes, S. (2023, November 21). How to Write a Thesis or Dissertation Introduction. Scribbr. Retrieved April 9, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/introduction-structure/

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Dissertation Structure & Layout 101: How to structure your dissertation, thesis or research project.

By: Derek Jansen (MBA) Reviewed By: David Phair (PhD) | July 2019

So, you’ve got a decent understanding of what a dissertation is , you’ve chosen your topic and hopefully you’ve received approval for your research proposal . Awesome! Now its time to start the actual dissertation or thesis writing journey.

To craft a high-quality document, the very first thing you need to understand is dissertation structure . In this post, we’ll walk you through the generic dissertation structure and layout, step by step. We’ll start with the big picture, and then zoom into each chapter to briefly discuss the core contents. If you’re just starting out on your research journey, you should start with this post, which covers the big-picture process of how to write a dissertation or thesis .

*The Caveat *

In this post, we’ll be discussing a traditional dissertation/thesis structure and layout, which is generally used for social science research across universities, whether in the US, UK, Europe or Australia. However, some universities may have small variations on this structure (extra chapters, merged chapters, slightly different ordering, etc).

So, always check with your university if they have a prescribed structure or layout that they expect you to work with. If not, it’s safe to assume the structure we’ll discuss here is suitable. And even if they do have a prescribed structure, you’ll still get value from this post as we’ll explain the core contents of each section.  

Overview: S tructuring a dissertation or thesis

• Acknowledgements page
• Abstract (or executive summary)
• Table of contents , list of figures and tables
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Literature review
• Chapter 3: Methodology
• Chapter 4: Results
• Chapter 5: Discussion
• Chapter 6: Conclusion
• Reference list

As I mentioned, some universities will have slight variations on this structure. For example, they want an additional “personal reflection chapter”, or they might prefer the results and discussion chapter to be merged into one. Regardless, the overarching flow will always be the same, as this flow reflects the research process , which we discussed here – i.e.:

• The introduction chapter presents the core research question and aims .
• The literature review chapter assesses what the current research says about this question.
• The methodology, results and discussion chapters go about undertaking new research about this question.
• The conclusion chapter (attempts to) answer the core research question .

In other words, the dissertation structure and layout reflect the research process of asking a well-defined question(s), investigating, and then answering the question – see below.

To restate that – the structure and layout of a dissertation reflect the flow of the overall research process . This is essential to understand, as each chapter will make a lot more sense if you “get” this concept. If you’re not familiar with the research process, read this post before going further.

Right. Now that we’ve covered the big picture, let’s dive a little deeper into the details of each section and chapter. Oh and by the way, you can also grab our free dissertation/thesis template here to help speed things up.

The title page of your dissertation is the very first impression the marker will get of your work, so it pays to invest some time thinking about your title. But what makes for a good title? A strong title needs to be 3 things:

• Succinct (not overly lengthy or verbose)
• Specific (not vague or ambiguous)
• Representative of the research you’re undertaking (clearly linked to your research questions)

Typically, a good title includes mention of the following:

• The broader area of the research (i.e. the overarching topic)
• The specific focus of your research (i.e. your specific context)
• Indication of research design (e.g. quantitative , qualitative , or  mixed methods ).

For example:

A quantitative investigation [research design] into the antecedents of organisational trust [broader area] in the UK retail forex trading market [specific context/area of focus].

Again, some universities may have specific requirements regarding the format and structure of the title, so it’s worth double-checking expectations with your institution (if there’s no mention in the brief or study material).

Acknowledgements

This page provides you with an opportunity to say thank you to those who helped you along your research journey. Generally, it’s optional (and won’t count towards your marks), but it is academic best practice to include this.

So, who do you say thanks to? Well, there’s no prescribed requirements, but it’s common to mention the following people:

• Your dissertation supervisor or committee.
• Any professors, lecturers or academics that helped you understand the topic or methodologies.
• Any tutors, mentors or advisors.
• Your family and friends, especially spouse (for adult learners studying part-time).

There’s no need for lengthy rambling. Just state who you’re thankful to and for what (e.g. thank you to my supervisor, John Doe, for his endless patience and attentiveness) – be sincere. In terms of length, you should keep this to a page or less.

Abstract or executive summary

The dissertation abstract (or executive summary for some degrees) serves to provide the first-time reader (and marker or moderator) with a big-picture view of your research project. It should give them an understanding of the key insights and findings from the research, without them needing to read the rest of the report – in other words, it should be able to stand alone .

For it to stand alone, your abstract should cover the following key points (at a minimum):

• Your research questions and aims – what key question(s) did your research aim to answer?
• Your methodology – how did you go about investigating the topic and finding answers to your research question(s)?
• Your findings – following your own research, what did do you discover?
• Your conclusions – based on your findings, what conclusions did you draw? What answers did you find to your research question(s)?

So, in much the same way the dissertation structure mimics the research process, your abstract or executive summary should reflect the research process, from the initial stage of asking the original question to the final stage of answering that question.

In practical terms, it’s a good idea to write this section up last , once all your core chapters are complete. Otherwise, you’ll end up writing and rewriting this section multiple times (just wasting time). For a step by step guide on how to write a strong executive summary, check out this post .

Need a helping hand?

Table of contents

This section is straightforward. You’ll typically present your table of contents (TOC) first, followed by the two lists – figures and tables. I recommend that you use Microsoft Word’s automatic table of contents generator to generate your TOC. If you’re not familiar with this functionality, the video below explains it simply:

If you find that your table of contents is overly lengthy, consider removing one level of depth. Oftentimes, this can be done without detracting from the usefulness of the TOC.

Right, now that the “admin” sections are out of the way, its time to move on to your core chapters. These chapters are the heart of your dissertation and are where you’ll earn the marks. The first chapter is the introduction chapter – as you would expect, this is the time to introduce your research…

It’s important to understand that even though you’ve provided an overview of your research in your abstract, your introduction needs to be written as if the reader has not read that (remember, the abstract is essentially a standalone document). So, your introduction chapter needs to start from the very beginning, and should address the following questions:

• What will you be investigating (in plain-language, big picture-level)?
• Why is that worth investigating? How is it important to academia or business? How is it sufficiently original?
• What are your research aims and research question(s)? Note that the research questions can sometimes be presented at the end of the literature review (next chapter).
• What is the scope of your study? In other words, what will and won’t you cover ?
• How will you approach your research? In other words, what methodology will you adopt?
• How will you structure your dissertation? What are the core chapters and what will you do in each of them?

These are just the bare basic requirements for your intro chapter. Some universities will want additional bells and whistles in the intro chapter, so be sure to carefully read your brief or consult your research supervisor.

If done right, your introduction chapter will set a clear direction for the rest of your dissertation. Specifically, it will make it clear to the reader (and marker) exactly what you’ll be investigating, why that’s important, and how you’ll be going about the investigation. Conversely, if your introduction chapter leaves a first-time reader wondering what exactly you’ll be researching, you’ve still got some work to do.

