google dissertation

Thesis and Dissertation Guide

• Starting your Dissertation/Thesis
• Dissertation/Thesis Resources
• Books That May Help
• Literature Reviews
• Annotated Bibliography
• We Don't Have It? / Interlibrary Loan
• Online Learning Study Tips
• Search Strategy
• Advanced Search Techniques
• Kemp Library Video Tutorials
• Find Articles / Journals / Databases
• What are...
• Database Video Tutorials
• Peer Reviewed
• How to confirm and cite peer review
• Primary/Secondary Sources
• Other Types of Sources (i.e. Newspapers)
• Legal Research Resources
• Evidence Based Practice/Appraisal Resources

Google Scholar

• Website Evaluation
• Internet Searching
• Apps You Didn't Know You Needed
• Who is citing me?
• Questions After Hours
• ESU Thesis Submission
• ESU Dissertation Submission
• How to Integrate
• How to Use It

What is Google Scholar and Why Should You Care?

Google Scholar is a special division of Google that searches for academic content. It is not as robust as Google, and as such it can be harder to search. However, if you are looking for a specific article it is a fantastic resource for finding out if you can access it through your library or if it's available for free.

Below are a few videos on how to use Google Scholar (you can skip the intros if you want) that will show you tips and tricks on how to best use Google Scholar.

Did you know that you can use Google Scholar in addition to Primo to help search Kemp library materials? You just have to add us to your Google Scholar and our results will show up in your searches showing you what you have access to as an ESU community member!

• Go to  Google Scholar 
• Make sure you're logged into your Google Account -  you'll see your initials or your icon in the top right hand corner of the screen if you're logged in. 
• Click on  Settings  (either from the top of the Scholar home page, or from the drop-down on the right hand side of the results page).

Choose  Library Links .

Type ‘East Stroudsburg University’ into the search box.

Click the boxes next to “ESU” and "Kemp Library"

Click  Save .

If you have other institutions you're affilitated with, or ResearchGate, you can add them too!

Getting to Google Scholar Settings:

The Library Link Screen: Search, Select and Save!

What your search results will look like: 

 Add / Reorder  

Databases have more sophisticated search features than Google Scholar , but if you have a one or two word topic Google Scholar can be useful.  You can also try using the Advanced Search in Google Scholar (see the first video below). 

However, if you're having trouble finding something specific, i.e. a specific article, try Google Scholar. For example you want " Game of Thrones and Graffiti" and you don't see it in a database, search the title of the article in Google Scholar (here you'd search "Game of Thrones and Graffiti"). You may find it freely available OR discover it is available through the library, but in a database you didn't look at. 

If we don't have it and you can't access it on Google Scholar, you can always request it via interlibrary loan .

"If Google Scholar isn’t turning up what you need, try an open Google search with the article title in quotes, and type the added filter “filetype:pdf”. This scours the open web for papers hosted somewhere, by someone, in PDF format. Google Books provides limited preview access to many copyrighted books. Other alternate services include  SemanticScholar ,  Microsoft Academic ,  Dimensions , or  GetTheResearch . Here too there are subject-specific portals like  EconBiz  or the  Virtual Health Library , some of which offer multilingual search options." -  Paragraph taken from A Wikipedia Librarian. 

The other services like Microsoft Academic mentioned above are also useful when looking for freely available journal article and research! Don't forget to cite everything you use in your paper/project/presentation/etc. 

Google Scholar Videos

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• Corrections

Search Help

Get the most out of Google Scholar with some helpful tips on searches, email alerts, citation export, and more.

Finding recent papers

Your search results are normally sorted by relevance, not by date. To find newer articles, try the following options in the left sidebar:

• click "Since Year" to show only recently published papers, sorted by relevance;
• click "Sort by date" to show just the new additions, sorted by date;
• click the envelope icon to have new results periodically delivered by email.

Locating the full text of an article

Abstracts are freely available for most of the articles. Alas, reading the entire article may require a subscription. Here're a few things to try:

• click a library link, e.g., "FindIt@Harvard", to the right of the search result;
• click a link labeled [PDF] to the right of the search result;
• click "All versions" under the search result and check out the alternative sources;
• click "Related articles" or "Cited by" under the search result to explore similar articles.

If you're affiliated with a university, but don't see links such as "FindIt@Harvard", please check with your local library about the best way to access their online subscriptions. You may need to do search from a computer on campus, or to configure your browser to use a library proxy.

Getting better answers

If you're new to the subject, it may be helpful to pick up the terminology from secondary sources. E.g., a Wikipedia article for "overweight" might suggest a Scholar search for "pediatric hyperalimentation".

If the search results are too specific for your needs, check out what they're citing in their "References" sections. Referenced works are often more general in nature.

Similarly, if the search results are too basic for you, click "Cited by" to see newer papers that referenced them. These newer papers will often be more specific.

Explore! There's rarely a single answer to a research question. Click "Related articles" or "Cited by" to see closely related work, or search for author's name and see what else they have written.

Searching Google Scholar

Use the "author:" operator, e.g., author:"d knuth" or author:"donald e knuth".

Put the paper's title in quotations: "A History of the China Sea".

You'll often get better results if you search only recent articles, but still sort them by relevance, not by date. E.g., click "Since 2018" in the left sidebar of the search results page.

To see the absolutely newest articles first, click "Sort by date" in the sidebar. If you use this feature a lot, you may also find it useful to setup email alerts to have new results automatically sent to you.

Note: On smaller screens that don't show the sidebar, these options are available in the dropdown menu labelled "Year" right below the search button.

Select the "Case law" option on the homepage or in the side drawer on the search results page.

It finds documents similar to the given search result.

It's in the side drawer. The advanced search window lets you search in the author, title, and publication fields, as well as limit your search results by date.

Select the "Case law" option and do a keyword search over all jurisdictions. Then, click the "Select courts" link in the left sidebar on the search results page.

Tip: To quickly search a frequently used selection of courts, bookmark a search results page with the desired selection.

Access to articles

For each Scholar search result, we try to find a version of the article that you can read. These access links are labelled [PDF] or [HTML] and appear to the right of the search result. For example:

A paper that you need to read

Access links cover a wide variety of ways in which articles may be available to you - articles that your library subscribes to, open access articles, free-to-read articles from publishers, preprints, articles in repositories, etc.

When you are on a campus network, access links automatically include your library subscriptions and direct you to subscribed versions of articles. On-campus access links cover subscriptions from primary publishers as well as aggregators.

Off-campus access

Off-campus access links let you take your library subscriptions with you when you are at home or traveling. You can read subscribed articles when you are off-campus just as easily as when you are on-campus. Off-campus access links work by recording your subscriptions when you visit Scholar while on-campus, and looking up the recorded subscriptions later when you are off-campus.

We use the recorded subscriptions to provide you with the same subscribed access links as you see on campus. We also indicate your subscription access to participating publishers so that they can allow you to read the full-text of these articles without logging in or using a proxy. The recorded subscription information expires after 30 days and is automatically deleted.

In addition to Google Scholar search results, off-campus access links can also appear on articles from publishers participating in the off-campus subscription access program. Look for links labeled [PDF] or [HTML] on the right hand side of article pages.

Anne Author , John Doe , Jane Smith , Someone Else

In this fascinating paper, we investigate various topics that would be of interest to you. We also describe new methods relevant to your project, and attempt to address several questions which you would also like to know the answer to. Lastly, we analyze …

You can disable off-campus access links on the Scholar settings page . Disabling off-campus access links will turn off recording of your library subscriptions. It will also turn off indicating subscription access to participating publishers. Once off-campus access links are disabled, you may need to identify and configure an alternate mechanism (e.g., an institutional proxy or VPN) to access your library subscriptions while off-campus.

Email Alerts

Do a search for the topic of interest, e.g., "M Theory"; click the envelope icon in the sidebar of the search results page; enter your email address, and click "Create alert". We'll then periodically email you newly published papers that match your search criteria.

No, you can enter any email address of your choice. If the email address isn't a Google account or doesn't match your Google account, then we'll email you a verification link, which you'll need to click to start receiving alerts.

This works best if you create a public profile , which is free and quick to do. Once you get to the homepage with your photo, click "Follow" next to your name, select "New citations to my articles", and click "Done". We will then email you when we find new articles that cite yours.

Search for the title of your paper, e.g., "Anti de Sitter space and holography"; click on the "Cited by" link at the bottom of the search result; and then click on the envelope icon in the left sidebar of the search results page.

First, do a search for your colleague's name, and see if they have a Scholar profile. If they do, click on it, click the "Follow" button next to their name, select "New articles by this author", and click "Done".

If they don't have a profile, do a search by author, e.g., [author:s-hawking], and click on the mighty envelope in the left sidebar of the search results page. If you find that several different people share the same name, you may need to add co-author names or topical keywords to limit results to the author you wish to follow.

We send the alerts right after we add new papers to Google Scholar. This usually happens several times a week, except that our search robots meticulously observe holidays.

There's a link to cancel the alert at the bottom of every notification email.

If you created alerts using a Google account, you can manage them all here . If you're not using a Google account, you'll need to unsubscribe from the individual alerts and subscribe to the new ones.

