All the PhD scholars enroll themselves in a doctoral program with an aim to excel in their respective fields and do some realistic and inimitable work which none has done till now. You might be one of them pondering over the ways to find a good dissertation topic and present it in a distinctive way. There’s nothing to get surprised if you may get confused and seems that every probable topic has been already worked upon and nothing is left for you now. Well! Surprising to your thought there is a list of ways through which you can dig out something magnificent even from the stock of archaic, here comes the following – 

• Starts reading the relative study materials – Books are always the best mentor; hence get accustomed of reading the old stocks related to your subject area. Going through the previous journals and research papers, type of topics mentioned in them, abstracts framed and how the questions/problems are being solved in them can give you a better insight on choosing a first-rated dissertation topic. 

• Stay in your plus zone – Going beyond your interest area in the search of a good title can be a downbeat for your dissertation. Read journals, newspapers, articles related to your interest area to get a fair idea about how to frame an interesting topic and that too of your interest. Doing this can upgrade your dissertation, as you can present more practical and wide spreading thoughts. 

• Research around industry standards and issues – Most practical and unique approach of selecting a superior dissertation topic is to confer industry examples and case studies. In this loom you can set a topic which will reflect the matter-of-fact and you can also add up some real and firsthand data from the picked up industry example. 

So, till now you must be aware of some matchless ways which can help you in finding a good dissertation topic.

When you develop an extensive document like a thesis or dissertation for your research, then it is also essential to present it in an impressive and professional manner. For this purpose, you should focus on meeting all the style and format guidelines that your academic institution recommends. If you are submitting a research paper to a journal, then it again becomes a priority to follow the journal-recommended styles and rules.

A professional document is one that not only meets all given criteria of submission, but also maintains the quality of its content. Thus, always work to improve your content while correcting all linguistic and formatting mistakes in your paper. Your document should be of publishing standards. Thus, it is significant to write it well and structure it effectively. Focus on making all your ideas and arguments logical and interconnected if you want to come up with a comprehensive document.

Induce cohesiveness in your work so your target readers may find it interesting to read. This is what will actually justify your hard work done throughout the process of research. Further, focus on organizing your content in categories or sections and cite all your sources of information in the required style. Following a professional style manual can bring that professional touch to your content.

If you feel the need for a professional review of your written document, then you should not even hesitate from doing that. A professional editor can help you in polishing your work by removing all basic and advanced errors of language, consistency, structure and logic. A detailed investigation of your paper can make it worthy of scoring well during an assessment. Your aim is to impress your target readers through this document and a professional presentation can definitely do the trick.

Conducting research along with multiple other academic activities is not a simple thing. It requires hard work, determination and constant motivation. In such a scenario, some leisure time comes quite handy if you want to relax and rejuvenate yourself. However, you need to save your time out of research if you want to experience this luxury. Here are some tips that can help you in saving time while pursuing research. Check these out.

Make effective plans

After your proposal is approved, start on the planning work. Make an outline of what all you need to do during the entire research process. Set up manageable and easy goals for completing these tasks on a regular basis. Make sure your deadline goals are comfortable to achieve. This will make you achieve them well on time, save your efforts, and keep you motivated.

Keep aside spare time and prioritize work

If you want to avoid stress in those last moments when submission timelines approach, then prioritize your tasks in advance. Finish urgent tasks first so you can get more time at a later stage. You may also set some spare time before your final deadline for thesis submission. This time can be used to cover up on such activities that still require a final touch.

Make use of mobile apps

There are several smartphone apps that can be used to set goals and track them. You can also create project maps and To-Do lists on these apps. Use such tools to save a lot of your planning time.

Track progress to work faster

Setting goals is not sufficient. It is also important to keep a check on your progress on these goals. If you are lagging somewhere, change your strategies well in advance. You can avoid wasting time at a later stage. You can also pair up some tasks that can be done together. Finally, work according to your style and efficiency level.

A sample is considered as a representative segment of a population; it is defined as a group of individuals chosen from larger group of individuals. A researcher must choose a sample which represents the idyllic target group. A sampling unit must be defined, based on which the appropriate individuals can be used for a survey. Any kind of PhD. research primarily aims at finding the views of the target audience; a sample should idyllically be a representative of them.