Now that you’ve set a clear direction with your introduction chapter, the next step is the literature review . In this section, you will analyse the existing research (typically academic journal articles and high-quality industry publications), with a view to understanding the following questions:

• What does the literature currently say about the topic you’re investigating?
• Is the literature lacking or well established? Is it divided or in disagreement?
• How does your research fit into the bigger picture?
• How does your research contribute something original?
• How does the methodology of previous studies help you develop your own?

Depending on the nature of your study, you may also present a conceptual framework towards the end of your literature review, which you will then test in your actual research.

Again, some universities will want you to focus on some of these areas more than others, some will have additional or fewer requirements, and so on. Therefore, as always, its important to review your brief and/or discuss with your supervisor, so that you know exactly what’s expected of your literature review chapter.

Now that you’ve investigated the current state of knowledge in your literature review chapter and are familiar with the existing key theories, models and frameworks, its time to design your own research. Enter the methodology chapter – the most “science-ey” of the chapters…

In this chapter, you need to address two critical questions:

• Exactly HOW will you carry out your research (i.e. what is your intended research design)?
• Exactly WHY have you chosen to do things this way (i.e. how do you justify your design)?

Remember, the dissertation part of your degree is first and foremost about developing and demonstrating research skills . Therefore, the markers want to see that you know which methods to use, can clearly articulate why you’ve chosen then, and know how to deploy them effectively.

Importantly, this chapter requires detail – don’t hold back on the specifics. State exactly what you’ll be doing, with who, when, for how long, etc. Moreover, for every design choice you make, make sure you justify it.

In practice, you will likely end up coming back to this chapter once you’ve undertaken all your data collection and analysis, and revise it based on changes you made during the analysis phase. This is perfectly fine. Its natural for you to add an additional analysis technique, scrap an old one, etc based on where your data lead you. Of course, I’m talking about small changes here – not a fundamental switch from qualitative to quantitative, which will likely send your supervisor in a spin!

You’ve now collected your data and undertaken your analysis, whether qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods. In this chapter, you’ll present the raw results of your analysis . For example, in the case of a quant study, you’ll present the demographic data, descriptive statistics, inferential statistics , etc.

Typically, Chapter 4 is simply a presentation and description of the data, not a discussion of the meaning of the data. In other words, it’s descriptive, rather than analytical – the meaning is discussed in Chapter 5. However, some universities will want you to combine chapters 4 and 5, so that you both present and interpret the meaning of the data at the same time. Check with your institution what their preference is.

Now that you’ve presented the data analysis results, its time to interpret and analyse them. In other words, its time to discuss what they mean, especially in relation to your research question(s).

What you discuss here will depend largely on your chosen methodology. For example, if you’ve gone the quantitative route, you might discuss the relationships between variables . If you’ve gone the qualitative route, you might discuss key themes and the meanings thereof. It all depends on what your research design choices were.

Most importantly, you need to discuss your results in relation to your research questions and aims, as well as the existing literature. What do the results tell you about your research questions? Are they aligned with the existing research or at odds? If so, why might this be? Dig deep into your findings and explain what the findings suggest, in plain English.

The final chapter – you’ve made it! Now that you’ve discussed your interpretation of the results, its time to bring it back to the beginning with the conclusion chapter . In other words, its time to (attempt to) answer your original research question s (from way back in chapter 1). Clearly state what your conclusions are in terms of your research questions. This might feel a bit repetitive, as you would have touched on this in the previous chapter, but its important to bring the discussion full circle and explicitly state your answer(s) to the research question(s).

Next, you’ll typically discuss the implications of your findings? In other words, you’ve answered your research questions – but what does this mean for the real world (or even for academia)? What should now be done differently, given the new insight you’ve generated?

Lastly, you should discuss the limitations of your research, as well as what this means for future research in the area. No study is perfect, especially not a Masters-level. Discuss the shortcomings of your research. Perhaps your methodology was limited, perhaps your sample size was small or not representative, etc, etc. Don’t be afraid to critique your work – the markers want to see that you can identify the limitations of your work. This is a strength, not a weakness. Be brutal!

This marks the end of your core chapters – woohoo! From here on out, it’s pretty smooth sailing.

The reference list is straightforward. It should contain a list of all resources cited in your dissertation, in the required format, e.g. APA , Harvard, etc.

It’s essential that you use reference management software for your dissertation. Do NOT try handle your referencing manually – its far too error prone. On a reference list of multiple pages, you’re going to make mistake. To this end, I suggest considering either Mendeley or Zotero. Both are free and provide a very straightforward interface to ensure that your referencing is 100% on point. I’ve included a simple how-to video for the Mendeley software (my personal favourite) below:

Some universities may ask you to include a bibliography, as opposed to a reference list. These two things are not the same . A bibliography is similar to a reference list, except that it also includes resources which informed your thinking but were not directly cited in your dissertation. So, double-check your brief and make sure you use the right one.

The very last piece of the puzzle is the appendix or set of appendices. This is where you’ll include any supporting data and evidence. Importantly, supporting is the keyword here.

Your appendices should provide additional “nice to know”, depth-adding information, which is not critical to the core analysis. Appendices should not be used as a way to cut down word count (see this post which covers how to reduce word count ). In other words, don’t place content that is critical to the core analysis here, just to save word count. You will not earn marks on any content in the appendices, so don’t try to play the system!

Time to recap…

And there you have it – the traditional dissertation structure and layout, from A-Z. To recap, the core structure for a dissertation or thesis is (typically) as follows:

• Acknowledgments page

Most importantly, the core chapters should reflect the research process (asking, investigating and answering your research question). Moreover, the research question(s) should form the golden thread throughout your dissertation structure. Everything should revolve around the research questions, and as you’ve seen, they should form both the start point (i.e. introduction chapter) and the endpoint (i.e. conclusion chapter).

I hope this post has provided you with clarity about the traditional dissertation/thesis structure and layout. If you have any questions or comments, please leave a comment below, or feel free to get in touch with us. Also, be sure to check out the rest of the  Grad Coach Blog .

Psst… there’s more (for free)

This post is part of our dissertation mini-course, which covers everything you need to get started with your dissertation, thesis or research project. 

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36 Comments

many thanks i found it very useful

Glad to hear that, Arun. Good luck writing your dissertation.

Such clear practical logical advice. I very much needed to read this to keep me focused in stead of fretting.. Perfect now ready to start my research!

what about scientific fields like computer or engineering thesis what is the difference in the structure? thank you very much

Thanks so much this helped me a lot!

Very helpful and accessible. What I like most is how practical the advice is along with helpful tools/ links.

Thanks Ade!

Thank you so much sir.. It was really helpful..

You’re welcome!

Hi! How many words maximum should contain the abstract?

Thank you so much 😊 Find this at the right moment

You’re most welcome. Good luck with your dissertation.

best ever benefit i got on right time thank you

Many times Clarity and vision of destination of dissertation is what makes the difference between good ,average and great researchers the same way a great automobile driver is fast with clarity of address and Clear weather conditions .

