CFAS490 Masters Dissertations

For M.Sc. Quantitive Methods students
The M.Sc. Quantitive Methods dissertations are completed over the Summer to be handed in during September. The time to start thinking about the dissertation is around the Easter break. There are three important dates in this process:
  1. Dissertation writing morning - Wednesday 13th June 2010 - A54 PSC: this comprises a sequence of talks, question and answer sessions, and demonstrations, given by Robert Blake from CELT and members of the statistics staff, on what makes a good dissertation, how to research for, and write one. The dissertation writing morning makes use of several past dissertations with which all those attending should be familiar, and is attended by all Mathematics & Statistics masters students. A timetable for this session can be found here. Further details can be found below
  2. Dissertation presentation - early-September 2012 - A54 PSC: In the latter stages of writing, but before submission of the dissertation, each student will present a 10-15 minute talk on the subject matter encompassed by their research work using appropriate support materials. Here is the the timetable for these presentations.
  3. Dissertation hand in - mid-September 2012: hand into Angela Mercer (B78 PSC) before 12:00.
The process starts just before the end of the Lent term when I e-mail each and every student and ask them to think up some ideas for their dissertation. We then find a suitable supervisor from the Applied Statistics section staff, and the student will work closely with that supervisor to research, and write their dissertation.

The process ends in mid September when the dissertations are handed in and marked, in the first instance, by the dissertation supervisor, then second marked by another member of staff. They are then passed to the external examiner for review.

A final part to the dissertation process is the oral presentation. Each student will be expected to give a 10-15 minute talk on the content of their dissertation to an assembly of their fellow students, and members of staff. Use of the presentation facilities in A54 will be expected, and the oral presentation will be considered when awarding a mark to the dissertation as a whole.
For all M.Sc. students (M.Sc. QM and Statistics)

Dissertation writing morning - 13th June 2012 A54 PSC

The dissertation writing morning is intended to refresh student's memories about writing an extended piece of work of original research. The dissertation writing morning will discuss good practices for dissertation writing in the context of several past dissertations (below). A timetable for the dissertation writing morning can be found here.

The past dissertations with which participants should familiarise themselves are:
Missing ordinal data in the social sciences Missing data
The eruptive activity of Mount Etna Mount Etna
Seasonal variation and fine particulate matter Seasonal variation
Bibliography and appendices for ordinal data dissertation Bibliography
The following will also be discussed during the course of the morning:
Investigating a past dissertation Investigating dissertations
An example of an abstract Abstract


These documents will be of some more general use:
Writing morning timetable Timetable
Robert Blake's presentation on dissertation management Dissertation management
The structure of a scientific dissertation Dissertation structure
How to write a dissertation while you research Writing as you research
A reading list for scientific writing Bibliography
Guidelines for writing the dissertation Writing guidelines

Technical issues

Here are some resources which are of a specifically technical nature:
WikiBooks LaTeX Wiki Wiki
The UK LaTeX FAQ FAQ
Comprehensive Tex Archive Network CTAN
Word and page numbering - we do not recommend students use Word to write their dissertations, however, for those who insist upon doing so here are some guidelines on page numbering. Page numbering