Narrowing Down Your Dissertation Topic

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Narrowing down also helps you to focus on your writing. While deliberation on different information may be a valid way to treat a subject, it's usually more effective to investigate deeper into it, which can only be done with a narrowed-down topic for a dissertation.

A final title for the dissertation is obtained only after a considerable amount of preparation has already been done. As a rule, the idea is narrow down to your required dissertation title by choosing smaller aspects of the general subject till you arrive to the one that will prove perfect for the logistics your piece requires.

To start off, it’s best to make a list of topics in your subject area that you think needs a detailed dissertation to explain it properly. You are more likely to find a great topic if you have a variety of options to choose from. Derive a set of propositions for as many topics as possible. You’ll notice that most topics will provide propositions that do not answer the whole question or are still too broad to research, but nevertheless help you to narrow down your topics to a single one that you can manage in your dissertation.

Identify the propositions in your lists that you can relate to a method or theory in your field of study. Determine what information needs to be evaluated within these propositions, based on the theory you identified. This is an important step as many good questions cannot be answered because the data is impossible or too expensive to obtain. However, you should be able to identify the information needed and how you might be able to get it. If you cannot figure out what information is needed to support or refute your proposition, it is too broad. Try thinking about subsequent questions and how you might answer them.

A researcher will need to identify a specific theory which will become clear when trying to identify information needed. To illustrate his or her viewpoint, the researcher may need to look at changes in facts and figures regarding the field of study, which is normally available as archived data.