When most of our dissertation assistance clients get their feet wet as researchers in master’s or doctoral programs, they are still only newly acquainted with the massive collection of empirical research in their fields (aka, “the literature”). This first foray into the literature can be rather intimidating because for the uninitiated, scholarly research articles may read as though they’re written in a foreign language only a statistician can understand. Indeed, the terminology and rules for usage are specific to research, and until you are conversant in this new language, you may find yourself wishing for help from an interpreter. 

To survive and thrive while writing your dissertation, it is not only necessary to learn how to decipher this new language; you must also learn how to use information from a multitude of research articles as you build your own study. To help you along in this pursuit, this article will offer a beginner’s guide to use of research articles, including important “do’s and don’t’s” to keep in mind as you develop your dissertation. 

Abstract

The abstract is the text that pops up under the title of research articles that you locate through online searches. Always located somewhere near the top of the actual research article, this section provides a very brief recap of the study’s background, aims, methods, results, and conclusions. Because only a sentence or two are included for each of these categories, the abstract is a very quick read that helps you to determine whether a study is relevant for your own dissertation. At a glance, you can learn about a study’s topic and population, which helps enormously when you are sifting through the literature looking for those 50 to 100 research articles that you’ll need for your literature review.

But be warned! Although reviewing the abstract can help you to sort quickly through studies that are or are not relevant to your dissertation topic, don’t make the mistake of assuming that the results in the abstract tell the full story. They definitely do not. Think about this example: Visser et al. (2019) completed qualitative research and analysis on students’ perspectives related to experiences with interprofessional education (IPE) in a clinical ward context, and they completed a thematic analysis of the interviews with their participants. The results section of the abstract for this study is a grand total of one single sentence that describes how different aspects of the IPE ward influenced the participants’ motivation. If you turn to the actual results section, however, you can see that the researchers found 13 themes in their qualitative analysis! The single sentence in the results section of the abstract was clearly an extremely brief—and incomplete—rendering of the findings.

This type of brevity in the abstract is not rare. On the contrary, it’s actually the norm. This is because the point of the abstract is not to convey the study in full—that’s what the article is for. Sometimes people who are new to dissertation or thesis writing will make the mistake of relying on the abstract to write literature reviews or annotated bibliographies. This is not really the intent of the abstract, though, and you’ll deprive your work of depth by using abstracts in this way. 

Abstract Do’s and Don’t’s

• DO use abstracts to quickly identify the key variables or phenomena of a study
• DON’T use abstracts to write annotations for an article
• DON’T rely on abstracts to supply the study’s full qualitative analysis findings or statistical analysis results

Introduction and Literature Review

The introduction and literature review sections of research articles help to provide context for the study’s focus—just as they do in your own dissertation. When we talk about “the literature,” we are really talking about a huge conversation of sorts between various researchers, who contribute their own findings (i.e., results of statistical analysis or qualitative analysis) to the knowledge base through their individual studies. No one study stands alone, and so it is vital to understand what else is known on a research topic as you consider the results of any given study.

The introduction and literature review provide a wealth of information on the study’s topic, and if that is similar to your own dissertation topic, you will likely find a whole lot of useful information to help you grasp the knowledge on your topic. A rookie mistake, though, is to think that you can use information from these sections of an article in your own dissertation and cite the article as your source. This is actually not OK, as findings in an article’s introduction and literature review are not the findings of that study—they’re the findings of other studies. You’re free to search out the original sources and cite those, but you can only attribute information to a source’s authors if it was their own study’s findings.

Introduction and Literature Review Do’s and Don’t’s

• DO use the introduction and literature review to understand the context of the topic
• DO use the introduction and literature review to help identify additional sources you might use in your dissertation’s review of the literature
• DON’T attribute research findings from the introduction and literature review to the source (find the original source instead)

Theoretical Framework

The theoretical framework section of a research article discusses one or more theories that guided the researchers’ inquiry and interpretation. In this section, you can find a review of each theory’s core propositions, with a discussion of how each theory is relevant to the current study’s research topic. The theoretical framework is often used to develop data collection instruments for studies using both quantitative (i.e., using statistical analysis) and qualitative research methods, and researchers also go back to the guiding theories later to help with interpreting their results or findings.

Let’s illustrate this with an example that uses a common theoretical framework among our dissertation consulting clients: self-determination theory. Krause et al. (2019) used self-determination theory to frame an examination of the relationship between well-being and musical participation. This was a quantitative study, and they used the theory to create a modified survey instrument related to musical participation across the theory’s three core dimensions of autonomy, competence, and relatedness (Krause et al., 2019). Theories can also be used to frame qualitative research. To illustrate this, consider Visser et al. (2019), who interviewed students in various healthcare specialties about their experiences with interprofessional education. These researchers used self-determination theory to develop an interview protocol with questions that mapped onto the dimensions of autonomy, competence, and relatedness (Visser et al., 2019).