Google Scholar library

Google Scholar library is your personal collection of articles. You can save articles right off the search page, organize them by adding labels, and use the power of Scholar search to quickly find just the one you want - at any time and from anywhere. You decide what goes into your library, and we’ll keep the links up to date.

You get all the goodies that come with Scholar search results - links to PDF and to your university's subscriptions, formatted citations, citing articles, and more!

Library help

Find the article you want to add in Google Scholar and click the “Save” button under the search result.

Click “My library” at the top of the page or in the side drawer to view all articles in your library. To search the full text of these articles, enter your query as usual in the search box.

Find the article you want to remove, and then click the “Delete” button under it.

• To add a label to an article, find the article in your library, click the “Label” button under it, select the label you want to apply, and click “Done”.
• To view all the articles with a specific label, click the label name in the left sidebar of your library page.
• To remove a label from an article, click the “Label” button under it, deselect the label you want to remove, and click “Done”.
• To add, edit, or delete labels, click “Manage labels” in the left column of your library page.

Only you can see the articles in your library. If you create a Scholar profile and make it public, then the articles in your public profile (and only those articles) will be visible to everyone.

Your profile contains all the articles you have written yourself. It’s a way to present your work to others, as well as to keep track of citations to it. Your library is a way to organize the articles that you’d like to read or cite, not necessarily the ones you’ve written.

Citation Export

Click the "Cite" button under the search result and then select your bibliography manager at the bottom of the popup. We currently support BibTeX, EndNote, RefMan, and RefWorks.

Err, no, please respect our robots.txt when you access Google Scholar using automated software. As the wearers of crawler's shoes and webmaster's hat, we cannot recommend adherence to web standards highly enough.

Sorry, we're unable to provide bulk access. You'll need to make an arrangement directly with the source of the data you're interested in. Keep in mind that a lot of the records in Google Scholar come from commercial subscription services.

Sorry, we can only show up to 1,000 results for any particular search query. Try a different query to get more results.

Content Coverage

Google Scholar includes journal and conference papers, theses and dissertations, academic books, pre-prints, abstracts, technical reports and other scholarly literature from all broad areas of research. You'll find works from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies and university repositories, as well as scholarly articles available anywhere across the web. Google Scholar also includes court opinions and patents.

We index research articles and abstracts from most major academic publishers and repositories worldwide, including both free and subscription sources. To check current coverage of a specific source in Google Scholar, search for a sample of their article titles in quotes.

While we try to be comprehensive, it isn't possible to guarantee uninterrupted coverage of any particular source. We index articles from sources all over the web and link to these websites in our search results. If one of these websites becomes unavailable to our search robots or to a large number of web users, we have to remove it from Google Scholar until it becomes available again.

Our meticulous search robots generally try to index every paper from every website they visit, including most major sources and also many lesser known ones.

That said, Google Scholar is primarily a search of academic papers. Shorter articles, such as book reviews, news sections, editorials, announcements and letters, may or may not be included. Untitled documents and documents without authors are usually not included. Website URLs that aren't available to our search robots or to the majority of web users are, obviously, not included either. Nor do we include websites that require you to sign up for an account, install a browser plugin, watch four colorful ads, and turn around three times and say coo-coo before you can read the listing of titles scanned at 10 DPI... You get the idea, we cover academic papers from sensible websites.

That's usually because we index many of these papers from other websites, such as the websites of their primary publishers. The "site:" operator currently only searches the primary version of each paper.

It could also be that the papers are located on examplejournals.gov, not on example.gov. Please make sure you're searching for the "right" website.

That said, the best way to check coverage of a specific source is to search for a sample of their papers using the title of the paper.

Ahem, we index papers, not journals. You should also ask about our coverage of universities, research groups, proteins, seminal breakthroughs, and other dimensions that are of interest to users. All such questions are best answered by searching for a statistical sample of papers that has the property of interest - journal, author, protein, etc. Many coverage comparisons are available if you search for [allintitle:"google scholar"], but some of them are more statistically valid than others.

Currently, Google Scholar allows you to search and read published opinions of US state appellate and supreme court cases since 1950, US federal district, appellate, tax and bankruptcy courts since 1923 and US Supreme Court cases since 1791. In addition, it includes citations for cases cited by indexed opinions or journal articles which allows you to find influential cases (usually older or international) which are not yet online or publicly available.

Legal opinions in Google Scholar are provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied on as a substitute for legal advice from a licensed lawyer. Google does not warrant that the information is complete or accurate.

We normally add new papers several times a week. However, updates to existing records take 6-9 months to a year or longer, because in order to update our records, we need to first recrawl them from the source website. For many larger websites, the speed at which we can update their records is limited by the crawl rate that they allow.

Inclusion and Corrections

We apologize, and we assure you the error was unintentional. Automated extraction of information from articles in diverse fields can be tricky, so an error sometimes sneaks through.

Please write to the owner of the website where the erroneous search result is coming from, and encourage them to provide correct bibliographic data to us, as described in the technical guidelines . Once the data is corrected on their website, it usually takes 6-9 months to a year or longer for it to be updated in Google Scholar. We appreciate your help and your patience.

If you can't find your papers when you search for them by title and by author, please refer your publisher to our technical guidelines .

You can also deposit your papers into your institutional repository or put their PDF versions on your personal website, but please follow your publisher's requirements when you do so. See our technical guidelines for more details on the inclusion process.

We normally add new papers several times a week; however, it might take us some time to crawl larger websites, and corrections to already included papers can take 6-9 months to a year or longer.

Google Scholar generally reflects the state of the web as it is currently visible to our search robots and to the majority of users. When you're searching for relevant papers to read, you wouldn't want it any other way!

If your citation counts have gone down, chances are that either your paper or papers that cite it have either disappeared from the web entirely, or have become unavailable to our search robots, or, perhaps, have been reformatted in a way that made it difficult for our automated software to identify their bibliographic data and references. If you wish to correct this, you'll need to identify the specific documents with indexing problems and ask your publisher to fix them. Please refer to the technical guidelines .

Please do let us know . Please include the URL for the opinion, the corrected information and a source where we can verify the correction.

We're only able to make corrections to court opinions that are hosted on our own website. For corrections to academic papers, books, dissertations and other third-party material, click on the search result in question and contact the owner of the website where the document came from. For corrections to books from Google Book Search, click on the book's title and locate the link to provide feedback at the bottom of the book's page.

General Questions

These are articles which other scholarly articles have referred to, but which we haven't found online. To exclude them from your search results, uncheck the "include citations" box on the left sidebar.

First, click on links labeled [PDF] or [HTML] to the right of the search result's title. Also, check out the "All versions" link at the bottom of the search result.

Second, if you're affiliated with a university, using a computer on campus will often let you access your library's online subscriptions. Look for links labeled with your library's name to the right of the search result's title. Also, see if there's a link to the full text on the publisher's page with the abstract.

Keep in mind that final published versions are often only available to subscribers, and that some articles are not available online at all. Good luck!

Technically, your web browser remembers your settings in a "cookie" on your computer's disk, and sends this cookie to our website along with every search. Check that your browser isn't configured to discard our cookies. Also, check if disabling various proxies or overly helpful privacy settings does the trick. Either way, your settings are stored on your computer, not on our servers, so a long hard look at your browser's preferences or internet options should help cure the machine's forgetfulness.

Not even close. That phrase is our acknowledgement that much of scholarly research involves building on what others have already discovered. It's taken from Sir Isaac Newton's famous quote, "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."

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University Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

How to Find Dissertations and Theses

• Finding Dissertations and Theses
• University of Illinois Dissertations

Google Scholar

Proquest dissertations and theses, non-u.s. dissertations.

• Dissertation Tracking

Ask a Librarian

Google Scholar searches specifically for scholarly materials, including Open Access (freely available) dissertations and theses. Many institutions make their dissertations publicly available, making Google Scholar a great place to search.

See the Library's guide on Google for Academic Research for more information.

If the Library does not have a copy of a dissertation or a theses, use ProQuest Dissertations and Theses to obtain a citation for the dissertation. Most American and Canadian universities are represented in this database, as well as selected British and European universities. Dissertations completed at many major U.S. universities during the past 10 years (and sometimes earlier) are available as full-text downloads.

If full text is not available, you can request a dissertation through interlibrary loan.

• ProQuest Dissertations and Theses This link opens in a new window PQDT is a collection of citations to dissertations and theses worldwide from 1861 to the present day. Full-text is available for most of the dissertations added since 1997 and some of the older graduate works. PQDT is also the official digital dissertations archive for the Library of Congress. Also included are the citations to British and Irish dissertations and theses (PQDT: UK & Ireland) since 1761 and abstracts for content since 1986. Note: UIUC masters theses are not in PQDT. They are only found in IDEALS or in the library catalog .

A note on terminology for dissertations and theses: these words are used differently depending on the country (at least in the English speaking world). In the US, dissertations are for doctoral work while a thesis can be a for a bachelor’s or master’s degree. However, it’s often flipped in Europe, e.g., a master’s dissertation and a doctoral thesis.