I guess Great researcher = great ideas + knowledge + great and fast data collection and modeling + great writing + high clarity on all these

You have given immense clarity from start to end.

Morning. Where will I write the definitions of what I’m referring to in my report?

Thank you so much Derek, I was almost lost! Thanks a tonnnn! Have a great day!

Thanks ! so concise and valuable

This was very helpful. Clear and concise. I know exactly what to do now.

Thank you for allowing me to go through briefly. I hope to find time to continue.

Really useful to me. Thanks a thousand times

Very interesting! It will definitely set me and many more for success. highly recommended.

Thank you soo much sir, for the opportunity to express my skills

Usefull, thanks a lot. Really clear

Very nice and easy to understand. Thank you .

That was incredibly useful. Thanks Grad Coach Crew!

My stress level just dropped at least 15 points after watching this. Just starting my thesis for my grad program and I feel a lot more capable now! Thanks for such a clear and helpful video, Emma and the GradCoach team!

Do we need to mention the number of words the dissertation contains in the main document?

It depends on your university’s requirements, so it would be best to check with them 🙂

Such a helpful post to help me get started with structuring my masters dissertation, thank you!

Great video; I appreciate that helpful information

It is so necessary or avital course

This blog is very informative for my research. Thank you

Doctoral students are required to fill out the National Research Council’s Survey of Earned Doctorates

wow this is an amazing gain in my life

This is so good

How can i arrange my specific objectives in my dissertation?

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ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global

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ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global   is a wealth of unique global scholarship, which is a credible and quality source to Uncover the Undiscovered research insights and intelligence in easiest and most effective ways. The equitable discoverability of more than 5 million dissertations and theses with coverage from year 1637, allows researchers to amplify diverse voices and place their research in a global context. The database offers nearly 3 million full texts for most of the dissertations added since 1997.

By leveraging the rich citation data found in ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global and with new citation insight tool, researchers can benefit from focused pathways of discovery to build foundational knowledge on various research topics. Over 200,000 new dissertations and theses are added to the database each year to enrich the citation data continuously.

For more information about the ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global , navigate to the Content Page .

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global   Database  is also part of ProQuest One Academic .  ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global resides on the ProQuest Platform. For more information about the ProQuest Platform search and display features, see the  ProQuest Platform LibGuide .

The Dissertations Bootcamp eLearning Modules are a free resource that help support graduate student planning, writing, and research.

ProQuest Dissertations and Theses for the Student, Citation Connections

Here you can have a preview of the new features just launched for the Cited Reference documents in ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.

ProQuest Dissertations and Theses for the Librarian

Intended for Librarians who want to learn how to use the database's advanced search to support subject area research at their institution. Duration: 2 minutes.

ProQuest Dissertations and Theses for the Student, Searching Titles and Languages

This session reviews how Students, both Masters or PhD, can use the database's advanced search to identify known dissertations by title and search/analyze by languages other than English. Duration: 3 minutes.

ProQuest Dissertations and Theses for the Student, Searching Names

This session reviews how Students, both Masters or Ph, can use the database's advanced search to identify dissertations of known Authors or Advisors and further refine/analyze them. Duration: 4 minutes.

ProQuest Dissertations and Theses for the Student, Cited References

This session reviews how Students, both Masters or PhD, can use the dissertations to retrieve and explore further the Cited References. Duration: 4 minutes.

ProQuest Dissertations and Theses for the Student, Supplemental Files

This session reviews how Students, both Masters or PhD, can identify dissertations with Supplemental files which may contain useful materials for their graduate work. Duration: 3.5 minutes.

ProQuest Dissertations and Theses for the Student, Subject Searching

This session will show Students, both Masters or PhD, some Search techniques both Basic and Advanced to locate dissertations on a certain topic. Duration: 5.5 minutes.

Webinar Title : Best Practices for Searching ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global

This session demonstrates how users can utilize the best practices of searching the " ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global  database" to connect with relevant information for their academic work. Duration:  52 minutes.

Materials in English - Figures (Database size) and Platform features images now updated as of March 2023

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EBSCO Open Dissertations

EBSCO Open Dissertations makes electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) more accessible to researchers worldwide. The free portal is designed to benefit universities and their students and make ETDs more discoverable. 

Increasing Discovery & Usage of ETD Research

EBSCO Open Dissertations is a collaboration between EBSCO and BiblioLabs to increase traffic and discoverability of ETD research. You can join the movement and add your theses and dissertations to the database, making them freely available to researchers everywhere while increasing traffic to your institutional repository. 

EBSCO Open Dissertations extends the work started in 2014, when EBSCO and the H.W. Wilson Foundation created American Doctoral Dissertations which contained indexing from the H.W. Wilson print publication, Doctoral Dissertations Accepted by American Universities, 1933-1955. In 2015, the H.W. Wilson Foundation agreed to support the expansion of the scope of the American Doctoral Dissertations database to include records for dissertations and theses from 1955 to the present.

How Does EBSCO Open Dissertations Work?

Your ETD metadata is harvested via OAI and integrated into EBSCO’s platform, where pointers send traffic to your IR.

EBSCO integrates this data into their current subscriber environments and makes the data available on the open web via opendissertations.org .

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Theses & Dissertation Collection

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Finding Theses

Copies of all University of Malaya PhD and Masters theses are held in the Minda Hall, Level II of the Main Library. All theses are catalogued and have an entry in Pendeta Discovery.  UM Students' Repository - Provides an online archive for the written work of University of Malaya students such as academic exercises, dissertations and theses.

• Theses & Dissertations : PhD
• Theses & Dissertations : Master

Looking for a Thesis & Dissertation ? How to search for a Thesis & Dissertation?

• Searching Result
• Understanding Searching Result
• Browse the library collection of theses from this libguide. OR
• Go to Pendeta Discovery to search for the library catalog. Type the title, author, subject or any keyword and dissertation note (Faculty) of the theses that you are looking for in the box. 
• Limit your search result by Author, Format, Language,Material Type, Library, Publication date and Subject.
• Make sure you select Theses & Dissertation under Material Type. 

Tick the record of theses underneath Format on the left OR click on the title

Once you have identified the theses that you are looking for in the displayed list, click the title to get item details as shown above.

• Which library has it? 
• Material type of the Thesis 
• Are you ready to check out (Internal used only)? Write down the call number. Take the item on the shelf and go to the counter for internal borrowing.
• Is the theses AVAILABLE? If not, there will be a due date
• This thesis is unavailable for hold

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Different Sections in the Library

Circulation section, classification section, catalogue section, periodicals section, information technology section, reference section, stack section, u.n. depository section, theses/dissertation section.

