How to Write a Dissertation in Marketing

So you are preparing to write a dissertation in marketing. Even if you have written many formal documents before, you may be surprised: it’s difficult. Writing a dissertation in marketing is an absolutely new experience that requires doing an independent research. Nobody tells you what to do and sets the deadlines. You have to work on your own and create a long paper that will demonstrate your ability to think analytically and critically, synthesizing the complicated information. Many students consider this process intimidating, especially those who can’t boast of strong time management skills.

Actually, the key to the success is planning ahead and working consistently on a schedule. That’s why we have created this complete dissertation writing guide where we break the writing process into manageable steps that are easy to follow. Read this article to learn how to choose a good topic, do thorough research, and write dissertation chapters. Besides, we’ll give you some editing and proofreading tips. And if you face difficulties in completing other academic papers, here you can also find full guides to all writing assignments out there.

What Is a Dissertation in Marketing?

A dissertation is the final project of your program in marketing. To complete it successfully, you’ll need to do an original research based on the existing marketing literature. Your task is to add something new to the scholarly research on your topic.

Actually a dissertation in marketing is a lengthy formal piece of writing that investigates the research question and argues in defense of a particular claim. You need to conduct and original independent research and produce a piece of writing that offers some original contribution to the existing knowledge. Typically, you need to start with a hypothesis and then gather evidence to support or deny it. The most difficult part of the writing process is organizing the evidence and developing a coherent argument in the discussion. You should keep in mind that every statement in your final paper must be supported either by a reference to published scholarly literature or by original research.

Start with Choosing a Good Topic for Your Dissertation in Marketing

The first thing is to decide on the topic that you would like to write about. Although writing a dissertation in marketing involve a lot of work, you are more likely to enjoy the process if you choose a subject you are interested in. But, of course, you should make sure it is relevant to the course you have taken and to the interests of your faculty and your supervisor. Besides, you should think about the topic which can contribute to your future career and can help you find a job that you’ll enjoy. For example, if you are interested in digital marketing, you may select a topic related to influencer marketing, using AI or social media marketing.

Choosing a good dissertation topic is not always easy but you may look for new ideas by scanning the academic journals and scholarly books. If you have no idea of what to write about, take a look at this short list of interesting dissertation topics.

• How Does Big Data Analysis Affect Innovative Marketing?
• What Are the Forms, Methods, and Tools Used in Innovative Marketing?
• Impact of Advanced Technology on Marketing Research;
• Influence of Cultural Differences on Global Advertising and Marketing;
• Gender Differences in Consumer Buying Behavior;
• Using Digital Marketing Strategies and Tools in Political Campaigns;
• Impact of Branding on Consumer Buying Behavior;
• Key Factors That Determine the Success of Marketing Strategies;
• Social Media and Influencer Marketing Campaigns;
• Effective Marketing Strategies for Attracting Potential Customers;
• Effect of Branding on Maintaining Customer Loyalty;
• Specifics of Marketing to Youth in Digital Age;
• How Is Artificial Intelligence Changing Digital Marketing Landscape?
• Importance of Personalization in Digital Marketing;
• Impact of Internet Technologies on Consumer Behavior.

Develop a Research Question and Do Research

As we have already mentioned before, a dissertation in marketing is an academic paper where you need to theoretically analyze the existing literature and identify the gap in the existing knowledge. Then you’ll have to develop a research question and try to answer it by critically analyzing both primary and secondary sources. Wondering how they differ?

• Primary sources are actually data that you gather yourself while doing a research.
• Secondary sources are theories and data produced by other scholars. You can use them as evidence to support your own ideas.

You should read a lot on the topic you have selected, creating several hypotheses. Then you should discuss them with your supervisor and narrow them down to the single main hypothesis. After that, you need to create several research questions that will guide your reading. Finally, you may develop a single simple question and make an attempt to find an answer to it in your dissertation in marketing. To do that, you’ll need to read a lot of scholarly books and peer-reviewed journal articles. As you read, you should take notes of the interesting ideas, useful links, and relevant resources that you come across. When you finish your research and gather enough material, you can create an outline of your future dissertation in marketing and think about its structure.

Besides, you need to create and submit a research proposal that typically includes such elements as the working title, introduction, research question, hypothesis, literature review, detailed methodology, and the timetable for intended research. This important document will help you stay focused on your research objectives and will serve you as a road map for the entire writing process.

How to Structure a Dissertation in Marketing

If you want to create a winning dissertation in marketing, you need to understand its structure. There are different types of structures possible. In this guide, we’ll discuss the basic one but you should always consult your supervisor to understand which type of structure you have to use in your final paper. So let’s talk about how to write different dissertation chapters.

Abstract

Every dissertation needs an abstract which provides a succinct summary of the paper. It should be very brief about 150-300 words in length. You should write an abstract to your dissertation only after you finish the entire piece of writing to ensure that you’ll have a good idea of what your dissertation is about. Typically, abstracts include such information as the main topic and the goals of your research, the methods you used to get your results, brief summary of your findings, and key conclusions. Keep in mind that may people will read only your abstract to get the understanding of the content of your paper so it’s very important to get it right.

Introduction

In the introduction, you have to provide the information about the scope of your research and explain why it is significant. You also need to introduce your dissertation topic and provide a context for it. Present your research objective and introduce the research question that your paper is supposed to answer. Provide a brief overview of the structure of your dissertation in marketing and summarize your findings and conclusions at the end. Try to make your introduction engaging and clear to your readers to motivate them read your paper further.

Literature Review

Literature review provides a theoretical framework for your project. You have to provide an overview of the existing sources on your topic, analyze and critically evaluate them, and find some connections between them. Your main goal is to identify the gap in the existing theory and justify your research. Make sure you that don’t just summarize the existing studies but provide a critical analysis and build a coherent argument.

Methods

In this chapter, you need to straightforwardly describe how you conducted the research. It’s important to be clear and precise in your descriptions and provide enough details so that your readers could replicate your studies. You need to specify what type of research you have conducted (quantitative, qualitative or experimental). You should explain both methods that you used for collecting data and analyzing them. You should give information about the tools you used and offer justification for the chosen methods.

Findings

In this chapter, you have to present the raw results of your analysis. You need to summarize the data relevant to the topic and objectives of your research. There are different ways to structure your results, for example, according to topics, hypothesis or sub-questions. Sometimes, it will be useful to include graphs, tables, and charts to visualize the information but you should make sure that your visuals don’t repeat the information presented in the text. They should add value to what you have written and present some additional information.

Discussion

In this section, your task is to review your own research in a wider context and report the implications of your findings for both the theory and practice. You need to interpret and analyze the results in detail and explain whether they meet your expectations. If you get unexpected results, you should explain the reasons for it. Speak about the limitations of your research and tell how they affect the validity of your findings.

Conclusion

Her you need to bring together all the work that you have done in your dissertation in marketing. Don’t include any new material in this chapter. Provide a concise answer to your major research question and tell about the main lessons that you have learned. You may also tell about the key problems that you had to overcome and include some recommendations for practice or further research. You should highlight how your findings contribute to the current knowledge and emphasize their importance.

References

Create a highly structured references list and organize all sources that you have cited or paraphrased in your dissertation in an alphabetical order by the author. Use appropriate citation style, for example APA or MLA, and make sure you use it consistently.

Revise, Edit, and Proofread Your Dissertation in Marketing

Revising, editing, and proofreading are the essential steps in the writing process before you create a final version of your dissertation in marketing.

• Revision stage typically involves checking the structure of your document, its arguments, logic, flow, and content. You will need to add, delete, or rewrite some text.
• When editing, you should focus on such aspects as sentence structure, word choice, conciseness, and citation style formatting.
• When proofreading, you need to focus on fixing grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes, and typos.

Here are some effective editing and proofreading strategies that you can use when working on your project.

• Approach editing as a multi-step process. Start with paragraphs and sentence clusters and then move to smaller elements such as words or punctuation marks.
• Proofread your dissertation several times to ensure that you don’t miss anything. You may proofread for each type of errors at a time.
• Read your dissertation aloud and pay special attention how all words and sentences sound. Using this method, it’s much easier to notice spelling and grammar mistakes as well as spot awkward sentences and fragments.
• Read the text backward. This method is useful for catching spelling mistakes and typos. You may read the entire dissertation from the end to the beginning or read every word from the bottom to the top of the page.
• Ask your friend or a family member to read your dissertation aloud to you. In this way, you’ll feel at a distance from your own writing and will be able to evaluate the text from a perspective of the reader or the listener.
• Use a good dictionary or a thesaurus to improve the word choice and choose the most precise words to convey your meaning.
• Work on a hard copy and place a blank piece of paper or a ruler under each line as you proofread. In this way, you’ll have an opportunity to focus on the manageable amount of text.

Along with our dissertation writer we have discussed the entire process of writing a dissertation in marketing and now you know what to do. But you can’t succeed in writing if you only read articles and guides like this one. Instead, you need to practice a lot every day. The secret of writing academically is writing and revising everything several times until you are satisfied with the content and style of your academic paper. So follow our recommendations and work hard and you are sure to cope with this complex project.