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APA Style is a standardized writing format, established by the American Psychological Association, which doctoral students need to follow when preparing their dissertation.
If you have questions about APA formatting, look at our APA Style Guide.
You may want to buy a copy of the APA Guide to help you understand APA formatting rules:
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You (hopefully) already have an interest in some subject-matter or area within your field, but you'll need to transform that interest into a dissertation topic which isn't easy! So how to do we develop our interests into a viable dissertation topic?
The book Demystifying Dissertation Writing suggests considering these questions:
The best way to develop your topic is to join the conversation by reading the literature (See Critical Academic Reading) and discussing ideas with your advisor, faculty, and classmates.
As you develop your research project, you will want to define the key project parameters. In Designing Engaged Scholarship: From Real-World Problems to Research Publications, Mathiassen created a helpful table to aid you in defining and developing your project:
Mathiassen, L. (2017). Designing Engaged Scholarship: From Real-World Problems to Research Publications. Engaged Management ReView, 1(1), licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License.
When you first start your project, you probably won't be able to fully describe each component, but that's okay. Note which components you need to work on. As you develop your project, you will inevitably have to revise these components, so it will be helpful for you to revisit this table often. Below you will find a document with a blank table to help you get started!
