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Starting Your Dissertation: A Student Perspective 

Approaching your dissertation can be a very daunting prospect. For many, it is the culmination of your undergraduate degree. The decision period for your dissertation comes around alarmingly quickly. For most subjects you are required to make proposal decisions in the summer before your final year, and it can feel difficult to give this focused attention at the end of a busy academic year. As a student currently facing into the final month of the dissertation, I want to offer a student perspective to approaching the project. To be clear, my advice comes from my personal experience as an English Literature student, so certain elements may be more relevant to you than others, depending on your subject or faculty.

Proposal Period

The final year project proposal typically comes around the summer before your final year, where you must submit a rough outline of your project plan. This is so that you can be matched up with an appropriate supervisor and is a useful opportunity to start establishing your ideas. Admittedly, it is hard to regenerate enthusiasm for academia after the examination period, especially as the sun of summer calls your name, but nailing your larger ideas down early is worth your time. Plus, it sets you up nicely for approaching a bit of focused summer reading before you return for that first semester. 

Summer Reading 

Your summer should first and foremost be a restful period – it’s important to unwind after a long academic year. After all, breaks are incredibly productive. Summer also offers an opportunity to begin reading around your subject, making tentative but useful decisions towards a line of research that interests you. Although this will make your work in the first semester much smoother, don’t overdo – you will have time in the semester to do this too. 

Balancing Semester One of Final Year Your Dissertation

Depending on your subject, your dissertation ranges between 20-40 credits. As the project is self-directed, you will have to schedule time for it yourself. You will need to balance it between your term-time assignments, examinations and seminar preparation. Personally, I found having one ‘dissertation day’ a week in semester one to be very useful; one day in which you devote time to your dissertation, not your other modules. This means you will have a focused and consistent approach, and that you’re ready for dissertation supervisions. If your project requires elements such as surveys, or trips to archives, organising aspects of this early will be essential to your progress (and stress levels) later. 

Christmas Work

From my own experience, the Christmas period was a challenge to manage. I would emphasise at this point that getting good sleep and having a (realistic) daily work target for your assignments, is essential. For my subject, I had to submit a dissertation synopsis and writing sample which was worth 20% of my final grade, meaning I had to give my dissertation its due time over the holidays. Many of you may not have such a deadline, or, if you do, it might be formative. Regardless, it is good to keep an eye on your dissertation alongside your other work. If you keep your focus sustained and consistent, you’ll thank yourself later. 

Starting Semester Two Right  

In semester two your dissertation supervisions will become more focused, and you should begin thinking about wrapping up your research and reading. It is important to set your own schedule and deadlines for this. Personally, I introduced a cut off point for my reading and research, which was essential for my progression onwards. Although making decisions about your argument and structure can be daunting, it’s good to consider these before your supervisions end so you can discuss ideas with your supervisor. Keep up your ‘dissertation day’ in this semester and maybe, if your FYP is 40 credits, increase it to twice a week. 

Starting Unceremoniously- Just Write!

Writing up your dissertation is the most daunting part, but perhaps the most rewarding. If you started thinking about your project in May or June, you’ve been researching this project for around 9 months, give or take. This should empower you for the final few steps – it’s time to get all that thinking into writing! It’s helpful to demystify the writing process: start writing unceremoniously. If you start early enough, you’ll have more than enough time to re-draft, edit and proofread. Your first draft will not (and should not) be your final draft.  

Depending on when your project is due – students’ submission dates range from the end of March to the beginning of May – you should have the Easter break to write your dissertation. You can focus on writing uninterrupted by your weekly commitments, academic or otherwise. Create a healthy, realistic and productive work schedule that suits you and stick to it.  

Final Words of Advice

• Make sure you use your dissertation supervisions productively.  
• Implement a weekly ‘dissertation day’ – keep your focus consistent. 
• Make sure you generate your references (in-text citations and bibliography) early. This isn’t something you want to chase up towards the end of your project. 
• Make sure to take regular breaks to rest your brain and take in some fresh air. As Spring is finally on the way, you can make the most of the amazing green spaces around campus shared in my last blog post .