• The DART-Europe E-theses Portal DART-Europe is a partnership of research libraries in Europe who are working together to improve access to European theses. Several hundred universities link their digital repositories to DART-Europe and link to full text theses.
• EThOS: e-theses online service A project by the British Library Board to provide access to all dissertations from institutions in the UK. This website indexes the dissertations and provides links to full text where available and provide assistance to institutions digitizing dissertations. If available, full text dissertations are free to download.
• Foreign Dissertations at the Center for Research Libraries Try here when looking for a dissertation outside of the United States and Canada. CRL acquires hundreds of non-US, non-Canadian doctoral dissertations a year to add to its 800,000+ collection of dissertations. Acquisitions are primarily through the demand purchase program . Because the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is a member of CRL, loans to the U of I community are provided free of charge - just fill out a standard interlibrary loan request and put "Item held by CRL" in the notes field.
• Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations This directory provides links to country-specific and international online libraries of electronic theses and dissertations. Many items, including those dating back to the early 1900s, are available in full text for free. For those not available in full text, fill out an interlibrary loan request.
• Theses Canada Portal A searchable catalog of all Canadian theses published since 1965, many of which are available in full-text electronic versions which can be downloaded free by students, scholars, and the public. You can also access and search for free full text electronic versions of Canadian theses and dissertations that were published from the beginning of 1998 to August 31, 2002.
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/images/cornell/logo35pt_cornell_white.svg" alt="google dissertation"> Cornell University --> Graduate School

Guide to writing your thesis/dissertation, definition of dissertation and thesis.

The dissertation or thesis is a scholarly treatise that substantiates a specific point of view as a result of original research that is conducted by students during their graduate study. At Cornell, the thesis is a requirement for the receipt of the M.A. and M.S. degrees and some professional master’s degrees. The dissertation is a requirement of the Ph.D. degree.

Formatting Requirement and Standards

The Graduate School sets the minimum format for your thesis or dissertation, while you, your special committee, and your advisor/chair decide upon the content and length. Grammar, punctuation, spelling, and other mechanical issues are your sole responsibility. Generally, the thesis and dissertation should conform to the standards of leading academic journals in your field. The Graduate School does not monitor the thesis or dissertation for mechanics, content, or style.

“Papers Option” Dissertation or Thesis

A “papers option” is available only to students in certain fields, which are listed on the Fields Permitting the Use of Papers Option page , or by approved petition. If you choose the papers option, your dissertation or thesis is organized as a series of relatively independent chapters or papers that you have submitted or will be submitting to journals in the field. You must be the only author or the first author of the papers to be used in the dissertation. The papers-option dissertation or thesis must meet all format and submission requirements, and a singular referencing convention must be used throughout.

ProQuest Electronic Submissions

The dissertation and thesis become permanent records of your original research, and in the case of doctoral research, the Graduate School requires publication of the dissertation and abstract in its original form. All Cornell master’s theses and doctoral dissertations require an electronic submission through ProQuest, which fills orders for paper or digital copies of the thesis and dissertation and makes a digital version available online via their subscription database, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses . For master’s theses, only the abstract is available. ProQuest provides worldwide distribution of your work from the master copy. You retain control over your dissertation and are free to grant publishing rights as you see fit. The formatting requirements contained in this guide meet all ProQuest specifications.

Copies of Dissertation and Thesis

Copies of Ph.D. dissertations and master’s theses are also uploaded in PDF format to the Cornell Library Repository, eCommons . A print copy of each master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation is submitted to Cornell University Library by ProQuest.

Research for the Dissertation: DMin

• Research Strategies
• Evaluate Sources
• Manage Citations
• Library Website
• Preliminary Research & Reference
• Known Item Search
• Topical Search
• Receive Books by Mail
• Request a Chapter Scan
• Find Commentaries
• EBSCO Tools
• Use ProQuest Religion

Google Scholar

• Open Access Digital Theological Library
• Find Dissertations
• ATLA Reciprocal Borrowing Program
• Visiting Other Libraries

ASK US ONLINE

Google Scholar works just like regular Google, but should only return scholarly resources. It searches a little differently than most library databases, and can be leveraged with other search techniques to find resources that don't fit neatly into a single subject or that don't necessarily rise to the top of a search in other tools.

Because most of the material returned by a Google Scholar search is published in journals that require subscriptions, full text is not included by default on most results, but with a few quick steps, you can connect the search engine to George Fox Libraries to access resources in our collections or to connect with our Interlibrary Loan services for easy requests.

Connect Google Scholar to GFU Libraries

Select "Settings" from the bottom of the menu list:

In the side navigation on the upper left, select "Library links":

In the search for George Fox University on the Library Links page:

Make sure that the check box next to George Fox University is ticked:

You are ready to search! Notice the Find it at George Fox U links next to results:

For results that don't have a Find It link, like the book result at the top of the example results, select the double arrow to search WorldCat (Library Search) or the GFU Library catalog (Find it) for the title:

Keep in Mind!

There are several things to keep in mind when using google scholar:.

1) Unlike traditional library databases, Google Scholar is not searching through a curated collection of resources - it's searching the open web and applying an algorithm to determine what is scholarly or not. Although Scholar is believed to only search scholarly parts of the web, and the Google algorithm is the magic juice that powers much of the modern internet, it is wise to carefully consider your sources when using this tool.

2) Google Scholar does not use Boolean Search logic (ex. anti-racism AND education). Instead, you can search with general keywords (ex. anti-racism education). Scholar is also less specific than most traditional databases at recognizing related terms. Where a database is only looking for the term "education", Scholar might also pick up results that include "teaching", "educators", and "schools". This can be helpful, but it can also muddy your results.

3) Because of the way Scholar returns results and connects with library systems, you may see duplication of results, partial citations, and an occasional broken link. Make sure to check your citations carefully, and don't give up if the built in connectors don't lead you to full text. You can always search for article or book titles in Primo or contact the library for help in finding full text.

4) Google Scholar offers a cited by function that will allow you to see results that list a given article or book in their citations. This can be a great way to find and follow the scholarly conversation or to find more recent work in the same field.

5) Google Scholar is part of the larger Google system - keep in mind that it may be tracking your search history and other online data. This may not be an issue for many researchers, but it's good to know where your information is captured.

Video - How to Use Google Scholar 3 min. 42 sec.

• University of Denver Google Scholar Guide This guide from the University of Denver Libraries covers features and functions of Google Scholar in a little more detail.

Webinar: Harnessing the Power of Google - Niche Academy

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Google PhD fellowship program

Google PhD Fellowships directly support graduate students as they pursue their PhD, as well as connect them to a Google Research Mentor.

Nurturing and maintaining strong relations with the academic community is a top priority at Google. The Google PhD Fellowship Program was created to recognize outstanding graduate students doing exceptional and innovative research in areas relevant to computer science and related fields. Fellowships support promising PhD candidates of all backgrounds who seek to influence the future of technology. Google’s mission is to foster inclusive research communities and encourage people of diverse backgrounds to apply. We currently offer fellowships in Africa, Australia, Canada, East Asia, Europe, India, Latin America, New Zealand, Southeast Asia and the United States.

Quick links

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Program details

Application status, how to apply, research areas of focus, review criteria, award recipients.

Applications are currently closed.

Decisions for the 2024 application cycle will be announced via email in July 2024. Please check back in 2025 for details on future application cycles.

• Launch March 27, 2024
• Deadline May 8, 2024
• Winner selected by July 31, 2024

The details of each Fellowship vary by region. Please see our FAQ for eligibility requirements and application instructions.

PhD students must be nominated by their university. Applications should be submitted by an official representative of the university during the application window. Please see the FAQ for more information.

Australia and New Zealand

Canada and the United States

PhD students in Japan, Korea and Taiwan must be nominated by their university. After the university's nomination is completed, either an official representative of the university or the nominated students can submit applications during the application window. Please see the FAQ for more information.

India and Southeast Asia

PhD students apply directly during the application window. Please see the FAQ for more information.

Latin America

The 2024 application cycle is postponed. Please check back in 2025 for details on future application cycles.

Google PhD Fellowship students are a select group recognized by Google researchers and their institutions as some of the most promising young academics in the world. The Fellowships are awarded to students who represent the future of research in the fields listed below. Note that region-specific research areas will be listed in application forms during the application window.

Algorithms and Theory

Distributed Systems and Parallel Computing

Health and Bioscience

Human-Computer Interaction and Visualization

Machine Intelligence

Machine Perception

Natural Language Processing

Quantum Computing

Security, Privacy and Abuse Prevention

Software Engineering

Software Systems

Speech Processing

Applications are evaluated on the strength of the research proposal, research impact, student academic achievements, and leadership potential. Research proposals are evaluated for innovative concepts that are relevant to Google’s research areas, as well as aspects of robustness and potential impact to the field. Proposals should include the direction and any plans of where your work is going in addition to a comprehensive description of the research you are pursuing.

In Canada and the United States, East Asia and Latin America, essay responses are evaluated in addition to application materials to determine an overall recommendation.

What does the Google PhD Fellowship include?