The volume of the sample must be defined evidently, because larger samples makes the findings more consistent, but at the same time it takes more time in managing or publicizing the survey. Sampling is quite scientific and hence there are clear cut ways of sampling. There are two major categories of sampling in quantitative research known as Probability and Non-probability Sampling.

a) Probability Sampling

There are two main types of Probability Sampling called as Random Sampling and Stratified Random Sampling.  Random sampling is a process where individuals are selected randomly within a given population, whereas stratified sampling is a process where individuals are selected from jointly exclusive groups, i.e. the individuals selected belong to only one group of individual’s for example teenagers, or middle age people, or old age people. All of the selection depends upon the kind of research conducted. 

b) Non-Probability Sampling

Again non-probability sampling also have lots of methods, where convenience sampling is a commonly used technique. In this method, the sample consists of individuals who are easily available; this method is usually adopted for a smaller research work, as it is not scientific. Secondly, Referral sampling is another popular method used by researchers. In this method the sample size is large and it keeps on increasing quickly.

Therefore understanding and choosing the right sampling technique is a must for a PhD. researcher. Sampling methods are considered as backbone of any kind of research. Consequently, there must be right target audience selected to get good results. 

There are many students who might ask what the purpose for preparing an annotated bibliography is. There are many reasons for it. 

1. The first reason for doing an annotated bibliography is that it is one of the best ways to prepare for the research project. The researchers will always have to spend some of their time collecting reference material for their project and they will have to look at various sources for doing so. But when they have to write annotations for each source, they will have to read the content prepared in those sources more carefully. They will have to mark the key points from each source. The fact that they then have to write it in their own words and even condense the content that has been given means that they are in an ideal position to learn all the information and absorb it completely. 

2. An annotated bibliography helps with a critical analysis of the source material. It is quite easy for the scholar to just write down a source name in his project and be done with it. But when he has to prepare an annotated bibliography, he has to critically analyse what has been written and arrive at his own judgements. 

3. It is a useful system of comparing the research done in the literature and what the points of view of the researchers are. It is possible to judge if the ideas of the researchers are in sync with what has been given in the literature or are they totally at odds with each other. 

4. It is a way of helping future research projects. The points given in the annotated bibliography can give reference points and research material to every interested reader. Future researchers will have a much better idea of what the purpose and main points of this body of work were. 

Why proofread?? Some researchers completely forgo this step. Others don’t assign much importance. What many researchers don’t realize is that proofreading your thesis substantially improves chances of acceptance. Working hard on your research and getting rejected because of silly mistakes or minor errors is simply a waste of time and resources. 

One might argue that a spelling mistake must not be that big of an issue in a thesis but for the review committee, it is! Right from the start of documenting your research, you must include proofreading, at least once, in your timetable. 

Things you need to check:-

1. Check if all factual data is cited appropriately.
2. Check if all sources are properly cited.
3. Remember to check each and every word of your thesis for spellings as well as capitalization.
4. Check your document for consistency. 
5. Review the grammar in the document.
6. Pay attention to logic, flow and transition in the document.
7. Make sure all figures, tables and graphs are properly labelled. 
8. Read thoroughly to ascertain if the thesis communicates all that it intends to, and in an effective manner.
9. Check if you have answered all the research questions adequately.
10. Check the chapterization of the thesis. 
11. Check if references are in the prescribed format. 

You may even get your document proofread from a friend, a colleague or a professional editor. Irrespective of how you get it done, proofreading your thesis before submission is a must! 

The thought of giving a presentation in front of the university board and defending their thesis in their viva voce test fills many students with dread. They know that they are going to be asked tough questions for which they will have to give smart answers. Otherwise they will lose marks and they will fail in their attempts to get a doctorate. In order to give an interesting and informative presentation, they need to collect the materials needed for it well before hand. 

1. The student should plan the basics of their presentation well in advance and practice it many times over. They need to know if they are going to give a PowerPoint presentation or if they are going to use chart paper and make pictorial diagrams to aid their explanations.  

2. They should find a good stationary store and purchase plenty of smart cards, chart paper, markers of different colours, sticky papers and pencils so that they can prepare their material.

3. They should start work on these presentation materials and make sure that they leave themselves with enough time to practice their presentation with the use of the charts and smart cards that they have prepared. 