If you need more specific, step-by-step guidance on your dissertation, Leeds Library have created a fantastic ‘Final Chapter’ resource , all about approaching your dissertation. I can attest to the usefulness of this resource, it’s something I’ve referred back to many times throughout my dissertation.

If you need help with you academic writing, or approaching aspects of your dissertation, feel free to come along to the Writing Space. We’re there Monday-Friday 1-4pm during term time, on the ground floor of Laidlaw Library. There are always Academic Writing Mentors on hand to help you out. Good luck!

-Nina Mul (Academic Writing Mentor. BA English Literature (Int.), Level 4)

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Dissertations and Projects

Your dissertation or research project is the culmination of your course, it is an important piece of work which allows you to focus your area of interest. This page will guide you through that process as well as signposting you to the resources and documents you will need.

If you need help choosing a topic, critical thinking or structuring your work, you can use Skills@Library's online resource Dissertations: The Final Chapter , which also includes best practice student case studies.

Write and submit

If you are unsure on how to format and present your Dissertation or Project our Dissertation format regulations will help.

You can also download your Dissertation Coversheet from Forms and Guidance.

For a step by step guide on how to submit your dissertation visit our submitting assignments page.

Exceptional circumstances

If you experience significantly disruptive or unexpected events which are beyond your control and affect your ability to work on your dissertation – please contact the Student Support Team.

More information on what to do if you are experiencing personal difficulties, can be found on our Student Support pages.

Information for Taught Postgraduates

Absenses during dissertation period, attending meetings.

Taught Postgraduate students should attend all arranged Dissertation Supervision meetings. Students should make contact with their supervisor at least once every three weeks.

These meetings will take place face to face by default. A maximum of two meetings can take place online if it is agreed between the supervisor and the student.

Absence from meetings

Supervisors record your attendance at Dissertation Supervision meetings. If you miss a meeting the LUBS Attendance Team will contact you to request an explanation. If you need further support the Team can offer this as required.

Repeated failure to attend supervision meetings could have implications for Student Visa holders.

Recording an absence

If you are unable to attend a supervision meeting, you should take the following actions:

1. Submit an absence request in Minerva using the normal process

2. Inform your Dissertation Supervisor that you cannot attend the meeting.

More information about absence from the University can be found on our Attendance pages .

Risk Assessment for Fieldwork and Research away from Leeds

Off-campus fieldwork.

All students should remain in Leeds to complete their dissertation.

Before conducting any off-campus fieldwork you must first complete this health and safety questionnaire . 

Risk ratings

The University’s Health and Safety Team will review your answers and assign a risk of low, medium or high.

Low risk - you will be informed by email that no further action is required, and you will be able to conduct your fieldwork as planned.

Medium or high risk - together with your Dissertation Supervisor will be asked by the Health and Safety Team to provide some additional information about the fieldwork. You may be required to complete a Fieldwork Risk Assessment, with guidance from the Health and Safety Team

Please note that a fieldwork questionnaire and/or risk assessment only approve a student to be away from Leeds for the sole purpose of fieldwork and for the specific time period required to conduct it.

Change of Location

By registering on a Masters programme, students agree to remain in Leeds for the full 12-months .

Under exceptional circumstances it may be possible to leave Leeds early. If this applies to you, please contact the Attendance Team at [email protected] for advice. You will be required to complete a change of location form , which must be signed and approved by your Dissertation Supervisor and the LUBS Student Education Service

Forms are only accepted after 11 August - please do not submit a form before this date

International Students

By leaving Leeds early, international students may have their sponsorship withdrawn. Please contact the International Student Advice Team for further information before completing the change of location form.

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Submitting your final eThesis

It is common practice both in the UK and internationally to deposit your thesis in an open access repository, making it available to a wide audience.  

Please see the Guide to the thesis submission process on the Policies and Procedures page of the SES website for more information on the processes explained on this webpage.     

All postgraduate researchers (PGRs) must submit their successful thesis for retention in the University Library in White Rose eTheses Online (WREO) . The University of Leeds has withdrawn the requirement to submit a hard bound copy of your final, corrected thesis for the award of your degree. You only need to upload your thesis to WREO.   