Students receive named Fellowships which include a monetary award. The funds are given directly to the university to be distributed to cover the student’s expenses and stipend as appropriate. In addition, the student will be matched with a Google Research Mentor. There is no employee relationship between the student and Google as a result of receiving the fellowship. The award does not preclude future eligibility for internships or employment opportunities at Google, nor does it increase the chances of obtaining them. If students wish to apply for a job at Google, they are welcome to apply for jobs and go through the same hiring process as any other person.

• Up to 3 year Fellowship
• US $12K to cover stipend and other research related activities, travel expenses including overseas travel
• Google Research Mentor
• 1 year Fellowship
• AUD $15K to cover stipend and other research related activities, travel expenses including overseas travel
• Up to 2 year Fellowship (effective from 2024 for new recipients)
• Full tuition and fees (enrollment fees, health insurance, books) plus a stipend to be used for living expenses, travel and personal equipment
• US $10K to cover stipend and other research related activities, travel expenses including overseas travel
• Yearly bursary towards stipend / salary, health care, social benefits, tuition and fees, conference travel and personal computing equipment. The bursary varies by country.

Early-stage PhD students

• Up to 4 year Fellowship
• US $50K to cover stipend and other research related activities, travel expenses including overseas travel

Late-stage PhD students

• US $10K to recognise research contributions, cover stipend and other research related activities, travel expenses including overseas travel
• US $15K per year to cover stipend and other research related activities, travel expenses including overseas travel

Southeast Asia

• US $10K per year for up to 3 years (or up to graduation, whichever is earlier) to cover stipend and other research related activities, travel expenses including overseas travel

Is my university eligible for the PhD Fellowship Program?

Africa, Australia/New Zealand , Canada, East Asia, Europe and the United States : universities must be an accredited research institution that awards research degrees to PhD students in computer science (or an adjacent field).

India, Latin America and Southeast Asia : applications are open to universities/institutes in India, Latin America (excluding Cuba), and in eligible Southeast Asian countries/regions (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam).

Restrictions : All award payments and recipients will be reviewed for compliance with relevant US and international laws, regulations and policies. Google reserves the right to withhold funding that may violate laws, regulations or our policies.

What are the eligibility requirements for students?

All regions

• Students must remain enrolled full-time in the PhD program for the duration of the Fellowship or forfeit the award.
• Google employees, and their spouses, children, and members of their household are not eligible.
• Students that are already supported by a comparable industry award are not eligible. Government or non-profit organization funding is exempt.
• Past awardees from the PhD Fellowship program are not eligible to apply again.
• Grant of the Fellowship does not mean admission to a PhD program. The awardee must separately apply and be accepted to a PhD program in computer science (or an adjacent field) at an eligible institution.
• Grant of the Fellowship will be subject to the rules and guidelines applicable in the institution where the awardee registers for the PhD program.

Nominated students in Africa, Australia and New Zealand, Canada and the United States, East Asia and Europe.

Universities should only nominate students that meet the following requirements:

• Africa: Incoming PhD students are eligible to apply, but the Fellowship award shall be contingent on the awardee registering for a full-time PhD program in computer science (or an adjacent field) within the academic award year of the Fellowship award, or the award shall be forfeited.
• Australia and New Zealand : early-stage students enrolled in the first or second year of their PhD (no requirement for completion of graduate coursework by the academic award year).
• Canada and the United States : students who have completed graduate coursework in their PhD by the academic award year when the Fellowship begins.
• East Asia: students who have completed most of graduate coursework in their PhD by the academic award year when the Fellowship begins. Students should have sufficient time for research projects after receiving a fellowship.
• Europe: Students enrolled at any stage of their PhD are eligible to apply.

Direct applicant students in India, Latin America and Southeast Asia

• Latin America : incoming or early stage-students enrolled in the first or second year of their PhD (no requirement for completion of graduate coursework by the academic award year).

What should be included in an application? What language should the application be in?

All application materials should be submitted in English.

For each student nomination, the university will be asked to submit the following material in a single, flat (not portfolio) PDF file:

• Student CV with links to website and publications (if available)
• Short (1-page) resume/CV of the student's primary PhD program advisor
• Available transcripts (mark sheets) starting from first year/semester of Bachelor's degree to date
• Research proposal (maximum 3 pages, excluding references)
• 2-3 letters of recommendation from those familiar with the nominee''s work (at least one from the thesis advisor for current PhD students)
• Student essay response (350-word limit) to: What impact would receiving this Fellowship have on your education? Describe any circumstances affecting your need for a Fellowship and what educational goals this Fellowship will enable you to accomplish.
• Transcripts of current and previous academic records
• 1-2 letters of recommendation from those familiar with the nominee's work (at least one from the thesis advisor)

Canada, East Asia, the United States

• Cover sheet signed by the Department Chair confirming the student passes eligibility requirements. (See FAQ "What are the eligibility requirements for students?")
• Short (1-page) CV of the student's primary advisor
• 2-3 letters of recommendation from those familiar with the nominee's work (at least one from the thesis advisor)
• Research / dissertation proposal (maximum 3 pages, excluding references)
• Student essay response (350-word limit) to: Describe the desired impact your research will make on the field and society, and why this is important to you. Include any personal, educational and/or professional experiences that have motivated your research interests.
• Student essay response (350-word limit) to: Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes or contributed to group efforts over time. (A leadership role can mean more than just a title. It can mean being a mentor to others, acting as the person in charge of a specific task, or taking the lead role in organizing an event or project. Think about what you accomplished and what you learned from the experience. What were your responsibilities? Did you lead a team? How did your experience change your perspective on leading others? Did you help to resolve an important dispute at your school, church, in your community or an organization? And your leadership role doesn’t necessarily have to be limited to school activities. For example, do you help out or take care of your family?)

Students will need the following documents in a single, flat (not portfolio) PDF file in order to complete an application (in English only):

• Student applicant’s resume with links to website and publications (if available)
• Short (one-page) resume/CV of the student applicant's primary PhD program advisor
• 2-3 letters of recommendation from those familiar with the applicant's work (at least one from the thesis advisor for current PhD students)
• Applicant's essay response (350-word limit) to: Describe the desired impact your research will make on the field and society, and why this is important to you. Include any personal, educational and/or professional experiences that have motivated your research interests.
• Applicant's essay response (350-word limit) to: What are your long-term goals for your pathway in computing research, and how would receiving the Google PhD Fellowship help you progress toward those goals in the short-term?

How do I apply for the PhD Fellowship Program? Who should submit the applications? Can students apply directly for a Fellowship?

Check the eligibility and application requirements in your region before applying. Submission forms are available on this page when the application period begins.

India, Latin America and Southeast Asia: students may apply directly during the application period.

Africa, Australia, Canada, East Asia, Europe, New Zealand, and the United States : students cannot apply directly to the program; they must be nominated by an eligible university during the application period.

How many students may each university nominate?

India, Latin America and Southeast Asia : applications are open directly to students with no limit to the number of students that can apply from a university.

Australia and New Zealand : universities may nominate up to two eligible students.

Canada and the United States : Universities may nominate up to four eligible students. We encourage nominating students with diverse backgrounds especially those from historically marginalized groups in the field of computing. If more than two students are nominated then we strongly encourage additional nominees who self-identify as a woman, Black / African descent, Hispanic / Latino / Latinx, Indigenous, and/or a person with a disability.

Africa, East Asia and Europe : Universities may nominate up to three eligible students. We encourage nominating students with diverse backgrounds especially those from historically marginalized groups in the field of computing. If more than two students are nominated then we strongly encourage the additional nominee who self-identifies as a woman.

*Applications are evaluated on merit. Please see FAQ for details on how applications are evaluated.

How are applications evaluated?

In Canada and the United State, East Asia and Latin America, essay responses are evaluated in addition to application materials to determine an overall recommendation.

A nominee's status as a member of a historically marginalized group is not considered in the selection of award recipients.

Research should align with Google AI Principles .

Incomplete proposals will not be considered.

How are Google PhD Fellowships given?

Any monetary awards will be paid directly to the Fellow's university for distribution. No overhead should be assessed against them.

What are the intellectual property implications of a Google PhD Fellowship?

Fellowship recipients are not subject to intellectual property restrictions unless they complete an internship at Google. If that is the case, they are subject to the same intellectual property restrictions as any other Google intern.

Will the Fellowship recipients become employees of Google?

No, Fellowship recipients do not become employees of Google due to receiving the award. The award does not preclude future eligibility for internships or employment opportunities at Google, nor does it increase the chances of obtaining them. If they are interested in working at Google, they are welcome to apply for jobs and go through the same hiring process as any other person.

Can Fellowship recipients also be considered for other Google scholarships?

Yes, Fellowship recipients are eligible for these scholarships .

After award notification, when do the Google PhD Fellowships begin?

After Google PhD Fellowship recipients are notified, the Fellowship is effective starting the following school year.

What is the program application time period?

Applications for the 2024 program will open in March 2024 and close in May 2024 for all regions. Refer to the main Google PhD Fellowship Program page for each region’s application details.

A global awards announcement will be made in September on the Google Research Blog publicly announcing all award recipients.

How can I ask additional questions?