University Library

Guide to Russian Electronic Resources

• Collections
• Slavic Reference Service
• Research Resources
• Visiting Scholars
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Introduction

Electronic resources have proliferated impressively in the Russian context as they have in all geographical areas and intellectual spheres of research. Yet, there is a case to be made that in the Russian case this proliferation has been particularly unprecedented. As there has for generations existed a tremendous respect among Russian academics and learned people for not only knowledge but especially the management of it, bibliographers and bibliography as an institution of knowledge has always commanded great respect even despite the awful changes that have rocked the Russian academic community in recent decades. The current migration of knowledge to the world wide web in order to actively facilitate and expand access to it has been taken very seriously by Russian academicians and librarians and has in recent years, in contrast to the 1990s, received increasing recognition and, more importantly financial support, from the state. While there are literally hundreds of online organizations and search possibilities available on the Runet (Russian Internet), some of the most important for international scholars and academics researching and writing about Russia are to be found in the major Russian libraries, which is why this guide pays them particular attention.

Russian National Library

URL: http://www.nlr.ru/index.html

The Russian National Library (Rossiiskaia natsional’naia biblioteka, RNB) is the oldest public library in Russia, founded in 1795 during the reign of Catherine the Great. Some of the earliest materials that comprise its collection came from her, including Voltaire’s personal library. Much additional material came from Poland during the Polish Partitions, only some of which has been returned. The RNB opened to the public in 1814 as the Imperial Public Library. Its collection grew rapidly during the 19th century because of the Imperial censorship laws, which necessitated everything published in Russia to provide one copy for this, the national depository library until the Bolshevik Revolution. By 1914 the RNB held some 3 million volumes. In 1918 it was renamed the Russian Public Library, but during most of the Soviet era (from 1932 to 1992), it was known as the Saltykov-Shchedrin State Public Library. Renamed the Russian National Library in 1992 by Presidential decree, the RNB hosts one of the largest collections of materials in the world, with over 30 million items.

Catalogs of Books in Foreign (European) Languages

Books in Foreign European languages from the Sixteenth Century comprise another database of this section of the RNB’s OPAC, including almost 40,000 titles held by the RNB ( http://www.nlr.ru/rlin/in16.php ). These include books on all subjects from theology to law including some rare books. Most of the entries are from handwritten bibliographic records from the Imperial Public Library in St. Petersburg. As such both the items and their records are constantly being digitized. Similarly, the specialized database for Fifteenth Century European materials is constantly being expanded through the additional of newly digitized items from the collection of the RNB’s rare books and manuscripts collection, the largest in the Russian Federation. Currently, more than half of some 6000 items in the RNB’s collection are accessible online at ( http://www.nlr.ru/rlin/incunab.php ).

Also part of the foreign languages collection, the specialized electronic catalog for Finnish language materials includes monographs from 2002 and older from the RNB collection, and periodicals from beginning in 1957. Materials (both periodicals and monographs) that were collected after 2002 are in the general electronic catalog for Russian-language materials. Another specialized electronic catalog, Rossika, focuses on books dealing with Russia published in foreign languages (either abroad or in Russia), or books by Russian authors translated into foreign languages. This collection is focused only on older materials, those that came into the RNB collection before 1930. More recent materials can to searched for using the main electronic catalog. Additionally, there is another online catalog that allows searching for older foreign language materials published in Russia, that is based on the bibliographic work “Union Catalog of Books in Foreign Languages Published in Russian in the 18th Century,” published in 1984-86 in three volumes. Sixty percent of this online database overlaps with the Russica database. The Library of the First Cadet Corps (previously known as the Landed Gentry Cadet Corps, is another specialized catalog that is not, strictly speaking, focused on materials in foreign languages but nevertheless contains many such materials because of the aristocratic social status of many of its authors, which in the Russian context over the 18th and 19th centuries meant using foreign languages, particularly French. This catalog has streamlined access to a large collection of rare materials that belonged to cadets of this Corps, originally founded in 1732, including almost 7000 original monographs in foreign languages and over 300 original notebooks from some of the cadets. Finally, a newly founded (since 2006) online database of Yiddish language materials based on the holdings of RNB’s section known as OLSAA (Department of Literatures and Languages of Asia and Africa) allows searching of over 20,000 Yiddish language monographs and some 800 periodical titles. The periodical titles are also available for browsing as an alphabetized list, which is very useful in determining exact holdings. Searching is easiest in the Latin script, as all the titles in the database are accompanied with Latin script transliterations and, in some cases, by Russian language descriptions. All of these can be found in the national library list of electronic catalogs:  http://nlr.ru/nlr_visit/RA1812/elektronnyie-katalogi-rnb .

Catalog of Periodicals and Current Serial Publications

Perhaps the most used database collection of the Russian National Library is that of of its journals and periodicals ( http://www.nlr.ru/rlin/Periodika_rus.php ), not only for locating hard to find publications from years and centuries past, but also to verify the existence of rare and short-lived serials whose records in some cases exist nowhere else. The RNB catalog is extremely useful for its detailed information on the historical records of given publications, including tracking name and place of publication history over the course of its life. The first and primary database in this collection is the Catalog of Periodicals and Current Serial Publications in Russian, Ukrainian and Belorussian Languages, which is the result of an extensive project to digitize the card catalog records of the RNB periodical and journal collections since 1728. It is very important to note that Russian bibliographic tradition strictly separates periodical publications from newspapers. This database is not for newspapers, which is a separate OPAC. Also, while the periodical list is consistently being updated, this process does have interruptions which may be witnessed in certain searches. The periodical publication database has not been updated since July 2012.

In addition to the above, there exists an additional catalog that permits more in depth searching of Russian imperial journals from the reign on Alexander I, called “Russian Journals from the First Quarter of the 19th Century with Rospis Content” ( http://www.nlr.ru/rlin/Periodika19v_1_3.php ), which was prepared over the course of 11 years from 1995 to 2006 as part of the preparation of three-volume Union Catalog of Russian Periodic Publications, 1801-1825. There are nearly 30,000 entries in this database, and it is searchable by multiple means.

A sister database to the first listed in this section above, the Catalog of Periodicals and Current Serial Publications in Foreign (European) Languages ( http://www.nlr.ru/rlin/Periodika_in.php ) includes the large number of foreign-language periodicals in the RNB collection, again not including newspapers.

For newspapers, the RNB offers the site of its Union Catalog of Russian Newspapers, 1703-1917 ( http://www.nlr.ru/rlin/svnewsp.php ), which, similarly to its journals site, is tremendously good for checking on particular titles because of its detailed annotations that lay out the historical changes of each title in terms of publisher, place of publication, and the name itself. It is thus possible to check on small, regional papers that may have struggled and been published in various forms or very briefly, as well as the large, urban center or state supported publications. The database is also quite large, built on the records of three leading library collections in the Russian Federation: the Russian National Library (RNB), the Russian State Library (RGB), and the State Public Historical Library (GPIB). In cases where a known publication could not be found in any of these three places, historical newspaper records kept at the Science Library of the Federal Archives and the Vissarion Belinsky Universal Academic Library of the Sverdlovsk oblast in Yekaterinburg were used to fill in the gaps. The bibliographic collection contains entries of all Russian-language newspapers that were published on the territory of the Russian Empire per its borders in 1913, as well as Russian papers from large Russian diaspora communities. Through the additional links on the bottom of the OPAC page (below), patrons can visit additional useful links detailing the rules of the RNB newspaper reading room, information concerning copying, contacting the staff, as well as browse holdings of foreign newspapers in the RNB.

