Master's Degree Expert

Dissertation on a typewriter representing dissertation help coaching for Master's students.

Finding Useful Examples of Master’s Dissertations

Introduction

If you’re looking for examples of Master’s level dissertations, this post is for you! Looking at examples can help you better understand what a dissertation looks like. This can be very helpful in giving you an idea of how you might go about one. This post gives you some tips for how to find Master’s dissertations that will be useful to you as you embark upon this final stage of your Master’s degree.

Questions also addressed in this article

  • How can I find examples of a dissertation?
  • Where can I find examples of a Master’s dissertation?
  • Are there websites that have examples of Master’s dissertations?
  • How do I find examples of previous Master’s dissertations that did well?

Finding Examples of Master’s Dissertations

There’s two key places that you might look to identify examples of Master’s dissertations – at your own university, and beyond it.

(1) From your own university department and Master’s programme

If you’re looking for the most useful examples of Master’s level dissertations, the best starting point is at home. Start with your own Master’s Programme. Ask the postgraduate administrator attached to your Master’s to see if they have examples available. The ideal here is ‘good’ Master’s level dissertations. In my view, this is the gold standard for identifying authoritative examples of what’s expected from you.

But, not all Master’s programmes do make such examples available. There are concerns that students might take an example and think that that is the only and best way to produce a dissertation. This is a valid concern – because there are many excellent ways of producing a dissertation! If your programme or school doesn’t make examples available, don’t worry. You’ll find examples of Master’s level dissertations online – thousands of them, in fact!

(2) Searching for Master’s dissertations online

Google Scholar is a good way of finding Master’s theses stored in institutional digital repositories or on official pages. You can also look directly at university repositories. For example, see the Master’s section of the UCL repository. This contains online copies of Master’s dissertations (but note that we cannot see on these whether the mark secured was ‘good’ or not). See also some of the indicative links I provide below to get you started.

Prioritise Examples of ‘Good’ Dissertations

We need to do more than just find any old dissertation if we want examples that will be useful to us in guiding us. My top tip here is to identify dissertations that have received a very high mark of approval. This is so whether you’re searching for previous dissertations from your programme, or out in the internet wilderness. What you’re looking for here are previous dissertations already assessed by academics to have met very high standards.

Why? Well, remember what you’re doing here. You are a new Master’s dissertation student who is looking for examples of a dissertation. You’re doing this because you recognise that you do not know what a ‘good’ dissertation looks like. You might not even be sure what a dissertation looks like. It is also clear that not all Master’s dissertations do well. So, it makes sense to focus on dissertations that have done well. So what IS a good or excellent Master’s dissertation?

What is a ‘good’ Master’s dissertation?

A good Master’s dissertation is one that has attained a good grade. Academic experts (including external examiners) attached to a Master’s programme assign grades.

How do they determine what grades apply? Academics will typically assign marks according to clear assessment criteria. In U.K. universities, academics make their assessments and assign grades by reference to assessment criteria. That assessment criteria will be available to you to consult at any time. It’s a very good idea to read it before you undertake assessments!

It’s important to note that the question of what a ‘good dissertation’ is, is also subject-specific. What is good in one discipline can be very different in another discipline, owing to different disciplinary norms.

It’s also crucial to remember that there are many pathways to a ‘good’ dissertation. Don’t get too fixated on that one dissertation or imagine that it provides THE only way of producing a ‘great’ dissertation. Two students could take on the same broad topic and go about it in their own way, and both could be excellent. Your own distinctive voice, style and ideas will be crucial. So when looking at ‘good’ Master’s dissertations don’t imagine that you need to emulate everything another dissertation has done (e.g. writing style, structure, etc.). It’s important to find your own approach that suits your problem domain, research questions and you.

Some Indicative Links to ‘Good’ Examples

To get you started, I give some examples of a few institutions and bodies in the United Kingdom that make samples of ‘good’ Master’s dissertations available. The examples I have chosen are where they say explicitly that the Master’s dissertations in question have received a good or excellent mark, and where they have a link to the full text of the dissertation.

Universities’ Banks of Dissertations of a ‘Very High Standard’

Take for example the School of Economics at the University of Nottingham. Here they provide examples of work in that field that has met a ‘very high standard’. This includes examples of high quality postgraduate dissertations.

Another example is the University of Leeds. They provide a selection of taught Master’s dissertations that achieved a mark of 80 or more across various fields.

You will find examples of other institutions that make resources like this available online.

Prize-Winning Master’s Dissertations

As noted, a further technique for identifying good dissertations is to identify ones that won prizes or official commendations. Ideally, you’ll find prize-winning examples related to your field (and if possible, related to your programme, and better still, your university if possible!). Below I provide a handful of examples from U.K.-based institutions or prize awarding bodies. These example links refer to Master’s dissertations receiving a prize or commendation, and where the full text is available. Consulting some of these will give you a general* idea of the general shape, structure, and form of a ‘good’ dissertation.

Development Studies Association Master’s Dissertation Prize (prize winners and highly commended) 

Highly commended

Previous Prize winners

British Council – Teaching English – ELT Master’s Dissertation Award Winners

The British Council provides a link to its prize-winning and specially commended dissertations. It has a back catalogue of its prize pages for the ELT Master’s Dissertation Awards (going back to 2012-13). Each year about 20+ dissertations are selected in total with one receiving the top prize, and others receiving commendations. The dissertations are all available to read in pdf format at the end of the page.

2022-23 Awards

2021-22 Awards

2020-21 Awards

Caveats and Summary of Points

As noted earlier, what is ‘good’ is context-dependent. Please consult the relevant policies that apply to your Master’s Programme at your university department. This is the most authoritative and reliable way of identifying the ‘how to’ of producing a ‘good’ Master’s dissertation on your programme. This includes the rules around how your dissertation should be presented (e.g., word limits, format, structure, citation, etc.).

Please also note that the links above are provided exclusively as examples of how to find potentially ‘good’ or even ‘excellent’ dissertations online. The assessment that those dissertations have met high standards and are worthy of prizes or commendations has been assessed by others.

Summary of Points

The following steps should help you identify how to locate examples of Master’s  dissertations that will be useful to you, and help you better understand expectations. You would be wise to –

  • In your search for dissertations prioritise those from your university, school, field, and if possible, Master’s programme;
  • Whatever dissertations you’re able to consult, privilege those Master’s dissertations that secured good marks. You may also be able to find examples of Master’s dissertations that secured an award, commendation or prize.
  • Look at a sample of dissertations whenever possible. This will remind you that there are many paths to producing a good or excellent dissertation.
  • It will be crucial for you to read the official documentation relating to your own Master’s programme (including the assessment criteria).

Conclusion

I hope that this post is useful to you as you embark upon locating examples of dissertations at Master’s level. Looking at examples can be a good way of getting a sense of expectations, and visualising what a dissertation looks like. But once again, I should emphasise this: avoid relying too much upon the dissertation examples you find. Remember that you can do this and your unique voice is important! Look to your own Master’s programme and the guidance and rules that apply to it. This includes reading the official documentation relating to your own Master’s programme. Make sure that you read the assessment criteria around the Master’s dissertation relevant to your programme. All the best with your Master’s dissertation!