4. Make a list of all the questions that you think are going to be asked and that you know have been asked in the previous years, and prepare answers on the smart cards for them so that when the interviewer starts shooting the questions, you will be ready with the responses. 

5. If you are making a PPT presentation all the charts and graphs are labelled and there is constancy in the fonts, colours and text. The slides should also switch at reasonable intervals so that the student is left with enough time for the explanation of the slides.

Case study method is an important research method in which the researcher conducts an in-depth analysis of a particular case which can be any person, event or situation and meticulously records the conclusion with logical support. This research approach is a qualitative research approach in which the emphasis is on understanding how and why a phenomenon is occurring. The findings of a particular case can be applied to other similar cases or a broader population to draw new conclusions, this approach is known as case based approach and it relies more on deductive and inductive reasoning rather than on empirical data. Digital case data bases are extremely manageable and can be maneuvered with ease and in fact the digital age has made this research approach highly feasible and reliable even in the absence of empirical data.

The case based research cycle has four main components which are retrieve, reuse, revise and retain, information retained can again be retrieved. The methods used by case based reasoning models can accordingly be categorized into retrieval method, reuse method, revision method and retainer method. The dynamic memory model and The category and Exemplar model are two examples of case based models.

In essence case based research comprises of:

• Comprehension of the given case or situation
  
• Understanding the present problems and solutions required
  
• Searching for related cases in data base
  
• Making a selected list of such cases
  
• Taking into consideration the differences and similarities
  
• Abstracting the required information
  
• Applying adjusters to the abstracted information
  
• Applying the abstracted information to given situation or case
  
• Drawing out preliminary conclusions or hypothesis
  
• Testing the preliminary conclusions or hypothesis
  
• Modifying the preliminary conclusion or hypothesis as indicated by test results
  
• Drawing out the final conclusion
  
• Preserving the final conclusion.
  

“Publish or Perish” – it is the main mantra of the academic world at the present time. With the rise in the problems in the socio-economic and industrial scenarios across the world, volume of research works are rising in order to address those issues. This is the reason that those journals receive thousands of research papers every month for publication purpose, and of course, it is not possible for them to publish all of those papers. Therefore, they have to select only those papers, which are significant from all aspects, and reject all the other papers by citing proper reasons behind rejection.

Following are some of the reasons behind rejection of journal papers, which are based on the most common reviewers’ comments:

• One of the primary reasons behind rejection of a journal paper, according to the reviewers, is that contributions of the paper is not significant and very limited by looking at the scope of the subject area. This case arises, when the research gap identified in the paper is not significant enough or not backed by proper and extensive review of literature. If the final result(s) of the paper is(are) not significant considering the context, then in that case also the paper can be rejected.
  

• If the citations in the paper do not incorporate sufficient references from the target journal, then also the paper can be rejected, and this reason is not mostly uttered by reviewers. Citing more number of articles from a journal in turn increases the impact factor, and in turn, the ranking of that journal.
  

• While sending paper to a journal, the researcher has to observe the scope of that journal very closely, as mismatch between the scope of the journal and the paper in turn results in immediate rejection.
  

To know more about the different reasons behind rejection of a journal paper, kindly browse through the pages of www.dissertationindia.net.

Many of the universities in India are present in urban areas while many of the students studying in these universities come from rural India. The resources available in rural India are far less compared to urban India. Most of the students have to face a lot of hurdles during their preparation of dissertation and project reports. While internet is the main source of information today, many of the students may not have the knowledge and idea of using the technology. So many of the students migrate to cities where there are many resources readily available and take guidance from professionals to complete the dissertations. As moving from one place to other place is difficult thing, there are many professional service provider firms which help in writing dissertations. All they need is the topic on which the students like to write the dissertation. Next stage of gathering information, editing, formatting and proof reading will be taken care of by these professionals.

Students can simply mail or call up the professional firms and send the topic of interest which they want to work on the dissertation. Later the students can be in constant touch through mail or by phone. The writers will send frequent updates about the dissertation and the same can be submitted by the students at their college or university. Later students can obtain the final dissertation or report well before the deadline. They can go through the report and after satisfied can make the payment of these service firms. The final report can be directly submitted to the college or university directly. However if the student requires some changes, that will be done at free of cost. With such good services available for rural students, now dissertation writing is no more a difficult task or a hurdle.