The final database included in the periodicals section is one for holdings of Yiddish language newspapers. The holdings are organized by their transliterated Latin-script names, based on the holdings of the RNB’s OLSAA, the Department of Literatures and Languages of Asia and Africa, just as with journals (above). The record here connects patrons to the same OPAC as is used with the journal entry above, and also provides access to the alphabetized, Latin-script listing of Yiddish-language newspapers held in the RNB OLSAA collection. In addition to the alphabetized name index, patrons can also browse holdings by geographical order, searching for papers by place of publication.

Catalog of Publications in Languages of the Peoples of the Former USSR

The catalog of publications in the various languages of minority peoples of the Soviet Union is organized into four separate databases: first the Finno-Ugric group, followed by small peoples, and then separate catalogs for Armenian and Georgian. This first database, the Unified Electronic Catalog of Finno-Ugric Languages ( http://www.nlr.ru/rlin/ruslbr_v3.php?database=ONL ), includes the following tongues: Vep, Izhorian, Karelian, Komi, Mansi, Mari, Mordvin, Khanty, Udmurt, and Sami. The pre-revolutionary collections in each of these languages were compiled in conjunction with the formation of state libraries specializing in materials in each of these languages, aided by significant linguistic expertise from Finland, which was then a part of the Russian Empire. In Soviet times the catalog kept growing, as it has since 1991. Currently, the database opens a portal to almost 20,000 titles, including monographs and periodicals.

In addition to the specific Finno-Ugric database, another catalog, the Electronic Catalog of Books in Languages of the Peoples of the Russian Federation and Countries of the CIS ( http://www.nlr.ru/rlin/ruslbr_v3.php?database=ONL2 ) was begun in 2000 for all languages of the Russian Federation and participants in the Commonwealth of Independent States that have been acquired since 2000. This includes all languages except Russian and the Finno-Ugric languages for which patrons are encouraged to use databases above. This database is envisioned as becoming much larger in the future as materials in non-Russian languages from before the year 2000 are added to it retrospectively.

Finally, this section includes two alphabetized catalogs, one for Armenian ( http://www.nlr.ru/e-case3/sc2.php/arman ) and one for Georgian ( http://www.nlr.ru/e-case3/sc2.php/gruzin ) materials, the former from 1623 and the latter from 1629. Both are organized by alphabetical entries of scanned catalog cards from the Russian National Library’s card catalog materials, exactly as the electronic Russian book database above works. Because the card catalog entries provide translations of the titles into Armenian and Georgian, it is possible to enter search terms in Russian, but the results are given in Georgian and Armenian only, so without knowledge of these languages searching the RNB database is not useful. Both catalogs are alphabetically organized according to the Armenian and Georgian alphabets. The Georgian database grants access to over 105,000 scanned cards of various titles, while the Armenian database includes some 64,000 scanned titles.

Catalogs for Other Types of Documents

In addition to maintaining and updating the catalogs outlined above, the staff of the Russian National Library is in the process of creating and/or taking apart a host of other specialized catalogs in order to ensure that the collections of the RNB are most accessible to researchers. The Department of Printed Music and Sound Recordings ( http://www.nlr.ru/e-case3/sc2.php/note ), which contains titles from 1518 until the present, is currently in the process of being updated and is not yet searchable. The nearly 7000 titles of the Cartography Department ( http://www.nlr.ru/rlin/kartogr.php ) are available, however. The twin catalogs of the Alphabetized Geographical Catalogs of Russian Maps ( http://www.nlr.ru/e-case3/sc2.php/cart ) and Atlases ( http://www.nlr.ru/e-case3/sc2.php/rus_atlas ) contain over 60,000 scanned cards from the physical catalog between them regarding items currently housed in the Cartography Department. Similar to the alphabetized catalogs described elsewhere above, these holdings are organized by groups of cards that have to then be sifted through electronically to find the exact entry desired. Entry into the link is strictly by group, and not by individual title. Similarly, the RNB provides access to the card catalog of a rich collection of foreign maps ( http://www.nlr.ru/e-case3/sc2.php/in_cart ) and atlases ( http://www.nlr.ru/e-case3/sc2.php/in_atlas ) from 1600 to 2004, almost 50,000 cards recently added from the physical catalog. In the same vein, the RNB has recently placed the full card catalog of two additional libraries on its website: the the Catalog of Russian Historical Maps and Atlases ( http://www.nlr.ru/e-case3/sc2.php/hist_rus ), from 1700-2004, and Catalog of Foreign Historical Maps and Atlases ( http://www.nlr.ru/e-case3/sc2.php/hist_in ), from 1501-2004.

Another very useful catalog added to this group of databases is the Russian Union Catalog of Printed Maps from the 18th Century ( http://www.nlr.ru/rlin/kartogr18.php ). This is a large and rapidly growing list of old map titles and annotations, featuring maps in Russian, German, French and Latin from the 18th century. It includes access to catalog information on materials from both the Russian State and National Libraries, as well as from a host of museums across the Russian Federation.

Additional specialized databases in this group include access to the Russian National Library’s electronic library. Here (http://nlr.ru/eng/coll/rare/), patrons are able to browse holdings of the Russian National Library’s catalog of rare materials as well as access its growing collection of full-text digitized materials available of many prominent items from Russia’s publishing history, including the full collection of Russian Imperial legal codes ( http://www.nlr.ru/e-res/law_r/content.html ), and access to the Russian State Library’s online library collection dissertations, the Electronic Dissertation Library ( http://diss.rsl.ru/ ). An additional portal offering of full-text materials is the catalog Russia’s First Newspaper “Vedemosti 1703-1727,  which provides access to digitized copies of the early years of Sankt Peterburgskie Vedemosti, Russia’s first printed newspaper begun by order of Peter I in 1702 (1703 in the Gregorian calendar). The early years of this paper, including its first decade when it was actually published in Moscow and was known as “Petrovskie Vedemosti,” are accessible through the Russian National Library’s electronic library. To access the full content of this growing electronic collection patrons are encouraged to register with RNB. Finally, there is an online database specializing in research on local issues around the Imperial capital, St. Petersburg. Literature about St. Petersburg , is a database allowing patrons to perform specialized searches scanning materials from various publications and journals that have been written about St. Petersburg. The project of creating a searchable database from over 600 journals and a wealth of monographic literature began at the RNB in 1989 and is currently up to 80,000 items, over 35,000 of which are available for online searching.