Due to the volume of emails we receive, we may not be able to respond to questions where the answer is available on the website. If your question has not been answered by a FAQ, email:

Africa: [email protected]

Australia and New Zealand: [email protected]

Canada and the United States: [email protected]

East Asia: [email protected]

Europe: [email protected]

India: [email protected]

Latin America: [email protected]

Southeast Asia: [email protected]

See past PhD Fellowship recipients.

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Dissertation Structure & Layout 101: How to structure your dissertation, thesis or research project.

By: Derek Jansen (MBA) Reviewed By: David Phair (PhD) | July 2019

So, you’ve got a decent understanding of what a dissertation is , you’ve chosen your topic and hopefully you’ve received approval for your research proposal . Awesome! Now its time to start the actual dissertation or thesis writing journey.

To craft a high-quality document, the very first thing you need to understand is dissertation structure . In this post, we’ll walk you through the generic dissertation structure and layout, step by step. We’ll start with the big picture, and then zoom into each chapter to briefly discuss the core contents. If you’re just starting out on your research journey, you should start with this post, which covers the big-picture process of how to write a dissertation or thesis .

*The Caveat *

In this post, we’ll be discussing a traditional dissertation/thesis structure and layout, which is generally used for social science research across universities, whether in the US, UK, Europe or Australia. However, some universities may have small variations on this structure (extra chapters, merged chapters, slightly different ordering, etc).

So, always check with your university if they have a prescribed structure or layout that they expect you to work with. If not, it’s safe to assume the structure we’ll discuss here is suitable. And even if they do have a prescribed structure, you’ll still get value from this post as we’ll explain the core contents of each section.  

Overview: S tructuring a dissertation or thesis

• Acknowledgements page
• Abstract (or executive summary)
• Table of contents , list of figures and tables
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Literature review
• Chapter 3: Methodology
• Chapter 4: Results
• Chapter 5: Discussion
• Chapter 6: Conclusion
• Reference list

As I mentioned, some universities will have slight variations on this structure. For example, they want an additional “personal reflection chapter”, or they might prefer the results and discussion chapter to be merged into one. Regardless, the overarching flow will always be the same, as this flow reflects the research process , which we discussed here – i.e.:

• The introduction chapter presents the core research question and aims .
• The literature review chapter assesses what the current research says about this question.
• The methodology, results and discussion chapters go about undertaking new research about this question.
• The conclusion chapter (attempts to) answer the core research question .

In other words, the dissertation structure and layout reflect the research process of asking a well-defined question(s), investigating, and then answering the question – see below.

To restate that – the structure and layout of a dissertation reflect the flow of the overall research process . This is essential to understand, as each chapter will make a lot more sense if you “get” this concept. If you’re not familiar with the research process, read this post before going further.

Right. Now that we’ve covered the big picture, let’s dive a little deeper into the details of each section and chapter. Oh and by the way, you can also grab our free dissertation/thesis template here to help speed things up.

The title page of your dissertation is the very first impression the marker will get of your work, so it pays to invest some time thinking about your title. But what makes for a good title? A strong title needs to be 3 things:

• Succinct (not overly lengthy or verbose)
• Specific (not vague or ambiguous)
• Representative of the research you’re undertaking (clearly linked to your research questions)

Typically, a good title includes mention of the following:

• The broader area of the research (i.e. the overarching topic)
• The specific focus of your research (i.e. your specific context)
• Indication of research design (e.g. quantitative , qualitative , or  mixed methods ).

For example:

A quantitative investigation [research design] into the antecedents of organisational trust [broader area] in the UK retail forex trading market [specific context/area of focus].

Again, some universities may have specific requirements regarding the format and structure of the title, so it’s worth double-checking expectations with your institution (if there’s no mention in the brief or study material).

Acknowledgements

This page provides you with an opportunity to say thank you to those who helped you along your research journey. Generally, it’s optional (and won’t count towards your marks), but it is academic best practice to include this.

So, who do you say thanks to? Well, there’s no prescribed requirements, but it’s common to mention the following people:

• Your dissertation supervisor or committee.
• Any professors, lecturers or academics that helped you understand the topic or methodologies.
• Any tutors, mentors or advisors.
• Your family and friends, especially spouse (for adult learners studying part-time).

There’s no need for lengthy rambling. Just state who you’re thankful to and for what (e.g. thank you to my supervisor, John Doe, for his endless patience and attentiveness) – be sincere. In terms of length, you should keep this to a page or less.

Abstract or executive summary

The dissertation abstract (or executive summary for some degrees) serves to provide the first-time reader (and marker or moderator) with a big-picture view of your research project. It should give them an understanding of the key insights and findings from the research, without them needing to read the rest of the report – in other words, it should be able to stand alone .

For it to stand alone, your abstract should cover the following key points (at a minimum):

• Your research questions and aims – what key question(s) did your research aim to answer?
• Your methodology – how did you go about investigating the topic and finding answers to your research question(s)?
• Your findings – following your own research, what did do you discover?
• Your conclusions – based on your findings, what conclusions did you draw? What answers did you find to your research question(s)?

So, in much the same way the dissertation structure mimics the research process, your abstract or executive summary should reflect the research process, from the initial stage of asking the original question to the final stage of answering that question.

In practical terms, it’s a good idea to write this section up last , once all your core chapters are complete. Otherwise, you’ll end up writing and rewriting this section multiple times (just wasting time). For a step by step guide on how to write a strong executive summary, check out this post .

Need a helping hand?

Table of contents

This section is straightforward. You’ll typically present your table of contents (TOC) first, followed by the two lists – figures and tables. I recommend that you use Microsoft Word’s automatic table of contents generator to generate your TOC. If you’re not familiar with this functionality, the video below explains it simply:

If you find that your table of contents is overly lengthy, consider removing one level of depth. Oftentimes, this can be done without detracting from the usefulness of the TOC.

Right, now that the “admin” sections are out of the way, its time to move on to your core chapters. These chapters are the heart of your dissertation and are where you’ll earn the marks. The first chapter is the introduction chapter – as you would expect, this is the time to introduce your research…

It’s important to understand that even though you’ve provided an overview of your research in your abstract, your introduction needs to be written as if the reader has not read that (remember, the abstract is essentially a standalone document). So, your introduction chapter needs to start from the very beginning, and should address the following questions:

• What will you be investigating (in plain-language, big picture-level)?
• Why is that worth investigating? How is it important to academia or business? How is it sufficiently original?
• What are your research aims and research question(s)? Note that the research questions can sometimes be presented at the end of the literature review (next chapter).
• What is the scope of your study? In other words, what will and won’t you cover ?
• How will you approach your research? In other words, what methodology will you adopt?
• How will you structure your dissertation? What are the core chapters and what will you do in each of them?

These are just the bare basic requirements for your intro chapter. Some universities will want additional bells and whistles in the intro chapter, so be sure to carefully read your brief or consult your research supervisor.

If done right, your introduction chapter will set a clear direction for the rest of your dissertation. Specifically, it will make it clear to the reader (and marker) exactly what you’ll be investigating, why that’s important, and how you’ll be going about the investigation. Conversely, if your introduction chapter leaves a first-time reader wondering what exactly you’ll be researching, you’ve still got some work to do.

Now that you’ve set a clear direction with your introduction chapter, the next step is the literature review . In this section, you will analyse the existing research (typically academic journal articles and high-quality industry publications), with a view to understanding the following questions:

• What does the literature currently say about the topic you’re investigating?
• Is the literature lacking or well established? Is it divided or in disagreement?
• How does your research fit into the bigger picture?
• How does your research contribute something original?
• How does the methodology of previous studies help you develop your own?

Depending on the nature of your study, you may also present a conceptual framework towards the end of your literature review, which you will then test in your actual research.

Again, some universities will want you to focus on some of these areas more than others, some will have additional or fewer requirements, and so on. Therefore, as always, its important to review your brief and/or discuss with your supervisor, so that you know exactly what’s expected of your literature review chapter.

Now that you’ve investigated the current state of knowledge in your literature review chapter and are familiar with the existing key theories, models and frameworks, its time to design your own research. Enter the methodology chapter – the most “science-ey” of the chapters…

In this chapter, you need to address two critical questions:

• Exactly HOW will you carry out your research (i.e. what is your intended research design)?
• Exactly WHY have you chosen to do things this way (i.e. how do you justify your design)?

Remember, the dissertation part of your degree is first and foremost about developing and demonstrating research skills . Therefore, the markers want to see that you know which methods to use, can clearly articulate why you’ve chosen then, and know how to deploy them effectively.

Importantly, this chapter requires detail – don’t hold back on the specifics. State exactly what you’ll be doing, with who, when, for how long, etc. Moreover, for every design choice you make, make sure you justify it.

In practice, you will likely end up coming back to this chapter once you’ve undertaken all your data collection and analysis, and revise it based on changes you made during the analysis phase. This is perfectly fine. Its natural for you to add an additional analysis technique, scrap an old one, etc based on where your data lead you. Of course, I’m talking about small changes here – not a fundamental switch from qualitative to quantitative, which will likely send your supervisor in a spin!

You’ve now collected your data and undertaken your analysis, whether qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods. In this chapter, you’ll present the raw results of your analysis . For example, in the case of a quant study, you’ll present the demographic data, descriptive statistics, inferential statistics , etc.

