The skeleton

The bare bones of your dissertations/projects are going to be taking shape soon. I came across this fabulous x-ray of what goes where in Rowena Murray's (2002) "How to write a thesis". Might be of use:

Background/context/review of the literature/introduction
• The subject of the research is important because …
• Those who have worked on this subject include …
• What has not yet been done is …
• The research project aimed to …

Theory/Method/Approach/Materials/Subjects
• This study was based on the approach of …
• This approach was chosen because …
• It was likely to achieve the project aims by …
• Others have used this method to …

Results/Analysis
• The steps in the research involved …
• Analyses were conducted by …
• Data/information/observations were gathered as …
• These were organized into …

Discussion/Interpretation
• Analyses suggested that …
• This interpretation was based on …
• Taken together the analyses show …
• Research aims were achieved to the extent that …

Recommendations/Implications/Conclusions
• Further research is needed in order to …
• More information is needed on …
• Practice could be improved by …
• Proposed changes would be feasible if …