Following a successful examination, PGRs may have their final thesis proof-read by a third party as part of any corrections to the thesis after the viva. You can find out more about proof-reading in the Postgraduate Research Proof Reading Policy and Guidance on the Policies and Procedures page of the SES website . 

You should only upload your thesis after your internal examiner has approved the correction of any editorial and presentational corrections or minor deficiencies identified at your examination. Please see the University Library website for further advice on the upload process. You will not be able to make any changes to the uploaded file, so you must ensure you are uploading the correct version that has been approved by your internal examiner. 

Deadlines for submission of the eThesis are as follows: 

If the award of the degree was made without corrections, your eThesis must be submitted no later than one month after the oral examination.   

If you have made editorial and presentational corrections or minor deficiencies, the deadline is no later than one month after the corrections are approved.   

Once you've uploaded your eThesis, a confirmation email will be sent to you, your supervisor(s) and Doctoral College Operations (DCO). Your eThesis will not be made live until after your degree has been awarded and your name has appeared on a pass list. However, if you've placed an embargo on access to your thesis, your eThesis will not go live until after the embargo has expired. Please see the ‘Restricting access to your eThesis’ section further down on this page for more information on embargo arrangements. 

eThesis format 

One complete PDF eThesis file MUST be supplied as follows: 

This must be a single PDF file of the final, corrected thesis approved by your internal examiner for the award of your degree (including all appendices). 

On opening the file the first page accessed should be the title page of the thesis. 

The ethesis should be given a standard filename: Surname & initials, school, degree, year of submission, for example: Smith_ABC_Chemistry_PhD_2020.PDF. 

Please note that the filename will be visible to anyone accessing your eThesis through WREO. For this reason it is important that you follow the filename format given here and do not include other information in the filename (for example your 9 digit student ID number). 

To help ensure longer-term digital preservation of your thesis, it is strongly recommended that you also provide your thesis in its original source file format (e.g. Word, LaTex). The PDF file is the version of your thesis that will be made live in WREO and accessible by users, after any embargo period has expired.  

If you are a practice-led researcher your eThesis will comprise both the written commentary and the related practice material. You must upload both the written commentary (as a single PDF file) and all the practice material in appropriate electronic files (for example pdf, jpeg, mp3) to White Rose eTheses Online. Please refer to the practice-led policy for your faculty/school on the Research Degrees Codes of Practice page on the SES website . 

Restricting access to your eThesis

Wherever possible, theses should be made ‘open access’. However, in some cases immediate access to a thesis may not be possible and you might need to add a temporary embargo. Examples include where the thesis includes confidential or politically sensitive information; where the thesis includes commercially sensitive information or where you are planning to publish part of your thesis. Access to the full text of your thesis can normally be restricted for one, two, three, or five years. In the case of a patent pending or in other exceptional circumstances, it may be possible to embargo your thesis for longer. If you think this might be necessary, you should consult with your supervisor. A case must be made by your Director of Postgraduate Research Studies to the Progression and Examinations Group. 

Decisions on whether an embargo is required and how long is appropriate should be taken in consultation with your supervisor(s). Therefore, before you upload your eThesis you must discuss the retention of thesis arrangements with your supervisor(s).  

Please see the Guide to the thesis examination process for more detailed information on thesis embargo arrangements. 

Copyright permissions & redacted eTheses 

Please consult the University Library website for further advice on copyrighted material. You are expected to make all reasonable efforts to seek permission to include third party copyright material in the electronic version of your thesis. However, if you've not been able to obtain the permission of the copyright holder, you must prepare two versions of your eThesis: 

eThesis 1 - A “complete eThesis” - a single file including the final, corrected content of your thesis (as approved by your examiners). 

eThesis 2 – A “redacted eThesis” file with any third-party copyright material redacted and replaced with a statement such as "This image has been removed by the author of this thesis for copyright reasons”. If possible, when removing material from the digital copy, a placeholder should be included to retain the pagination of the original document. 

In all cases, one complete eThesis file must be supplied and held by the University but will not be made available online. 

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Welcome to White Rose eTheses Online

White rose etheses online.

Welcome to White Rose eTheses Online, a shared repository of electronic theses from the University of Leeds, the University of Sheffield and the University of York.

Student from the University of Leeds, Sheffield or York? Need to upload your thesis? Start by creating an account , or login to your account

If you are unsure if this is the right place for you, check the FAQs .

Recent additions for Leeds , Sheffield , York or all recent additions .

What is White Rose eTheses Online?

This repository gives access to theses awarded by the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York. The available repository content can be accessed for free, without the need to log on or create an account, as per the instructions of the depositing author. We also make the content available through aggregator sites via harvesting mechanisms.

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Dissertation support from Skills for Learning

The Library's Skills for Learning team has lots of tips for writing a successful dissertation:

It’s never too late!

Some of you will be nearing the finish line. Others may have barely started. Whatever stage you’re at with your dissertation, there’s still time to pull it round into a solid piece of academic work .

Begin by putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard).  When approaching a tricky section or chapter, i t’s OK to splurge out ideas on the page to start with  ( although these will need organising and refining later ) . G etting  started  is often  the  biggest  hurdle .

Use dictation software

If you're struggling to organise your  thought s, you might want to try ‘speaking’ them instead. Nowadays, Word has Dictate built into both desktop and online versions  so you can speak your text at the click of a button. 

T his can be a  helpf ul starting point if you have lots of ideas . O nce you have  some  text  on the page , you can begin to  work  out what’s useful and what ’s not.

Planning will save you time

Once you have an idea of what to write,  make a plan . Y our work will be far more organised if you plan each section/chapter and stick to it. It’s important for your work to be well structured and logical – things that are hard to achieve without a plan in mind.

See the Skills for Learning Essay Writing web page   for planning techniques .

Write about what interests you

It's likely that you will find more information about your topic than you could possibly need. How can you be selective? By choosing the part of your topic that captures your imagination. You're much more likely to write convincingly if you're passionate about your subject. Just be sure to select appropriate evidence to support the points you're making.

If you're having the opposite problem - too little information - your topic might be too specific or you might not be looking in the right places. Take a look at the subject guides or contact your Academic Librarian  if you need help finding resources. You can speak to your supervisor for advice on refining your topic.

Don’t forget to edit and proofread

One of the  most common errors students make is submitting assignments without re-reading them. It’s even more important to make time to edit and proofread a dissertation. Longer pieces of work must be checked carefully to ensure your argument is clear, your evidence is sound, and your spelling, grammar and layout are accurate.

Attend a Dissertations Workshop

For more tips and information , come along to  a Skills for Learning dissertations workshop . Ou r friendly Academic Skills Tutors will focus on  dissertation content, styl e and language. It’s also the perfect opportunity to ask   your burning dissertation-related  questions. Look out for the sessions and  book your place via MyHub .

You can also check the Skills for Learning Dissertations & Literature Reviews web page  for more advice and resources. 

Originally published March 2021. Updated October 2023.

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Enzo Maresca, Chelsea and the chess thesis that explains his football vision

Pawn Sacrifice came out in cinemas a decade ago. In phonetical terms, it sounds more Soho than Chelsea.

But a blue movie, it wasn’t. Nor was it a box-office hit. The film, like Chelsea, dramatically underperformed its estimated budget. Tobey Maguire and Liev Schreiber were in the leading roles and it still flopped. But Enzo Maresca enjoyed the re-telling of Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky’s ‘Match of the Century’ for the meeting of minds as much as the Cold War intrigue that surrounded a chess match in Reykjavik in 1972.

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Towards the end of his playing career, Maresca began studying chess. He found a teacher while in Palermo and must, in time, have learned the finer details of the Sicilian Defence and Fegatello, the delectably named ‘Fried Liver Attack’.