Typically, Chapter 4 is simply a presentation and description of the data, not a discussion of the meaning of the data. In other words, it’s descriptive, rather than analytical – the meaning is discussed in Chapter 5. However, some universities will want you to combine chapters 4 and 5, so that you both present and interpret the meaning of the data at the same time. Check with your institution what their preference is.

Now that you’ve presented the data analysis results, its time to interpret and analyse them. In other words, its time to discuss what they mean, especially in relation to your research question(s).

What you discuss here will depend largely on your chosen methodology. For example, if you’ve gone the quantitative route, you might discuss the relationships between variables . If you’ve gone the qualitative route, you might discuss key themes and the meanings thereof. It all depends on what your research design choices were.

Most importantly, you need to discuss your results in relation to your research questions and aims, as well as the existing literature. What do the results tell you about your research questions? Are they aligned with the existing research or at odds? If so, why might this be? Dig deep into your findings and explain what the findings suggest, in plain English.

The final chapter – you’ve made it! Now that you’ve discussed your interpretation of the results, its time to bring it back to the beginning with the conclusion chapter . In other words, its time to (attempt to) answer your original research question s (from way back in chapter 1). Clearly state what your conclusions are in terms of your research questions. This might feel a bit repetitive, as you would have touched on this in the previous chapter, but its important to bring the discussion full circle and explicitly state your answer(s) to the research question(s).

Next, you’ll typically discuss the implications of your findings . In other words, you’ve answered your research questions – but what does this mean for the real world (or even for academia)? What should now be done differently, given the new insight you’ve generated?

Lastly, you should discuss the limitations of your research, as well as what this means for future research in the area. No study is perfect, especially not a Masters-level. Discuss the shortcomings of your research. Perhaps your methodology was limited, perhaps your sample size was small or not representative, etc, etc. Don’t be afraid to critique your work – the markers want to see that you can identify the limitations of your work. This is a strength, not a weakness. Be brutal!

This marks the end of your core chapters – woohoo! From here on out, it’s pretty smooth sailing.

The reference list is straightforward. It should contain a list of all resources cited in your dissertation, in the required format, e.g. APA , Harvard, etc.

It’s essential that you use reference management software for your dissertation. Do NOT try handle your referencing manually – its far too error prone. On a reference list of multiple pages, you’re going to make mistake. To this end, I suggest considering either Mendeley or Zotero. Both are free and provide a very straightforward interface to ensure that your referencing is 100% on point. I’ve included a simple how-to video for the Mendeley software (my personal favourite) below:

Some universities may ask you to include a bibliography, as opposed to a reference list. These two things are not the same . A bibliography is similar to a reference list, except that it also includes resources which informed your thinking but were not directly cited in your dissertation. So, double-check your brief and make sure you use the right one.

The very last piece of the puzzle is the appendix or set of appendices. This is where you’ll include any supporting data and evidence. Importantly, supporting is the keyword here.

Your appendices should provide additional “nice to know”, depth-adding information, which is not critical to the core analysis. Appendices should not be used as a way to cut down word count (see this post which covers how to reduce word count ). In other words, don’t place content that is critical to the core analysis here, just to save word count. You will not earn marks on any content in the appendices, so don’t try to play the system!

Time to recap…

And there you have it – the traditional dissertation structure and layout, from A-Z. To recap, the core structure for a dissertation or thesis is (typically) as follows:

• Acknowledgments page

Most importantly, the core chapters should reflect the research process (asking, investigating and answering your research question). Moreover, the research question(s) should form the golden thread throughout your dissertation structure. Everything should revolve around the research questions, and as you’ve seen, they should form both the start point (i.e. introduction chapter) and the endpoint (i.e. conclusion chapter).

I hope this post has provided you with clarity about the traditional dissertation/thesis structure and layout. If you have any questions or comments, please leave a comment below, or feel free to get in touch with us. Also, be sure to check out the rest of the  Grad Coach Blog .

Psst... there’s more!

This post was based on one of our popular Research Bootcamps . If you're working on a research project, you'll definitely want to check this out ...

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36 Comments

many thanks i found it very useful

Glad to hear that, Arun. Good luck writing your dissertation.

Such clear practical logical advice. I very much needed to read this to keep me focused in stead of fretting.. Perfect now ready to start my research!

what about scientific fields like computer or engineering thesis what is the difference in the structure? thank you very much

Thanks so much this helped me a lot!

Very helpful and accessible. What I like most is how practical the advice is along with helpful tools/ links.

Thanks Ade!

Thank you so much sir.. It was really helpful..

You’re welcome!

Hi! How many words maximum should contain the abstract?

Thank you so much 😊 Find this at the right moment

You’re most welcome. Good luck with your dissertation.

best ever benefit i got on right time thank you

Many times Clarity and vision of destination of dissertation is what makes the difference between good ,average and great researchers the same way a great automobile driver is fast with clarity of address and Clear weather conditions .

I guess Great researcher = great ideas + knowledge + great and fast data collection and modeling + great writing + high clarity on all these

You have given immense clarity from start to end.

Morning. Where will I write the definitions of what I’m referring to in my report?

Thank you so much Derek, I was almost lost! Thanks a tonnnn! Have a great day!

Thanks ! so concise and valuable

This was very helpful. Clear and concise. I know exactly what to do now.

Thank you for allowing me to go through briefly. I hope to find time to continue.

Really useful to me. Thanks a thousand times

Very interesting! It will definitely set me and many more for success. highly recommended.

Thank you soo much sir, for the opportunity to express my skills

Usefull, thanks a lot. Really clear

Very nice and easy to understand. Thank you .

That was incredibly useful. Thanks Grad Coach Crew!

My stress level just dropped at least 15 points after watching this. Just starting my thesis for my grad program and I feel a lot more capable now! Thanks for such a clear and helpful video, Emma and the GradCoach team!

Do we need to mention the number of words the dissertation contains in the main document?

It depends on your university’s requirements, so it would be best to check with them 🙂

Such a helpful post to help me get started with structuring my masters dissertation, thank you!

Great video; I appreciate that helpful information

It is so necessary or avital course

This blog is very informative for my research. Thank you

Doctoral students are required to fill out the National Research Council’s Survey of Earned Doctorates

wow this is an amazing gain in my life

This is so good

How can i arrange my specific objectives in my dissertation?

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• Dissertation & Thesis Outline | Example & Free Templates

Dissertation & Thesis Outline | Example & Free Templates

Published on 8 June 2022 by Tegan George .

A thesis or dissertation outline is one of the most critical early steps in your writing process . It helps you to lay out and organise your ideas and can provide you with a roadmap for deciding what kind of research you’d like to undertake.

Generally, an outline contains information on the different sections included in your thesis or dissertation, such as:

• Your anticipated title
• Your abstract
• Your chapters (sometimes subdivided into further topics like literature review, research methods, avenues for future research, etc.)

In the final product, you can also provide a chapter outline for your readers. This is a short paragraph at the end of your introduction to inform readers about the organisational structure of your thesis or dissertation . This chapter outline is also known as a reading guide or summary outline.

Table of contents

How to outline your thesis or dissertation, dissertation and thesis outline templates, chapter outline example, sample sentences for your chapter outline, sample verbs for variation in your chapter outline, frequently asked questions about outlines.

While there are some inter-institutional differences, many outlines proceed in a fairly similar fashion.

• Working Title
• ‘Elevator pitch’ of your work (often written last).
• Introduce your area of study, sharing details about your research question, problem statement , and hypotheses . Situate your research within an existing paradigm or conceptual or theoretical framework .
• Subdivide as you see fit into main topics and sub-topics.
• Describe your research methods (e.g., your scope, population , and data collection ).
• Present your research findings and share about your data analysis methods.
• Answer the research question in a concise way.
• Interpret your findings, discuss potential limitations of your own research and speculate about future implications or related opportunities.

To help you get started, we’ve created a full thesis or dissertation template in Word or Google Docs format. It’s easy adapt it to your own requirements.

 Download Word template    Download Google Docs template

It can be easy to fall into a pattern of overusing the same words or sentence constructions, which can make your work monotonous and repetitive for your readers. Consider utilising some of the alternative constructions presented below.

Example 1: Passive construction

The passive voice is a common choice for outlines and overviews because the context makes it clear who is carrying out the action (e.g., you are conducting the research ). However, overuse of the passive voice can make your text vague and imprecise.

Example 2: IS-AV construction

You can also present your information using the ‘IS-AV’ (inanimate subject with an active verb) construction.

A chapter is an inanimate object, so it is not capable of taking an action itself (e.g., presenting or discussing). However, the meaning of the sentence is still easily understandable, so the IS-AV construction can be a good way to add variety to your text.

Example 3: The I construction

Another option is to use the ‘I’ construction, which is often recommended by style manuals (e.g., APA Style and Chicago style ). However, depending on your field of study, this construction is not always considered professional or academic. Ask your supervisor if you’re not sure.

Example 4: Mix-and-match

To truly make the most of these options, consider mixing and matching the passive voice , IS-AV construction , and ‘I’ construction .This can help the flow of your argument and improve the readability of your text.

