Thesis or Dissertation Chapter 1: What to Include and How to Write It

Chapter 1 makes promises, and the rest of the dissertation is judged by whether it keeps them. Your committee reads it to find out what you are studying, why it needs studying, and what you will do about it.

The name and contents differ between institutions. Some call it the introduction, some separate out a background chapter, and some require set headings in a fixed order. Check your graduate school's guidelines before you plan. What follows covers the parts that appear in most versions.

The parts, in the order they build

Background. The background places your topic in context. It tells the reader what is already known in broad terms and moves toward your problem. It does not review the literature in detail. That is the work of Chapter 2.

Problem statement. This is the most important paragraph in the chapter. It names what is unresolved, says who is affected, and shows with evidence that the problem is real. Many students write a topic where a problem belongs. "Teacher retention in rural schools" is a topic. A problem statement says what is happening, to whom, and what remains unknown about it, and then cites the sources that establish it.

Purpose statement. The purpose statement says what the study will do about the problem. It names the approach (qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods), the population or setting, and the focus of the inquiry. The verb carries weight. "Explore" and "describe" promise a different study from "test" or "predict," and your committee will check that the verb matches your design.

Research questions or hypotheses. These turn the purpose into questions the study can answer. Each question must be answerable with the data you plan to collect. Quantitative studies add hypotheses. Qualitative studies seldom do.

Significance. Say who benefits from the findings and how, whether in theory, practice, or policy. A single study supports a modest claim, and your committee will notice a larger one.

Definitions, scope, and limits. Define any term that carries more than one meaning in your field or that you use in a particular way. Delimitations are the boundaries you chose, such as a population or a time frame. Limitations are constraints you did not choose. Assumptions are the conditions you accept as true so the study can proceed. Some programs place these in Chapter 3, so confirm where yours belong.

Organization. A short paragraph telling the reader what each remaining chapter does.

How the first four parts hold each other up

The background shows that a problem exists. The problem statement names it. The purpose statement says what you will do. The research questions make that purpose answerable. Weaken one and the next has nothing to stand on.

The failures are easy to spot once you know where to look. A problem statement describes one topic while the purpose statement studies another. A purpose says "explore" and the research questions ask for comparisons. A question in Chapter 1 about student motivation becomes a question about student engagement by Chapter 4, and your committee asks whether you mean two things. Read the problem, purpose, and questions one after the other and ask at each step how the next follows from the one before. If a committee member could answer "but how does that follow?" between any two, revise.

Writing it

Begin with the field and narrow toward your study, so each paragraph sits closer to your problem than the last. Support the problem statement with sources, because a problem resting on opinion invites questions. Keep your terms fixed. Pick one name for each idea and use it from this chapter to the last.

Keep the chapter in proportion. It introduces the study and leaves the detailed discussion of sources and procedures to Chapters 2 and 3. And write it last, or at least revise it last. When the study is finished you know what it did, and Chapter 1 should describe that study, not the one you planned.

Our article on whether your introduction is doing its job goes further into how the chapter sets up your argument, and Chapter 2 picks up from where this one stops.

If you want an independent read on whether your problem, purpose, and research questions line up, a chapter review gives you written feedback and recommendations. The argument stays yours.