Guidelines for Writing a Paper, Essay, Presentation, Dissertation

No matter what sort of text you write there are some general principles you should adhere to since they will make it easier to write a good text and thus get a good mark.

General:

• The most important thing in any text or presentation is to have an interesting central idea. You must be able to summarize in one or two sentences what the text is about.
• What is the question you are trying to answer with the text?
• Make sure the topic you choose is not too wide. Most students tend to solve the world's problems in two paragraphs. That is not possible if you want to apply scientific standards.

Layout

There are several rules concerning the layout and organisation of a text. None of them are the infallible gospel but it is generally advisable to follow them as far as appropriate.

• Start with an introduction. The introduction should describe the content and general idea of the text. The reader (in most cases the lecturer) must know from the beginning what you are talking about. Give a first clue concerning your research questions.

• Methodology. You should explain the methodology you are using. There is no need for a chapter with that heading but it is necessary to explain what you are doing. Is the text empirical or just a theoretical essay? Which literature or research method do you use? Why? How does the methodology fit in with the research question?
• Describe your theory. Usually this is done in the literature review. A literature review should show that (a) you know the relevant literature and (b) that resulting from that you have your own theory. It is not just an enumeration of different authors and what they say but the development of your own theory on the background of other authors.
• From the theory and the literature review it should become clear what exactly it is you are looking for. Explain your research questions on the basis of your theory. All of the pieces so far must fit together: literature review, theory, and research questions. Starting here you can explain your empirical research, what you are doing, how, and why.
• In an empirical work the next step is empirical research.
• Discussion. Once you have the results of your research you have to discuss it. Did the research confirm your theory? Why or why not? What are weaknesses? What are questions you could not answer, why, what did you do about it? What may be possible approaches to further research?
• Conclusion. Summarise the work, what are main lessons learned, in what way was it useful, how should one proceed from here?

Frequent Mistakes

There are many mistakes that students (and lecturers too, of course) make frequently. Knowing them might help avoid some of them.

• No central idea is formulated or it is not sufficiently clear
• The different parts of the text do not fit together
• Layout and look of the text is given too much / too little attention
• Conclusion does not refer to the text
• Formal problems (see next section)
• Wrong or incomplete references (references must be ordered alphabetically)

Formalia:

• Whenever you make use of someone else's thoughts and ideas you have to reference them. If you use figures, tables, number, the reader needs to know where they came from. Therefore, USE REFERENCES. If you say something that is not common knowledge and that is relevant to your text, reference it.
• Information on how to prepare research and find the sources for a literature review can be found on the library website (http://www.library.dmu.ac.uk/Support/Howto/; http://images.library.dmu.ac.uk/Howto/LiteratureSearch.pdf)
• There is a wealth of information that will help you prepare the essay on the "know how" section of the library website.
• Adhere to the Harvard referencing style (Harvard system of referencing).
• Avoid footnotes.
• Use outline numbering for the headings of your essay (1. Introduction, 2. Main body, 2.1 first argument, 2.2 second argument, ...)
• Every text you hand in to Bernd Stahl should include a separate coversheet containing:

• Name of Student(s)
• Student number
• Name of course and lecturer
• Essay title
• Ample space for comments

Correction Marks