As you draft the chapter outline, you may also find yourself frequently repeating the same words, such as ‘discuss’, ‘present’, ‘prove’, or ‘show’. Consider branching out to add richness and nuance to your writing. Here are some examples of synonyms you can use.

A thesis or dissertation outline is one of the most critical first steps in your writing process. It helps you to lay out and organise your ideas and can provide you with a roadmap for deciding what kind of research you’d like to undertake.

When you mention different chapters within your text, it’s considered best to use Roman numerals for most citation styles. However, the most important thing here is to remain consistent whenever using numbers in your dissertation .

All level 1 and 2 headings should be included in your table of contents . That means the titles of your chapters and the main sections within them.

The contents should also include all appendices and the lists of tables and figures, if applicable, as well as your reference list .

Do not include the acknowledgements or abstract   in the table of contents.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the ‘Cite this Scribbr article’ button to automatically add the citation to our free Reference Generator.

George, T. (2022, June 08). Dissertation & Thesis Outline | Example & Free Templates. Scribbr. Retrieved 14 May 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/thesis-dissertation/outline-thesis-dissertation/

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So Many Papers, so Little Time

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6 Tips for Writing Your Thesis in Google Docs

The birds are singing, the bees are buzzing, which means it’s officially spring time. This is good news for just about everyone… except those with a looming thesis deadline.

If you’re pursuing a Bachelors, Masters, or PhD, you’re either feeling very good or very not-so-good right about now. For some of you, no words have yet made it onto the page. That’s okay! We’re not here to judge. We’re here to help.

One thing you may or may not have considered yet is where you’re going to be writing your thesis. Sure, Microsoft Word is the obvious choice. But is it the best one? There are a lot of problem with Words including feature bloat, incompatibilities between versions and operating systems and   plain old crashes . If you’ve ever considered Word to be the bane of your existence (and who hasn’t?), you may want to consider a simple cloud-based alternative like Google Docs. You’ll be able to work from anywhere, including offline, and barring circumstances of an apocalyptic proportion, you’ll never lose your work. Sounds like a win-win.

If you decide to make the Google Docs plunge for something as important as your thesis, arguably your magnum opus , here are a few tips for making the transition a success.

1. Enable Offline Access

If you chose Google Docs as your go-tool for your thesis you likely to belong to a generation who is online all time. But there are occasionally moments when you are cut off from the internet and want to work on your thesis. You can enable offline access to your Google Docs simply by checking a box in your Google Drive settings . To make all other files in your Google Drive available offline you can   set up desktop sync . Got a long flight coming up? Work on your thesis. Internet’s down at the local coffee shop? Work on your thesis. Commute by train? Work on your thesis. You get the drift. Don’t set up barriers to keep you from getting work done - take action to bring them down.

2. Decide on an Organizational Structure Ahead of Time

Lets face it: your thesis is going to be a big, unruly document. So big in fact, that it probably makes more sense to break it down in manageable chunks while you’re in the development phase. That means setting up different folders and documents based on how your thesis will be organized.

The way you do this can, and should, vary based on the needs of your project and the way that you like to write. One simple way to do it is to break up your document by section of your thesis, so that you have a Google Doc for each of the following: Introduction, Literature Review, Methodology, Results, and Conclusion. Alternatively, you may also choose to keep all of your sections in one document, and take advantage of Google Doc’s new outline feature to move from place to place.

Another way to organize your documents is by theme. If you have topics that cross over sections, this may be the most sensible option. You take the big ideas out of your thesis and write about them one by one. For example, for my thesis in Education, I cover topics like Community of Inquiry, Online Learning, Personality, etc., and I make a document for each of those. When the time comes to pull them all together, I know where to find each of my arguments.

Whatever you do, it’s important to make a decision ahead of time and stick to it . This allows you to keep the same organizational structure across all of your apps. Just like you have the same days of the week across all of your calendars, having your citation management system in the same format as your Google Docs makes life infinitely simpler. Which brings me to my next point…

3. Decide on a Citation Management System

Have you kept track of your sources manually up until now? It’s time to wake up and smell the coffee. Your thesis will be the biggest document you’ve ever managed, and quite possibly the biggest document you ever will manage. No sane person keeps track of hundreds of sources by hand . There’s no need to make more work for yourself, and it’s just plain ludicrous if you have a looming deadline.

You have a ton of options to choose from in this arena. Whatever system you decide to work with, whether it’s a simple add-on to Google Docs or a comprehensive PDF management system, make sure it integrates with your workflow . If it’s a pain to enter data, you won’t do it, and you’ll be left with glaring gaps of information at the end of your project. Keep it simple, and keep it smart.

4. Clean up Your Digital Workspace

One of the many benefits to using Google Docs to write a thesis is that you don’t have to constantly move between windows to get things done. Most of your research is done in-browser, and your writing belongs right next to it. But with great power comes great responsibility. It’s very easy to get overwhelmed and distracted by the magic of the Internet. This is why you should make every effort to keep your digital workspace as tidy as your physical one.

What does this mean? For starters, it means making an assessment of the apps and websites you regularly use to do your research, take notes, and write your thesis. Now jot down a list of these. Go into Chrome (or your preferred browser) and pin them . Pinning a tab keeps it open, neatly organized in the left of your browser window, and unclosable. So everything you need is always handy.

5. Make Use of Add-ons

A few years ago, Google Docs might have seemed like a poor-man’s Microsoft Word. But the platform has become increasingly sophisticated over the years, to the point that some now say it surpasses traditional desktop tools. What takes it to the next level? Add-ons, of course. The Google Docs add-on store is full of helpful apps for students, with more being added every day.

Some particular ones to take note of include AutoLaTeX for statistical equations and Thesaurus for when you’ve used the word “nuance” too many times. Paperpile also offers a free citation generator for Google Docs that makes it a breeze to find, cite, and style academic sources within your document.

6. Leave Time to Make it Pretty

One thing Google Docs cannot do is make a truly visually striking document. It suffers from the same limitations that all WYSIWYG editors do - it can’t be both easy to use and complicated to produce. Ever notice how the paper you converted into PDF from Microsoft Word looks nothing like the journal article you downloaded? The spacing, the balance, all the small details that go into putting together a visually appealing document are lost with WYSIWYG authoring. Google Docs is no different, and it isn’t intended to be. It’s an amazing collaborative and drafting tool. But when it comes to the final product, you can and should go the extra mile into making it look good. This is your magnum opus, remember?

There are many ways to go about this. Many scientists use the programming language LaTeX to create elegant research papers. If the idea of coding seems intimidating, look into a publishing program like Adobe InDesign . Whatever you choose, get comfortable with it before your project is done. And give yourself a solid week to turn the final product into one you’ll be proud of. Will it turn a satisfactory grade into an exemplary one? No. But will it be enough to push a “good” to a “very good”? Possibly. And that makes it worth the effort.

Are you currently writing a thesis in Google Docs? Tell us the good, the bad, and the ugly in the comments.

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Open Access Theses and Dissertations

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Advanced research and scholarship. Theses and dissertations, free to find, free to use.

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Recent Additions

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About OATD.org

OATD.org aims to be the best possible resource for finding open access graduate theses and dissertations published around the world. Metadata (information about the theses) comes from over 1100 colleges, universities, and research institutions . OATD currently indexes 7,241,108 theses and dissertations.

About OATD (our FAQ) .

Visual OATD.org

We’re happy to present several data visualizations to give an overall sense of the OATD.org collection by county of publication, language, and field of study.

You may also want to consult these sites to search for other theses:

• Google Scholar
• NDLTD , the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations. NDLTD provides information and a search engine for electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs), whether they are open access or not.
• Proquest Theses and Dissertations (PQDT), a database of dissertations and theses, whether they were published electronically or in print, and mostly available for purchase. Access to PQDT may be limited; consult your local library for access information.

Announcing the 2022 PhD Fellows

Sep 01, 2022

[[read-time]] min read

In 2009, Google created the PhD Fellowship Program to recognize and support graduate students who are doing exceptional research in Computer Science and related fields, and who are poised to shape the future of technology. Since our first awardee cohort 13 years ago, these PhD Fellowships have helped support 654 graduate students from around the world across Africa, Australia & New Zealand, East Asia, Europe, India, North America and Southeast Asia.

Over the past 14 award cycles, our PhD Fellows have made some incredible contributions to their fields, and today we're checking in with three of our past alumni.

• Flora Tasse — Head of CV/AR Research at Streem specializing in AI applied to Computer Graphics and Vision problems faced in AR/VR
• Minsuk Kahng — Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Oregon State University whose research focuses on designing and developing novel visual analytics tools for people to interpret and interact with machine learning systems that use massive datasets
• Nicolas Papernot — Assistant Professor of Computer Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Toronto whose research interests span the security and privacy of machine learning

What was your motivation to apply to the program?

Flora: I started my PhD with the mission to seize every opportunity to surround myself with the best in the field and broaden my horizons. I was on the lookout for Fellowships that could provide that, and help me make an impact in my area of research. When I heard about the Google PhD Fellowship, I was impressed with all the support that went well beyond the financial. I was initially hesitant to apply because it is such a prestigious program. Thankfully, I did submit my application and it is one the best things I have ever done for my career.

