We have just completed our spring dissertation roadshows. We had two sessions one in Pathfoot and one in the library.
If you were not able to make these sessions, don’t worry you can still access all of the resources and help that we were advertising.
We have a module on UniDesk (which you access via the portal – or you can directly access the support pages here. )
Research
Each faculty has a librarian who is able to help with finding articles, locating data, research methods, using the library, evaluating resources, referencing and accessing other libraries.
There are also specific subject guides, which give pointers to help you find information and give tips on searching for journal articles. all subject guides can be accessed here. We also have an information and research skills guide, which can be accessed here.
You can also make an appointment with your subject specialist via the subject guides, just select your librarian and click on the book an appointment.
Your Academic Liaison Librarians
- Helen Beardsley – Faculty of Arts and Humanities, excluding Law.
- Clare Crowley – Faculty of Social sciences and Psychology, and Health Sciences and Sport (acting)
- Shirley Millar – Faculty of Natural Sciences and Law, Stirling Management School (acting)
Sometimes the library will not have all of the materials that you need for your dissertation. You should still be able to access everything you need by using ArticleRequest and the Document Delivery Service.
- ArticleRequest – ArticleRequest is a service for staff and students to obtain journal articles that are not held by the library.
- Document Delivery Service – the document delivery network allows the University of Stirling to borrow items from other libraries in the UK and abroad.
You will probably need to reference your dissertation, we have a guide to give help with referencing and if you are struggling contact your librarian who should be able to help you.
Writing
Once you have all of your research together and you are ready to start word processing your dissertation you can access a series of template documents, You can access these via the UniDesk dissertation module. You should check your module handbook to find out if your dissertation has any particular formatting guidelines.
LinkedInLearning (available from the portal) has very useful learner paths that can help you with word processing long documents.
If you are struggling with formatting your dissertation we have support sessions on Wednesday afternoons. Please email us before you come in so that our specialist can ascertain what level of help you may need (email us at information.centre@stir.ac.uk).
You can submit your dissertation to the similarity checking space in your dissertation module in Canvas to receive a similarity report. Anything you submit to the Similarity checking space WILL NOT be added to the Turnitin document repository so will not affect the final similarity report when you submit your dissertation for real.
Printing
So you have managed to do your research, and write and word-process your dissertation now you are at the point where you need to print and bind your document. You may be required by your department to print your dissertation on higher-quality paper. The dissertation printers (with 100gsm paper) are located in Cottrell 2A18. You will need to send your print job to dissertation-Black or Dissertation-Colour. These will already be preloaded on the lab computers or laptop loan PCs. If you need help adding these queues to your own personal device please pop into the Information Centre.
Graphics and Print Services on campus offer a dissertation (soft) binding service. You can find out information about this here.