Chicago Dissertation - Tips for Writing Chicago Dissertations

Writing a dissertation is not an easy task. Chicago dissertation usually refers to a dissertation written by students of University of Chicago or dissertations that follow the Chicago or Turabian reference style. The basic guidelines for writing the dissertation remain the same except that the reference style followed is Chicago or Turabian. This article discusses the basic guidelines for writing a Chicago dissertation.

Chicago Dissertation Guidelines: Research Proposal

The first step in writing a Chicago dissertation is writing a research proposal providing the background to the research, a short literature review, research questions, aims and objectives, and research approach that will be used to achieve the objectives.

 Chicago Dissertation Guidelines: Introduction

The Chicago dissertation is basically a report of the research carried out. It starts with the introduction section. This includes a background to the research problem, rationale for the research, the problem statement, research questions, aims and objectives of the research. It is sometimes required to also include the structure of the dissertation.

Chicago Dissertation Guidelines: Literature Review

Any research requires understanding the research already conducted on the research subject and critical evaluation of these academic sources. This is not required to support the argument of the student but involves summarizing, integrating and analyzing the argument of other writers with respect to the research subject.

Chicago Dissertation Guidelines: Research Methodology

The research conducted needs to follow a particular research methodology – qualitative or quantitative. Whatever method is chosen by the researcher needs to be explained and justified by the researcher. All details that is essential in defining the process is required to be furnished in this section.

Chicago Dissertation Guidelines: Findings and Discussion

This is where the results of the research are provided, analyzed, and discussed to understand the outcome of the research.

Chicago Dissertation Guidelines: Summary, Conclusion and Recommendations

This section usually starts with a summary of the entire dissertation and includes recommendations of the researcher, conclusion as well as further research areas.

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Chicago Dissertation Guidelines: In-text Citations and References

In this case, Chicago or Turabian reference style is required to be used. Unlike other reference style such as APA, MLA, etc., in-text citations in Chicago or Turabian reference style require using footnotes that usually consist of full source information rather than just author-date. Also, Latin abbreviations such as ibid., op.cit. and loc.cit. are used when the source is repeated. For guidance on this style, one should check the Chicago style manual or web sites that provide help on the same.