Rejected Dissertation Knocked You Down? Tips To Come Back With A Bang.
Your dissertation holds a very important place in your life as a doctoral candidate but it doesn’t need to be the only important thing. I know it took you years to complete and come up with this dissertation to present it to your chair, but a rejected dissertation doesn’t mean your life or academic career is at stake. Being a researcher, even I got it rejected in the first attempt but came back with a bang to the committee and won my Ph.D in the second go.
Like me, here’s how you can know the possible reasons for your rejected dissertation and come back with a bang to your chair :
1. First and foremost, know that the sole purpose of your dissertation was to identify a gap in the study to raise a valid question about it. Has it raised that? If yes, then is it clear enough for anyone to understand it? Comprehend it yourself as a beginner and reframe it if you think that it is not as precise and concise as it should have been. While you recheck your dissertation, get on board as a novice reader.
2.If you have chosen the correct topic, defined it, researched on it accurately, is the next possible reason. If the base of your dissertation is not properly defined to the reader then how do you expect him to approve it? The trick is to choose a manageable topic that can be broadened up or narrowed down as per the time frame and put it in simple words for the reader to grasp it. It could be possible that a member of the university committee did not understand the basic concept ( or research topic) of your dissertation and hence, rejected it. There is no way he could approve it without understanding it.
3.Are your research questions interesting? I don’t mean them to be entertaining but they should at least be relevant and interesting to know about. How would you feel if I hand over a book to you which is not interesting enough to discover what happened next? You would probably return it without reading it. Your committee might have done the same thing with your dissertation that failed to hold them until the end.
4.Is it fragmented and includes no point of interest and hold the reader? If your literature review is written in fragments, then how would the reader take the full knowledge about it? If you are jumping from one statement to other without explaining the previous one then what would the reader understand? You have to take care that your literature review provides the apt knowledge on the topic without jumping from one point/reference to another, and links directly to the research question. However, you can make it interesting by storifying it or putting it out in points form for the reader.
5.Is your conclusion authentic with an exact description of what you have attained in the research process? Consider the authenticity and validity of your research in the conclusive part to cover up the whole research process. Checking the conclusion of the dissertation covers up the function of your research skills and methodology as well. Moreover, you can even review those areas alone to scrutinize the flaws and the reason for rejection.
I can’t assure you that these points would get your dissertation approved by the committee. Although, you can contemplate over these and monitor your dissertation. However, you can also consider reviewing it once from your supervisor after examining it yourself.