Theoretical framework sections can be very useful for you as you develop your dissertation. One way they can help is by demonstrating the usefulness of particular theories for framing studies on certain topics. As you work to justify your own selection of a theory for your theoretical framework in your dissertation, you’ll want to find other studies on a similar topic that used your theory of choice as the framework. Discussing a couple examples of such studies in your dissertation can help you to show that the theory is also an appropriate choice for your own study, given the similarity of topic.

Reviewing the theoretical framework section can also help you to understand a theory more fully, especially as it relates to your topic. But, we always caution our dissertation assistance clients to avoid the mistake of writing their own theoretical framework sections in their dissertations using the framework section of another study. Instead, you need to cite the originators of the theory when you describe its core tenets. Going back to our previous example, in their detailed review of self-determination theory, Krause et al. (2019) cited the originators of the theory, Deci and Ryan. If you were also using self-determination theory as your framework, you would need to read the original sources authored by Deci and Ryan, citing those in your dissertation. You wouldn’t cite Krause et al. (2019) as the source of your information on self-determination theory, although you might still find this source to be an informative read.

Theoretical Framework Do’s and Don’t’s

• DO use the theoretical framework section to help identify originators of theories
• DO use the theoretical framework section to understand how theories might be applied as frameworks for examination of different topics
• DO use the theoretical framework section to justify your own use of a theory in your own dissertation’s theoretical framework
• DON’T use the theoretical framework section to write your own description of a theory’s core propositions or tenets (use the originator’s source for this)

Methods Section

The methods section is one of the more difficult sections to comprehend to those who are new to “research speak.” But basically, this section explains how the research questions were answered. In order to understand that, you need to know what method was used (e.g., qualitative research method, quantitative, mixed), what types of data were collected, what variables or phenomena the researchers considered, and how they conducted their data analysis. Did they do a qualitative analysis to identify emergent themes? Did they do statistical analysis to determine differences or relationships between variables? These questions are answered in the methods section, so it does help to actually read this section of articles you find for your dissertation, as laden with technical terminology as it might be.

The methods section also tells you who the participants were (aka, the sample) as well as the size of the sample. Note that if the sample consisted of previous research articles, then you’re not looking at primary research—you’re looking at a secondary research article such as a systematic review. This is important to understand because most university programs have limits on the number of secondary research articles you can cite in the dissertation’s literature review—if you’re allowed to cite them at all. These studies can really help to understand the state of knowledge on a certain topic, but just be careful to prioritize use of primary research (i.e., studies with data that were analyzed for the first time) as you put together your introduction and literature review chapters.

Methods Section Do’s and Don’t’s

• DO use the methods section to understand what was studied and how
• DON’T skip the methods section, thinking it’s irrelevant technical stuff

Results or Findings Section

The results or findings section of a research article presents the outcomes of the data analysis the researchers conducted. Recall from earlier when you were cautioned against using the abstract to help write your annotations or literature review for your dissertation? Well, this is the section you should use for that purpose instead. It’s full of information!

For studies using qualitative analysis you will most likely find a group of themes or categories in the findings section. What this means is that in the collection of interviews, observations, documents, etc. (whatever the researchers used as their data sources), certain common concepts were discovered throughout. When reporting on qualitative research findings, it is important to refer to the themes and ideas that participants expressed or that were identified in the data. Be careful to avoid using language that implies statistical analysis was conducted. 

For example, imagine that a theme found in a qualitative research study on dissertation editors (how exciting!) is “Benefits of studying APA manual.” Which of the following aligns with qualitative research?

1. “The researchers found that studying the APA editing manual was related to better performance.”
2. “Participants expressed the perception that studying the APA editing manual improved their performance.”

If you guessed #2, you’re correct! In #1, the phrase “was related” evokes a statistical analysis result (i.e., a correlation), which was not true to this qualitative research finding.

When reporting the results of studies that used statistical analysis, it’s also important to keep in mind certain key points. First of all, statistical significance…what is it? To answer this question with a “statistics for dummies” approach, this is when the results are unlikely to be due to chance. With statistical analysis approaches like t-tests and ANOVA, which test for differences between variables, a significant result indicates a low likelihood that those differences were found just by chance.

Another common form of statistical analysis, correlation, indicates whether variables change together. With a positive correlation, you would see the occurrences in both variables change in the same direction; with a negative correlation, you would see one variable increase while the other decreases. If the statistical analysis results reveal statistical significance, then you can be confident that the correlation wasn’t found due to chance. Keep in mind that correlations don’t prove any type of causal relationship between variables, and avoid language that suggests this. When reporting results of studies that used regression analysis, it is acceptable to talk in terms of one variable “predicting” change in other variables. 

