Know-How Exchange : Student Questions

Satish,

The topic for your dissertation is really more up to you than anyone else! You're not writing a best seller - where it's important to know what's of interest to people. That's not very important at all. Keep in mind that the main purpose for your dissertation is to educate YOU. With this in mind, you want to pick an area of great interest to you. Maybe in one of your classes, you had a topic that inspired you and made you say, "Wow! I want to know more!" Your passion for the topic is very important! You will be living with this subject day and night for a long time. If you aren't interested, you will lose drive to finish the dissertation strong. So what are you interested in knowing more about?

The second purpose of your dissertation is to further the knowledge in the field. Your dissertation will be published to your peers. They should learn something new. To understand how to do this, you pick a general topic and propose in your mind an area to explore. Using this topic area, you then research other peer reviewed papers - conference and organization proceedings, other dissertations, and so forth. Look at what was already explored and then look for areas in which you have questions. Propose a hypothesis. A hypothesis has two answers: You fail to disprove it or you disprove it. Either way, you have furthered the knowledge in the industry. And either way, you can suggest areas of further exploration. These two results are very good for the academic world.

The third area governing what topic you pick is your dissertation advisor. You have to discuss your ideas with him to make sure he agrees with your thoughts. He/she will be looking at the topic to make sure it's not too broad - so that you can handle it within the time you have. He/she will also look to make sure it's worthy of a dissertation. He won't accept a "literature review" - that's like a grade school book report and has very little value to anyone. He won't want to see that you'd be redoing someone else's dissertation or paper - you wouldn't be furthering knowledge if it already exists.

I hope this helps.

Wayde

Dear satish.modi,

Vague.

That's the overall context (or lack of it) that your question implies.
You might as well ask for water that's wet, or sand that's sandy. Can't you do any better than this?

As Wayde points out, what you write about is up to you but in order to provide any information that might be the least bit beneficial to you YOU need to offer more:

Context.
Personal interest.
Directional desire.
Specific market information.
Indication of effort you've already put in.
Indication of effort you are WILLING to put in.
Areas of study you've already covered and ENJOYED.

And some indication that you have even the remotest interest
in helping yourself. See, no one on this forum can do the work—YOUR WORK—for you. You must be willing to help yourself and
you can begin by asking a question that is actually a question, because: "Topic for dissertation related to fmcg companies" is
a flat statement.

Harsh? Yes. But it seems to me that many students come to this forum expecting everything to be laid out before them, almost as
if this were some kind of professional or academic smorgasbord from which they pick and choose, taking advantage of the labours and efforts of others while THEY get e free ride.

Alas, life is not like that, and if you wobble into the world of
work with the same kind of attitude you'll soon be in for a wide awakening. Please come back with more detailed information on your interests and on the work you've already done, THEN you'll hear more and read of greater benefits.

What goes in must come out and at the moment you're exhibiting that very little has gone in. Be proactive and you'll get better results, results that can actually help you.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA