LSE Sociologists, it is final year- that means dissertation! This blog is to provide some reassurance, and hopefully answer any questions you may have about the sociological dissertation. This is for you to refer back to as you progress throughout your dissertation course. Course convenor Fran Tonkiss provided an interview and some advice about the sociological dissertation project. To find out more about Fran’s work, click here

Tonkiss, Fran

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26/06/2017 Researching Sociology @ LSE – The Undergraduate Dissertationhttp://blogs.lse.ac.uk/researchingsociology/2016/11/22/the-undergraduate-dissertation/ 1/3The Undergraduate Dissertation LSE Sociologists, it is final year- that means dissertation! This blog is to provide some reassurance, and hopefully answer any questions you may haveabout the sociological dissertation. This is for you to refer back to as you progress throughout yourdissertation course. Course convenor Fran Tonkiss provided an interview and some advice aboutthe sociological dissertation project. To find out more about Fran’s work, click here. What is a dissertation?A dissertation is a small-scale independent project exploring a clear issue, problem or question,drawing on theory and research from sociology and related fields.This project can draw on different research methods, including qualitative and/or quantitativetechniques:InterviewsSurveysEthnographic observations/fieldworkTextual analysisDocumentary analysisFocus groupsSecondary analysisVisual analysisPolicy analysisOnline analysis (you may use many of the above techniques to research the online world).The way you decide to work is up to you – it depends on your topic, and where you stand inrelation to your topic. You can start with a theory or hypothesis that you may wish to explore ortest, or you can work backwards and let the theory emerge from the data. Some dissertationresearchers are more interested in exploring a particular theorist’s work in a substantive socialcontext; others want to engage closely with a social issue or problematic and then work throughthe critical themes that come out of that engagement. Please note that both ways of working areequally valid, and you are not penalised for favouring either way. 26/06/2017 Researching Sociology @ LSE – The Undergraduate Dissertationhttp://blogs.lse.ac.uk/researchingsociology/2016/11/22/the-undergraduate-dissertation/ 2/3What did you do for your undergraduate dissertation?Fran: I didn’t do a Sociology degree. I actually did a Politics degree – there wasn’t a Sociologydepartment at my university and I didn’t really know that Sociology existed! I did my first degree inAustralia, where you have three-year programmes with an option of a fourth year to get anhonours degree; it’s similar to a one-year Master’s in the UK. My dissertation was called The Endof the Political: an analysis of the theory of Jean Baudrillard. I didn’t have to do my own originalresearch, as we expect from a Sociology dissertation; it was a critical analysis of his work. I didwell in the dissertation but I remember one of my examiners definitely didn’t like it – those kinds ofpost-structuralist arguments were not popular with all academics at the time, and I think it was abit of a phase for me as well.Although this wasn’t based on empirical research, I chose this topic because I was interested inreal-world debates. I did my degree in the late-1980s, when there was a lot of debate about thedecline of class politics – it was the Reagan/Bush era in the US and Thatcher was still in power inthe UK, and for many commentators, the relationship of class to politics had dissolved. Iremember reading Andre Gorz’s Farewell to the Working Class, and Zygmunt Bauman’sMemories of Class in particular at the time. I discovered politics in new ways at university; I had astrong political formation at home, but using theory to make sense of politics was really exciting forme as a student. Coming from the background I did, I was interested in class politics but also innew social movements; in the late ‘80s, there were a lot of solidarity movements such as the LatinAmerican solidarity movements and the anti-apartheid movement, as well as the anti-nuclearmovement, which I got involved in. Feminism was also very important: I actually came to feministtheory largely through doing a minor in English literature and reading feminist literary theory, andthen began thinking about this in relation to politics – and life – more generally. When I wasspeaking to my teachers about where to go and what I wanted to do after my first degree, severalof them said “that sounds like Sociology”- that’s how I ended up doing a Master’s in Sociology inthe UK. And the rest is history! My Master’s supervisor was the late John Urry.My experience of the dissertation was very different – in a way, you had a more directiverelationship with your advisor (it was my supervisor who suggested I study Baudrillard, whom hereferred to as “boring Baud”); what we are doing now is much more about giving you the space tochoose your own topic, and then working with you to craft and develop it. I definitely see my roleas helping students to clarify what it is they want to study, and then helping them to realise thatproject, and I think that’s generally how colleagues work in the department: we really can’t tell youwhat dissertation you should write. It’s just important to remember that your project, and yourdegree, is worth it – it can be hard to keep that focus when you’re in the middle of doing it, andjuggling everything else you have to do.A reminder of the workshops:Introduction- formulating a research questionEngaging with literature on your topicReviewing past dissertationsResearch ethicsAccessData collection26/06/2017 Researching Sociology @ LSE – The Undergraduate Dissertationhttp://blogs.lse.ac.uk/researchingsociology/2016/11/22/the-undergraduate-dissertation/ 3/3November 22nd, 2016 | Dissertation, Student Research, Studying Sociology | 0 CommentsAfter the Christmas break, Kay will be facilitating the dissertation workshops. These will cover:Data analysisWriting upWorking closely with academic advisorsSome final tips to take away:If you read a dissertation that is on your topic, remember there is no gold standard. The dissertation isyours and yours alone: an independent project. You can draw on someone else’s work for guidance, butnot as a model. Anyone who reads your work, including the examiners, is most interested in the originalwork you’re doing on the topic. If you do look at others’ work, you will notice that there is a real variety,and no single way of doing a dissertation.It can be helpful to look at research-based journal articles in your area – they are about the same lengthas a dissertation, and meet the same kind of objectives: identifying a topic for investigation; situating itboth in the social world and in relation to existing literature and research; describing the methodsthey’ve used for data collection; presenting and analysing research material; and coming back to reflecton the original problem in light of their own analysis and argument. That can sometimes be morehelpful than using a textbook on doing a research project or writing a dissertation.Use the workshops to help you structure your project, but remember that – while we have a broadstructure in which first term is about research design and the second term is about data collection andanalysis, followed by writing up – everyone is working to different plans and encountering differentobstacles, so you can only assess your own progress against your own (flexible) schedule, not in relationto where other people are at.Some helpful texts and textbooks:Gibson, W., & Brown, Andrew. (2009).Working with Qualitative Data. London: SAGE Publications.Broder Sumerson, J. (2013) Finish Your Dissertation, Don’t Let it Finish You!Thomas, G. (2013) How to Do Your Research Project. London: SAGE Publications.

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