Mediators are those variables that “come between” the independent and dependent variables and that represent an intermediate step between them. To put this in basic terms, the independent variable affects the mediator variable, which in turn affects the dependent variable. Identifying mediators helps to explain the relationships between independent and dependent variables. For example, insomnia might be considered a mediator in the relationship between anxiety and depression; this would be so if statistical analysis revealed that anxiety predicted insomnia, which then predicted depression. 

Moderators affect the strength of relationships between variables, given certain conditions or levels of the moderator. For example, statistical analysis may reveal that studying more is related to better scores on a test. But then, when the effect of the noise level of the environment is put into the mix, it turns out that the positive effect of studying on test scores is even more pronounced when the test is taken in a quiet environment. This illustrates a moderating effect of environmental noise level.

One caution that may help with your dissertation or thesis writing is to not get bogged down in heavy discussions of the statistical analysis details from the studies you collect. Although the results section of your own dissertation—should you choose to use statistical analysis—will need to have all of the descriptive results (means, ranges, standard deviations, etc.) as well as your inferential results (test statistics, p-values, etc.), this level of detail really isn’t necessary when writing about a study’s results in your introduction or literature review. Just describing the nature of the main findings will suffice.

Results or Findings Section Do’s and Don’t’s

• DO attribute the statistical analysis results or qualitative analysis findings reported in this section to the source via citation
• DON’T go overboard with unnecessary detail when reporting the results

Discussion and Conclusion Sections

Toward the end of the research articles you collect for your dissertation, you will find discussion and/or conclusion sections (note that sometimes these are rolled together with the results). In this section, the researchers help to clarify how their findings fit within the larger context of the research literature on their topic. Were their findings similar to previous researchers’ findings? Did they find something new or contradictory? Were their findings explainable using their theoretical framework? 

Discussion of points such as these can help you to better understand what their findings mean within the real-life contexts where they occur, which makes it a whole lot easier to write about these findings in your dissertation. The discussion section can be especially helpful in studies using statistical analysis that is fairly complex, as the results sections in such studies can be somewhat technical and thus a bit hard to follow for many readers. In the discussion section, though, researchers are more likely to talk about their results in everyday language, making it much easier to understand for those of us who are not statisticians!

Discussion and Conclusion Sections Do’s and Don’t’s

• DO turn to this section to help make sense of complex statistical analysis results
• DON’T misinterpret the researchers’ discussion of other studies’ findings as them reporting their own study’s results

Limitations and Recommendations for Future Research

Other common sections toward the end of the study touch upon the shortcomings of the study, explaining how these leave certain areas unaddressed or unclear. These limitations may be discussed separately or in a combined section with the related recommendations for future research, which the researchers suggest as a means of expanding upon the findings of the current study.

At first glance, you might think this is just a perfunctory section, an obligatory acknowledgment of researcher humility. But, when you are looking for sources to help support your own dissertation research topic, this section is like gold! As you may have learned already, you will need to develop your dissertation to address a gap in the research literature. What you may not know, however, is that “gap” is NOT the same as “no research.” No, in fact, the research gap is really a need for research into a specific area that has been noted by other researchers in recently published studies.

That’s where the limitations and recommendations sections come in so handy! In studies with topics similar to your own—regardless of whether they use qualitative research or statistical analysis—definitely read these sections carefully, as this is where you will find other researchers who in various ways provide justification for your own research topic. But, just because this section can help to support the existence of a research gap in your topic area, that does not mean that you should draw from these sections liberally when writing the literature review for your dissertation. We know, writing and editing those 40 or so pages is hard! But, padding your review of the literature with extraneous information will not fool your committee, so we definitely advise against it.

Limitations and Recommendations for Future Research Do’s and Don’t’s

• DO use researchers’ calls for additional research to support the gap statement in your own problem statement
• DON’T use limitations and recommendations to pad your literature review so that you meet page requirements

Final Thoughts

As with learning an actual foreign language, immersion is always the best way of developing fluency. In this case, immersing yourself in the literature will do wonders over time. While you are learning, it always helps to communicate with others who are fluent. A skilled dissertation coach can be a great option for facilitating your own learning—feel welcome to reach out to us any time for additional help. We hope these tips have been helpful to you, and good luck with your dissertation!

References

Krause, A. E., North, A. C., & Davidson, J. W. (2019). Using self-determination theory to examine musical participation and well-being. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, Article 405. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00405

Visser, C. L. F., Kusurkar, R. A., Croiset, G., ten Cate, O., & Westerveld, H. E. (2019). Students’ motivation for interprofessional collaboration after their experience on an IPE ward: A qualitative analysis framed by self-determination theory. Medical Teacher, 41(1), 44-52. https://10.1080/0142159X.2018.1436759