Minsuk: Receiving a Google PhD Fellowship is a great honor for computer science PhD students. I deeply appreciated that Google recognized my research. I was particularly interested in applying for Google’s Fellowship program because Google researchers have been actively conducting research on human-centered approaches to Artificial Intelligence (AI), which is something I’m passionate about. The program provided me with an exciting opportunity to interact with them.

Nicolas: At the time, there were very few people working on my research topic (adversarial examples) so I wanted to apply to the Google Fellowship to find mentors and colleagues to discuss my ideas with. The Fellowship was a great accelerator for my research because it allowed me to meet with a number of people who ended up shaping my understanding of machine learning. This increased the pace of my research and led me to discover new areas of research that I am passionate about.

What impact did the Google PhD Fellowship have on your career trajectory and on technology?

Flora: The Google PhD Fellowship was a turning point in my career. It not only validated the research work I was doing, but also gave me visibility and support that opened so many doors. Through this experience, I formed valuable collaborations and expanded my professional network which proved fruitful in building my career. Thanks to my internship at Google Zurich, I gained valuable insights into innovation and the productization of research. I currently apply my research skills at Streem, where we are making the phone's camera intelligent. Acquired by Streem, my start-up Selerio was building AI agents that could understand images/videos and augment them with relevant interactive objects. This technology made a tangible difference in remote collaboration between experts and consumers to solve product issues which was particularly impactful at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Minsuk: The Fellowship has allowed me to have a wonderful career. Thanks to invaluable advice from my mentors at Google, I completed my PhD with a Dissertation Award from Georgia Tech. I have recently decided to join Google’s People + AI Research (PAIR) team after working as faculty for three years. I have been developing data visualization tools for people to interpret AI systems. Along with my colleagues at Google I’ve created and open-sourced GAN Lab , an interactive tool for people to learn the inner-workings of deep learning models. It significantly broadens people's education access to AI, as learners can use it just with their browsers without the need for specialized backend. I look forward to pursuing research that can help people everywhere.

Nicolas: The Google PhD Fellowship gave me a lot of freedom to pursue my own research ideas, spend time developing the CleverHans library , and collaborate with researchers at different universities and in other research communities. The opportunities I've had to work on differential privacy and machine learning with leading researchers at Google Brain were transformative to my career, and fundamental to bootstrapping my academic career at the University of Toronto and Vector Institute. During the program, I was able to implement privacy-preserving algorithms that are now used by product teams with lots of users. This was a great opportunity to have an immediate impact on technology. More generally, my research is by design seeking to understand the limitations of machine learning so that society can better trust it.

What advice do you have for current and future Google PhD Fellows?

Flora: Take advantage of the opportunities it provides, apply to Google internships, go to more conferences, collaborate and meet PhD Fellows in other fields. By becoming a Google PhD Fellow, you are joining a community of incredibly talented researchers and gaining influential mentors. As for the PhD, you will still go through the ups and downs of doctoral research. But it will be much easier as a Fellow. Stay the course. If you are an undergraduate considering a PhD pathway, invest energy and time in figuring out if there is a problem or a field that you care enough about to dedicate many years of your life to it.

Minsuk: My advice is to look for opportunities to cross the boundaries between disciplines. My work was made possible by collaborating with people across multiple research areas, such as information visualization, machine learning, human-computer interaction and databases. While research from different fields might seem unrelated at first, combinations of ideas can create unique research opportunities. Before starting my PhD, I conducted research on making recommendation algorithms more accurate, but found myself being much more motivated by different flavors of research. This experience led me to find my research direction and vigorously pursue it in my PhD.

Nicolas: I recommend that you do not optimize for short term rewards (like publishing papers) but instead focus on solving the problems that you find the most interesting. Research is often a random process and it is hard to predict what work will have an impact, so optimizing for short term rewards can quickly remove the “fun” out of doing research. While an undergraduate student, you have many opportunities to learn about topics that are diverse and possibly far away from the topic you will eventually choose to work on if you start a PhD. This breadth of knowledge will not only make you a more interesting person but help you in your research, because the most interesting research questions are often the ones that require an interdisciplinary approach to find an answer.

Announcing the 2022 Google PhD Fellows

Since 2009, the Google PhD Fellows have represented some of the best and brightest computer science researchers from around the globe, and we’re honored to support them as they make their mark on the world. Congratulations to all of this year’s awardees! See the complete list of Google PhD Fellowship recipients for 2022 .

Related stories

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Tackling cybersecurity vulnerabilities through Secure by Design

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Let’s stay in touch. Get the latest news from Google in your inbox.

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Search for EMU Dissertations in Esearch

This search finds theses and dissertations completed at EMU:

Finding EMU Dissertations and Theses

In addition to the Esearch search above, there are two places to look for dissertations and theses by EMU students: EMU's Digital Commons and a database from the company Proquest.

There are three links to Digital Commons below: two links show a list of dissertations by specific COE departments and the 3rd link goes to the full EMU Digital Commons which will also include Masters Theses from all three COE departments.

The fourth (last) link goes to a ProQuest database of EMU theses. Although there is overlap coverage between Digital Commons and ProQuest, each will have unique theses not found in the other. 

• Leadership & Counseling Dissertations in Digital Commons
• Teacher Education Dissertations in Digital Commons
• Digital Commons @ EMU This link opens in a new window Digital showcase of scholarly and creative works by EMU students, faculty, and staff Subjects : Covers most subjects Info type : scholarly articles, theses, dissertations
• Eastern Michigan University Theses and Dissertations This link opens in a new window This has full text of EMU dissertations and theses. For years prior to 2011, it isn't possible to search by department in this database; however you can search by keyword or by advisor. To do this use the pulldown menu to change the search from "Anywhere except fulltext -- ALL" to "Advisor -- ADV".

Finding Dissertations and Theses Worldwide

If you know the name of a dissertation, one of the quickest ways to locate it might be to search the title in quotes in Google Scholar.

• Google Scholar with EMU Full Text This link opens in a new window Search for scholarly materials on any topic Info type: scholarly articles, books, research reports, theses, working papers, cited sources Access Tips: Use link above to get access to EMU subscriptions with Findtext+ links. If this link does not work and you receive an error message from Google then use this alternate link to Google Scholar and also set your Google Scholar preferences to show EMU library access links. Search Instruction: Google Scholar Video
• Dissertations & Theses Global Full Text This link opens in a new window Info type: full text dissertations and theses (1997- ), descriptions of dissertations and theses (1861- ).
• Open Access Theses and Dissertations - OATD This link opens in a new window Full text theses and dissertations from 600+ universities.
• NDLTD - Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations A very large free database of dissertations and masters theses worldwide. Often there is a link to the full text.
• EBSCOhost OpenDissertations (formerly American Doctoral Dissertations) This link opens in a new window Citations for theses and dissertations from 1902 to the present, sometimes with links to full text in repositories.
• EThOS "EThOS is the UK’s national thesis service which aims to maximise the visibility and availability of the UK’s doctoral research theses."
• DART-Europe E-theses Portal DART (Digital Archive of Research Theses)-Europe allows you to easily search over 360,000 dissertations from over 500 European universities.

Article Databases that include Dissertations

• ERIC This link opens in a new window Key source for Education articles and reports Info type: scholarly articles, professional articles, dissertations, ERIC documents Brief how to video: ERIC Basics Look up Subject terms: Thesaurus on ERIC.gov
• PsycINFO This link opens in a new window Subjects: Psychology, Education, Business, Communication, Linguistics, Social Work Info type: scholarly articles, book info, conference papers, dissertations How To: ProQuest Basics Locating Quantitative and Qualitative Articles in PsycINFO PsycINFO Quick Reference Guide
• ProQuest One Business This link opens in a new window Key source for business articles. Subjects: Accounting, Auditing, Business, Communications, Economics, Ed Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Health Admin, Hotel Restaurant Mgmt, Management, Public Admin, Technology Info type: scholarly articles, professional articles, magazine articles, news, reports, dissertations Brief Instruction Video: ProQuest Basics

Getting the Full Dissertation

Try first to look in Google Scholar and Dissertations & Theses Global Full Text  (above) for digital fulltext of a dissertation. Many universities are now posting dissertations in repositories (like Digital Commons). Google Scholar includes Digital Commons and other repositories in its search. If that doesn't work, you might also try a regular Google search.

An effective way to search for the dissertation in Google Scholar or Google is to place the title in quotes, followed by the author last name. Example search: "Self-Efficacy and Instructional Leadership" Helber

For older dissertations, you may need to try to interlibrary loan the dissertation. You can get an idea of whether the dissertation is at a library by searching OCLC WorldCat . Or go to the web site for the library of the university where the author did the dissertation. Unfortunately, sometimes dissertations are not available via interlibrary loan. As a last resort, you may be able to purchase dissertations from ProQuest--see DissertationExpress  link below.

• WorldCat (via FirstSearch) This link opens in a new window Search for materials in libraries worldwide Info type: book info, library holdings
• Interlibrary Loan
• Dissertation Express For buying dissertations.
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