Russian State Library

http://www.rsl.ru/ru

The roots of the Russian State Library (Rossiiskaia gosudarstvennaia biblioteka, RGB) in Moscow go back to its founding as the Rumiantsev Museum in 1828 by order of Nicholas I in honor of Count Nikolai Petrovich Rumiantsev. In 1862, when this institution opened its doors to the public, it housed some 100,000 items. After the death of Vladimir Lenin, it was renamed in his honor and remained the Lenin Library until 1991, serving as the main depository library of the Soviet era. Since then it has been known as the Russian State Library, even though the metro stop servicing it is still called “Lenin Library.” Currently, it houses the largest depository collection in the Russian Federation and the second largest in the world, after the Library of Congress. Extensive holdings include both Russian and Foreign materials, including some 43 million titles in all formats, among which are 16.5 million books and brochures, 13 million journals, 650,000 newspapers, and 1.2 million serial titles. The electronic catalog of the RGB is sufficiently vast that an online instruction manual for electronic searching is recommended to all new users of the site. The online catalogs of the RGB are more flexible than those of the RNB, and it is possible to change the settings of one’s search within each catalog quite easily.

Rumiantsev Museum circa 1900 (Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pashkov_house.jpg?uselang=ru)

Unified Electronic Catalog

The primary, or unified catalog of the RGB is the broadest search engine available through the Russian State Library OPAC, although it does not permit patrons to access all titles held or accessible to the RGB, thereby necessitating searching in the other specialized online catalogs. Users will find, similarly to the RNB online databases, that while searching in English is possible, results will generally be disappointing. The database is constructed on Russian and the Cyrillic alphabet and searching in Russian will always render the best results. The online databases of the RGB are useful precisely because searching is possible in a variety of ways that the more restrictive RNB catalogs do not permit. In all OPAC searches, it is possible to set the search terms to permit a combination of words: marking yes will bring up entries only in the exact order indicated, whereas marking no will permit searching for each word and the combination also. In addition, for patrons with more specific information available, the catalog allows one to specify in what departmental library of the RGB they want to search, or in fact if the item is in, for example, a museum affiliated with the RGB database. One can also specify the language of the item from most world languages, as it is often best to search for the item in its original language if possible. Additional instructions for searching with symbols or only parts of words are given at the bottom of the OPAC page.

Among the immediate row of tabs above the search entry windows, the simple search tab takes patrons to the direct, basic search: a single search window that permits a broad array of search means including all elements, author, name of subject, personality (prominent author/subject), title, series, specialization code, subject, organization, field or industry, publisher, year of publication, place of publication, ISSN, ISBN, Index of the BBK, registration number and system number. Some of these are not known to common users and are designed for quick searching by librarians affiliated with the RGB. Others are not useful unless used in a more advanced search in conjunction with other search criteria (for example, just entering the year of publication will always fail to narrow your search because there will be too many hits, unless you are looking for something published in say, 1725). A more advanced search is offered by the second tab, a combination search that allows patrons to enter up to six fields including subject, author, personality, title, publisher, or all fields. The third tab “po neskol’kim BD” (on multiple databases) allows patrons to cross-search several catalogs at once. The fourth tab is for advanced searching, which is set up similarly to the simple search except that patrons are permitted to enter up to six cross-referenced items, three with a pull down menu of search parameters similar to the simple search, and three more terms entered directly by the patron. It also then allows a choice of permitting a combination word search or not. The fifth tabs takes patrons to the “Common Command Language” search, better known as a Boolean search .

The Fundamental Digital Library of Russian Literature and Folklore

http://feb-web.ru/index.htm

FEB-web (the Fundamental Library of Russian Literature and Folklore) is a project of Gorky Institute of World Literature and the Informregistr Center at the Russian Ministry for Communications. It has been online since 2002. The site is a mammoth collection of materials on Russian literature and folklore, including full text versions of the major works of Russian literature, links to numerous literary and cultural guides and manuals, as well as a wealth of bibliographic guides detailing materials available from the most broad (Pushkin) to the most specific (historical works published in 1860). Feb-web is not specifically linked to any particular physical collection, like the Russian State and National Libraries, but rather work in partnership with numerous institutes, museums, university departments and individual scholars to make researching Russian literary history as accessible as possible on the web. Unfortunately, having so much information accessible on one site requires considerable familiarization with the content before the site can be used for searching for specific information as opposed to simply general browsing. This all the more true because the overall organization of the site content is somewhat confusing. Nevertheless, arguably no other single site in the sphere of Russian cultural and literary studies attempts or succeeds to bring as much under one roof. Everyday the operators of Feb-web attempt to place a new useful link for academic research, and as such the site is useful if for no other reason than to simply keep abreast of changes in online materials available in the field. Because there is not a search interface associated with Feb-web (rather, one browses the text available and links on the particular subjects they find interesting) using the site in English can be useful for those with limited or no Russian language ability. However, researchers must keep in mind that not everything on Feb-web is available on the English-language version.

Because there is a vast amount of information on Feb-web, it would not be useful to attempt to describe it all in a guide of limited space. The importance of the site is better served by simply bringing some examples to light as an invitation for researchers to familiarize themselves with it. There are numerous avenues one could pursue in terms of content, which has more to do with one’s scholarly specialization more than anything else. As a general Feb-web browsing principle, as long as the link has a “plus” sign before it, it can be broken down into smaller parts, which means its text will not be viewable. If one clicks on the link at this point, it will simply open the same screen in another tab. You must get the end of the line (the electronic sheet image before the link has “lines of text” and not a plus sign) before actual text becomes available. Usually, this means so many levels within the online outline that among the tabs over the text is one titled “path,” which if clicked will show you how you got to the page you are at and how to get back. This is extremely useful in order to avoid getting lost and needing to return to the home page, thereby sometimes losing the progress made in finding very specific and particular materials. The word maze is not inappropriate for this site. Following are some specific examples of what can be found on Feb-web.

• One of the important serials sites one can access through Feb-web is Zhurnal’nyi zal, http://magazines.russ.ru/ . Here patrons can find a wealth of links to Russian scholarly (“fat”) journals. In some cases, this access includes full-text articles (under the archives tab). More often it includes an index of the publication’s history, as well as in some cases useful announcements about current or future projects under the “obozren’ie” tab.
• Patrons can access full-text versions of essential bibliographic sources such as Lisovskii’s Russkaia periodicheskaia pechat’, 1703-1900 gg. and its successor, Bibliografiia periodicheskikh izdanii Rossii, 1901-1916 under a tiny link called “Periodika” near the bottom of the “Deistvuiushchie izdaniia” section in the left sidebar. Once the source is located, it then requires a minimum of six (non-intuitive) clicks into the specific layout of the source before any of the text can be viewed.
• Full text collection of a tremendous amount of Russian literature. Not only the international renowned authors but lesser known materials also, such as Protopop Avvakum’s 17th century guide for “ How to Live in the Faith .”
• Various specific works of literature, including poetry, prose, biography, autobiography, correspondence, etc. available in full-text in a host of paths toward specific authors or entire fields of literary scholarship. For example, a collection of memoirs, correspondence and documents are available through the “Rossiiskii Arkhhiv.”