It goes without saying that managers at Chelsea have become chopped liver very quickly in the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital era. Maresca is expected to be their sixth in two years if you count a forlorn and fleeting interim like Bruno Saltor, a sequence of events that brings the Italian term for checkmate to mind: Scacco Matto. ‘Matto’ means bonkers, crazy. But we digress.

Maresca thought learning the rudiments of chess would prepare him for management. Anyone strolling around the library at Coverciano, the Italian Football Federation’s coaching school on the outskirts of Florence, which is to UEFA Pro Licences what Harvard Business School is to MBAs, can pull down his thesis and read about how the hypermodern Nimzo-Indian defence used by every world chess champion since Jose Raul ‘The Human Chess Machine’ Capablanca relates to Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City sides.

“A coach can only benefit from acquiring the mind of a good chess player,” Maresca argued. “The proof being the development of a number of mental skills” that are excellent for “the prefrontal cortex”.

He listed them as “gaining the dexterity to devise tactics and strategy, improve creativity (important for the surprise factor)” not to mention the way the game “facilitates concentration.” The 44-year-old also claimed: “Chess teaches you to control the initial excitement when you see something good and trains you to think objectively when you see yourself in danger.”

No doubt having paid Garry Kasparov-like attention to how Chelsea have recently been run, Maresca still somehow deduced that a potentially reputation-toppling move away from Leicester could be worth it, irrespective of the experiences of Thomas Tuchel, Graham Potter and Mauricio Pochettino. One can only deduce he thinks he’s playing chess, the kind that beats Deep Blue and AI models like AlphaZero, while those guys were playing checkers.

As the opening gambits about Maresca’s judgement (or lack thereof) in taking the job draw to a close, the parallels he makes with chess are, in all seriousness, well observed.

“The chess board is like a football pitch that can be divided into three channels — a central one and two external ones,” he highlighted. “In football as in chess, an inside game can be more interesting as it’s the quickest and most direct towards goal or the king.”

Controlling the middle is fundamental, as Guardiola emphasised to Maresca during his time on his staff, either directly through classic midfielders a la Xavi, Sergio Busquets and Andres Iniesta or indirectly with inverted full-backs a la Philipp Lahm or Rico Lewis acting like knights in chess. Build up through the middle and the pitch opens up like the board, the angles of attack become manifold.

In football terms, the Italian Maresca is influenced by the Spanish juego de posicion .  He cites Paul Morphy, the Johan Cruyff to Fischer’s Guardiola, on the “ability to see combinations clearly” and how “the positional game is, first and foremost, the ability to arrange the pieces in the most effective way.”

Then there’s the surprise element to chess, which in football terms, again might be considered being on the cusp of taking the Chelsea job as an up-and-coming coach. Maresca instead sees it as the little tweaks from game to game or within a game that can force an opponent to play to their weaknesses and lose confidence and time.

Chelsea given permission to speak to Maresca, expected to agree contract

“During a world chess championship game in 1991, Viktor Korchnoi took an hour and 20 minutes in making his 13th movement in response to an unexpected variation by his rival Anatoly Karpov,” Maresca explained. “Karpov’s move was not checkmate but the time advantage he gained by surprising his rival was definitely decisive. Korchnoi needed to reorganise and revise his strategy and tactics.”

So many Soviets feature in Maresca’s thesis, one imagines Roman Abramovich and Marina Granovskaia, Chelsea’s former owner and chief executive respectively, would have been every bit as impressed as Boehly and Behdad Eghbali.

He could become the seventh Italian to bestride the dugout at Stamford Bridge. Two of them won the league, one the Champions League, another the Europa League . All of them, perhaps with the exception of a fellow West Brom alumnus Roberto Di Matteo, were more experienced than Maresca and operated within a club with a different owner who spent big but in a more rational and effective way.

Maresca is expected to arrive on the back of winning the Championship with Leicester after threatening the 100-point barrier. He even came within a game of matching a 104-year record for the most second-division wins (32) in a single season. Some call it Marescaball. His supervisor at Coverciano would probably define it Maresca pawn.

