An undergraduate dissertation is your opportunity to engage with geographical research, first-hand. But completing a student project can be a stressful and complex process. Your Human Geography Dissertation breaks the task down into three helpful stages: Designing: Deciding on your approach, your topic and your research question, and ensuring your project is feasible Doing: Situating your research and selecting the best methods for your dissertation project Delivering: Dealing with data and writing up your findings With information and task boxes, soundbites offering student insight and guidance, and links to online materials, this book offers a complete and accessible overview of the key skills needed to prepare, research, and write a successful human geography dissertation.
1. Your human geography dissertation: An introduction SECTION 1: DESIGNING YOUR HUMAN GEOGRAPHY DISSERTATION 2: Starting Out: identifying your approach 3: Getting Going: finding a topic 4: The next step: developing your research question 5: Final preparations: is your project workable? SECTION 2: DOING YOUR HUMAN GEOGRAPHY DISSERTATION 6: Doing reflexive research: situating your dissertation 7: Making research happen: the methods glossary 8: More on methods: approaching complex social worlds 9: Selecting your methods: how to make the right choices SECTION 3: DELIVERING YOUR HUMAN GEOGRAPHY DISSERTATION 10: Dealing with data: approaching analysis 11: Writing up: where to start and how to finish 12: The last hurdle: final considerations
This excellent new text guides students carefully, intelligently and sympathetically through the process of doing a human geography dissertation. It offers grounded advice - from the question of what a dissertation is, to the mechanics of data analysis - which will be indispensable for students researching the full diversity of topics covered by contemporary human geography. The insights, advice and reflections from both previous students and academic staff who currently teach human geography add valuable insights that will both reassure students and help them avoid making common mistakes. -- Peter Kraftl This book will be an invaluable read for all Human Geography dissertation students. It conveys the excitement and possibilities of Human Geography research, whilst also alerting the reader to its challenges and pitfalls. This is certainly not a generic 'how to do your dissertation' textbook; instead it engages with Human Geography as a discipline and the role of the dissertation student as a producer of geographic knowledge. The book's clear sections on designing, doing and delivering your dissertation, have useful examples, include input from the author's students themselves, making this an accessible and comprehensive text. -- Katie Willis Kim Peters has written a much needed book that will be of great value to Geography students undertaking what is often the most challenging part of their degree, the dissertation. As a Geography lecturer I have often wished that a book such as this existed. Your Human Geography Dissertation goes way beyond a standard examination of the pros and cons of different research methods, covering a range of topics from the identification of dissertation subjects and the development of research questions through gathering data and writing up. It is a readable and highly accessible text full of helpful detail, practical advice and useful examples. Thank you Kim! -- Jo Little This book is fantastic! It is recommended reading for our second-year research design course, and I have used some of the 'dissertation tips' videos in lectures on this course during 2018/9. For my own dissertation students in supervision meetings, this book is my core recommendation of a text that will help students with their whole human geography dissertation journey. -- Dr Sarah Mills Of all the books that I recommend to my dissertation students, this book is always the first. Writing a dissertation is a daunting task, certainly the most demanding and challenging part of a degree, and Kim Peters, with her accessible style and useful and highly relevant advice, makes it a bit less intimidating. Your Human Geography Dissertation guides students through all the stages of their dissertation, helping them to think geographically, refine their research question and choose the appropriate research methods. This book is so recent but already feels like a classic. -- Dr Filippo Menga