Archives of Russia

http://www.rusarchives.ru/

This is the central site of the Federal Archival Service, founded within the Russian Ministry of Culture in 2004 in attempt to centralize information on conducting research in Russian archives, as well as legislation pertaining to the various archival agencies across the Russian Federation. From this home site it is best to link to the “Map of the Site,” from where one can access the main site menu through the left-side fly out menu. Also from this site it is possible to access the home site of the Federal Archival Service at http://archives.ru/ , where one can find information on the service itself, view legal and budgetary information concerning the creation of this service within the culture ministry, participate in an online forum discussing issues concerning the service (or just read about what people are saying), etc.The unified archival search engine (described below) is also accessible from this site, although not the individual archival search.

Perhaps more central for the researcher looking at working in Russian archives is the list of the numerous, individual archives in Russia that one can access through rusarchives.ru, at http://guides.rusarchives.ru/search/basic/BasicSearch.html;jsessionid=abcpjH-SyQ-OJexHyNTyv . Each of the individual archives listed at this site is a link to a portal containing more information about the holdings, location, collections, and administration of that particular archive, together with contact information and, in some cases, pdf or PowerPoint presentations about specific holdings, procedures, etc. It is also possible to visit the sites of the individual databases of the participating archives of the Archival Service through their listing site, at http://www.rusarchives.ru/elektronnye-opisi-federalnyh-arhivov , which also has a listing of archival OPACs on the bottom half of this page. The Federal Archival Service also has a centralized search engine at http://portal.rusarchives.ru/poisk.shtml , which can perform two kinds of searches. First, It can search through archival sites on the Runet (Russian Internet), which includes 84 archival cites affiliated with the Federal Archive Service; it can search this entire database or be instructed to search particular holdings. Secondly, it can search the site of the Archives of Russia (the Archival Collection of the Russian Federation , pictured below), which grants access to the catalog records of more than 600 million items, or some 8.5 million kilometers of combined shelf space, according to the Archival Service management.

In addition to the above, another useful site, particularly for scholars who are planning to go to Russia, is the Exhibitions site, which lists the current special exhibitions and other programs currently taking place in the various archives of the Archival Service, http://www.rusarchives.ru/evants/exhibitions/index.shtml . The site has an archive of it own as well, so patrons can search to see what special events have been held among the archives beginning with the year 2000. Some specialized exhibitions develop into permanent parts of the online archival service collection, such as the exhibit “Victory, 1941-45,” now complete with its own search engine for wartime archival materials, available at http://rusarchives.ru/novosti/vystavki/05-05-2016-otkrytie-istoriko-dokumentalnoy-vystavki-1941-v-shtabah-pobedy .

Russian State Public Historical Library

http://www.shpl.ru/#_=_

The Russian State Public Historical Library (Gosudarstvennaia publichnaia istoricheskaia biblioteka Rossii, GPIB), often called simply the Historical Library, has one of the best specialized collections of historical titles and bibliographic guides useful in pointing scholars toward additional sources. The library was formed in 1863 as the Moscow City Chertkov Public Library, when most of its original collection was based on the personal library of Aleksandr Dimitrievich Chertkov. The collections of the library grew in the second half of the 19th century largely through donations from historical libraries of other wealthy Russian donors. In the aftermath of the October Revolution, its holdings swelled from various collections of abolished organizations (especially religious ones) and nationalized institutions. In the 1930s and 1940s, GPIB received another significant amount of materials from items confiscated by state security organs during the terror. Finally, many materials from Germany and Eastern Europe ended up on its shelves after the end of WWII. Current holdings approach 4 million volumes, mostly on history and publications relating to history in Russian and foreign languages. Its present name dates to 1938.

Bibliophika

http://www.bibliophika.ru/index.php?sh=proj

Bibliophika is the specialized, full-text online catalog created for the collections of the Russian State Public Historical Library. Currently, Bibliophika provides full-text access to 1235 volumes that have been digitized, equal to almost half a million pages. All of these are from pre-revolutionary texts and include Russian imperial legal publications, bibliographic guides on history, geography, and ethnography of Russia, as well as texts about genealogy, heraldry and history of culture. The GPIB administration has established two methods of accessing the library’s materials: guest and subscription. Guest entrance is open to everyone and permits browsing all the digitized titles in GPIB’s collection, although in low-resolution and not all pages. A subscription permits unlimited access to all materials in high resolution. Subscribing has to be done by writing directly to the GPIB administration, which can be done through their website.

Using the OPAC to access GPIB’s digitized collection is relatively straightforward. The first top-left window is called “divisions,” and allows patrons to choose either books, portraits, or maps and plans as the goal of their search. While there is a search mechanism within the OPAC, the limited size of the digitized collection makes browsing a real alternative. If any of the three divisions is chosen, it pulls up a list of browseable, linkable items that appear to the right of the search block. However, this can take a while if as views are limited to the automatic 40 items per page, as there is no way to skip forward. It is possible to change the setting to display more than 40 items at once, however. The portrait file currently houses 1936 items, the maps and plans file displays 497 items, and the books file contains 335 files listed in alphabetical order. Books are possible to divide further by choosing a particular collection in the window under the search portal. While the browser of the digitized materials is sufficient for maps and portraits, for books there is some inconvenience in that skipping within the file is not possible, rather the patron must page through the text one page at a time either forward or backward. The amount of materials that have been digitized from GPIB’s collection is tiny, but some of these books are important guides to materials that are visible and certain to be useful to individuals without access to bibliographic collections. This small amount of digitized material will hopefully grow.

http://www.runivers.ru/

By declaration of its creator ( the Autonomous non-profit organization to create, support and develop the historical and cultural encyclopaedia and Libraries ” Runivers ” ), the purpose of Runivers is to provide access to books, texts, and primary resources on Russia and Russian culture to anyone with internet access both in Russia and all over the world, thereby making accessible materials that are currently in book depositories, state libraries and archives and are available to a limited number of people either because of subscription limitations or geographical reality. The core project has been to place collected works – mostly history and philosophy from the last half century of the Russian Empire – into and electronic facsimile library that can be accessed from the Library tab on the home website. Holdings under this tab are organized into either an alphabetized catalog or one divided into different categories, including (listed in order of appearance): atlases, bibliographic guides, war history, general history, journals/periodicals, Russian (fatherland) history, military/regimental history, travel literature, Russian philosophy, document collections, encyclopedias and dictionaries. Patrons can then link onto their desired items and download the entire text either via pdf or DjVU. The final link on the tab is for new items entering the collection.