On the face of it, he seems part of the new wave of Italian coaching, which has washed Francesco Farioli up at Ajax and led Juventus to settle on Thiago Motta. He was at the table for that famous meal in Manchester featuring Guardiola, Roberto De Zerbi, Daniele De Rossi and Aleksandar Kolarov — not as Pep’s guest but as one of his assistants. The halo effect that comes from working with the Catalan can dazzle employers. Mikel Arteta’s success at Arsenal upon leaving Guardiola’s staff led Parma to offer Maresca a job when he was the coach of City’s elite development squad.

It did not work out.

Maresca inherited a team disoriented by the enthusiasm of new American owners who spent lavishly (€80million!) on unknown youngsters from all over the world (particularly Argentina and Romania) and, unable to put their fingers on what was going wrong, sacked a couple of managers in their first season. The flux was so great even players of Joshua Zirkzee ’s potential didn’t shine and Parma surprisingly went down. Maresca was asked to pick up the pieces in Serie B and, more specifically, to turn a couple dozen individuals into a team. Sounds relatively familiar, doesn’t it?

Despite having the highest wage bill in the second division, Maresca was fired within a matter of months. He left Parma with 17 points from 13 games, narrowly outside the relegation play-out spot to avoid Serie C.

Upon reflection, Maresca still called it a “positive experience”. His qualms were a lack of patience (“They gave me a three-year contract, and when you do a multi-year contract it’s because there’s a project idea behind it) and unrealistic expectations (“No one ever told me that in the first year we should have gone to Serie A , all the more so when 15 or so new players arrive in the summer”).

Still, the local media criticised him for using players such as Simon Sohm out of position and, having complained about the disruption of too much transfer activity, he still had the nerve to insist: “Parma could have made the play-offs with the three players we identified for the January transfer window.”

Chelsea fans, this is Enzo Maresca – the leading candidate to replace Pochettino

The scars he suffered at the Ennio Tardini made Maresca think twice about taking the Leicester job last summer. “I was a little fearful,” he told Gazzetta dello Sport, “because it resembled Parma: a big club had been relegated and there was huge pressure to immediately bounce back.”

But Leicester set a record pace out of the blocks and finished the first half of the season with 58 points, a testament to Maresca’s impact but also the sort of spending that led the Premier League to refer the club to an independent commission for an alleged PSR breach and for failing to submit their audited financial accounts to the league for the 2022-23 season, when they were still in the top flight.

Automatic promotion was not all plain sailing. After a 3-1 win against Swansea in January, Maresca was frustrated by the King Power’s exasperation with the somnolent side of his tiki-taka style. “Probably when you win, win, win at home, and you continue to win, people think it’s easy. But it’s not easy. I arrive in this club to play with this idea. The moment there is some doubt about the idea, the day after, I will leave. It’s so clear. No doubts.”

He did not appreciate the failure to sign Stefano Sensi on loan from Inter Milan after Chelsea recalled Cesare Casadei and Wilfred Ndidi suffered an injury. Leicester’s second half of the season yielded 39 points, enough to get over the line in first place but a drop-off that looked like it might spiral after defeats to Middlesbrough , Leeds and Queens Park Rangers in the spring.

Unlike Ipswich Town , who punched well above their weight to return to the Premier League for the first time in 22 years, Leicester met expectations. After all, having 18-goal Jamie Vardy in the Championship felt like a cheat code even with him now firmly in the twilight of his career. Chelsea, meanwhile, evidently share Maresca’s view that promotion was not as easy as it seemed. That Chelsea and the former midfielder have settled on one another, frankly, remains a surprise.

To return to chess terminology, neither found themselves in Zugzwang: a situation wherein any move can only weaken one’s position and carries the risk of checkmate — but not moving isn’t an option. Chelsea, for instance, didn’t need to sack Pochettino. Maresca wasn’t obliged to leave Leicester.

Having lost the benefit of the doubt, it’s only fair to second-guess these grandmasters.

Enzo Maresca: Growing up with De Zerbi, playing like Gazza and why he's 'worth' the risk

(Top photo: David Rogers/Getty Images)

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James Horncastle covers Serie A for The Athletic. He joins from ESPN and is working on a book about Roberto Baggio.

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