Under the Encyclopedia tab, patrons can use the search interface created by Runivers to browse the encyclopedic information digitized in their database. This is very useful, and the database is promised to keep expanding. Unfortunately for the moment, there are only three encyclopedias that comprise the entire content of this database, and they are all pre-revolutionary military encyclopedias. These include the 8-volume Encyclopedia of War and Naval Sciences from 1883-97; the 14-volume Encyclopedia of Military Lexicons, 1852-58; and the 18-volume War Encyclopedia from 1911-1915. Additionally, Runivers users can access more mostly Russian imperial military history through the Projects tab, although there are additional materials on Russian philosophy, general history, numerous maps from the Runivers encyclopedia collection, and a file or recorded lectures on historical topics mostly from Russian historians and intellectuals. Finally, in the tab Historical gallery , patrons can browse through an exceptional collection of historical Russian maps and atlases dating to the reign of Peter I; an exceptional collection of Russian photographs from the late Russian Empire; and a collection of Russian illustrations and painting on topics concerning national history, complete with annotated descriptions about the work and the historical subject depicted.

Step inside 'Leninka,' Russia's largest and oldest library (PHOTOS)

The Russian State Library, and the monument to Fyodor Dostoyevsky in front of it

The camera clicks cause all eyes in the hall to switch disapprovingly from the reading material in front of them to the photographer – the source of unwelcome noise. “Keep silence” here is as common a sign as “No smoking” on board a plane.

The moment we show up with our photographic gear, the library supervisors, like hawks, swoop on us from all sides, demanding to see our permission to take photos (thankfully, we have it on us). With custodians such as these, the largest book collection in Russia need never fear for its security .

Some history

Initially, the library collection was formed from the personal collection of manuscripts and rare books of Count Nikolai Rumyantsev, a Russian statesman. By personal order of Nicholas I, the Rumyantsev Museum was founded in St Petersburg in 1828. Over time, however, it could not withstand the competition from other institutions in Russia’s then capital, so the decision was taken to relocate the institution to Moscow. It was assigned one of the most beautiful buildings right outside the Kremlin walls, Pashkov House .

After the 1917 Revolution, the library flourished. The capital followed the library to Moscow, and the Rumyantsev Museum essentially became the country’s main depository of books; a new building and indeed a new book depository were subsequently built for it. Today, the library buildings occupy an entire block. And Pashkov House is also home to a music section, as well as a manuscripts and cartography department .

In Soviet times, the Rumyantsev Museum was renamed the Lenin State Library of the USSR, in whose honor the nearby subway station, opened in 1935, was christened Biblioteka imeni Lenina (Lenin Library). In more recent times, the library shed its Lenin prefix, but by then the name had stuck, and it is still referred to today as the Leninka.

In 2013, a special library department and reading room opened at Moscow’s Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center. It houses the Schneerson Library – a collection of religious and secular literature by Hasidic Jews. Since then, however, the materials in the collection have been completely digitized .

Some modernity

Visiting the library of, say, Oxford University in Britain, one feels the hand of ancient history resting on the shoulder. Likewise, the Leninka plunges the curious visitor into the past, nearer in time, yet still gone. Green halls, cloth-covered tables, lamps – it is embalmed socialism with a human face, and perhaps the best that remains of the lost Soviet empire .

The Leninka is never empty, its cloakroom always buzzing with people. Every second, young women in short skirts and bespectacled professors ascend the main staircase of exquisite beauty. An eccentric fire-red haired lady of indeterminate age, humming something to herself, strides confidently into the music section, clearly a frequenter .

Inside the library are several reading rooms kitted out with computers, as well as endless corridors and recesses with reading desks. The conveyor belt continuously churns out all kinds of volumes and folios from the book depository. Yours truly has time to catch sight of an Italian teach-yourself guide, a book on the basics of accounting, and a rare edition of Boris Pasternak .

For some pilgrims, the library is a near religious experience – a ritual replete with antique books and tables with the old-world scent of wooden cabinets, parquet floors, and history itself hanging in the air. Switched on, the legendary green lamps plunge the room into an atmosphere of wonder .

A smartly dressed elderly gentleman examines a manuscript through a magnifying glass, nearby sits a stern-looking middle-aged woman in glasses, clearly a teacher. Their neighbor is a bearded professor, and one table away a group of students are taking selfies. Other students, Chinese, are diligently studying Russian (making up for time lost on less academic activities).

In the hall with card files, the atmosphere is more relaxed. A pensioner reads freshly pressed magazines so as not to purchase them. At the next table, a man in a tracksuit is solving a crossword puzzle. Is he passing time before catching a train? Or just exercising the grey cells? On the topic of exercise, some even do the physical kind. One visitor, for instance, spreads out a rubber sheet in a remote corridor and does gymnastics, nourishing the mind and body in true Ancient Greek style .

Some numbers

Today, the library houses more than 47 million units of storage in 367 languages, including some rare Oriental ones. In addition to publications (the library receives an obligatory copy of all printed works), there are rare manuscripts, printed versions of visual arts, photo materials, maps, sheet music, periodicals, regulatory acts, military literature, and, of course, literature on the art of librarianship. Here, one can also find every dissertation written in the country since 1951 .

The library has 36 reading rooms open to visitors, and Wi-Fi is near ubiquitous. Around 100,000 new users register annually. Employees offer up an interesting statistic: Every minute the library doors are opened by five visitors.

The Leninka is currently in the process of digitizing its archives. Its electronic library already has 1.3 million documents, not to mention access to remote electronic databases, including those of Cambridge University Press and Springer Publishing, various online library databases, and the JSTOR archive of digitized journals. The full list is available on the Leninka website .

Citizens at least 14 years old of any country can register at the library. And it is absolutely free – all that’s required is a piece of ID (plus passport and visa for those without visa-free entry to Russia) .

The procedure takes no more than ten minutes. You will be photographed and issued a plastic library card. Students often joke that the mugshot on your Leninka card is bound to be the worst you’ve ever had (you can always blame the photographer). That said, these days it’s possible to sign up online .

After registration, you will need to offload your coat and any large bags or rucksacks to the cloakroom. One small bag and a laptop can be taken inside .

The library is open from 9 am to 8 pm every day except Sunday. Be prepared to have to wait for the book you want, perhaps even a few hours while it gets delivered from the book depository. If time is short, you can always order a book and pick it up the next day .

For many a long year, the Leninka had a reputation as a place for meeting one’s better half – a wife or husband from a respectable professorial family. Some visited the library with this specific purpose in mind. If the walls of the Leninka smoking room could talk, they would tell quite a story. For it was here that romantic hopefuls came to chat so as not to violate the hallowed silence of the reading rooms .

In the Oscar-winning movie Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears , the heroine, a provincial student, pines away in the Leninka reading hall, eyeing up any number of suitable matches, before heading into the smoking room, where two young academics simultaneously offer her a light. According to the library supervisors, visitors still ask about the famous smoking room, but alas, it is no longer there – smoking is now prohibited inside the building. But don’t despair, there’s a wonderful canteen instead. If that’s not a place for kindred souls to find each other, what is?

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