Editing Sample: Improving a Dissertation Chapter Extract: Structure and Tone

Model Answer

Original Extract (Before)

With Tracked Changes

This chapter is going to talk about what was found regarding remote working and productivity, and try to explain what it might mean for the wider literature.This chapter discusses the findings on remote working and productivity, and explains their implications for the wider literature. Editor: Tighten the wordy, conversational opening for an academic register It was pretty surprising that a lot of the managers who were interviewed didn’t actually think remote working was bad for output, which isnt really what a lot of people expected going in based on the literature review done earlier in this dissertation.Notably, many of the managers interviewed did not consider remote working detrimental to output, which contrasts with expectations formed by the literature review presented earlier in this dissertation. Basically, the findings kind of contradict what Bloom said about remote workers being less productive, and instead they line up more with what other, more recent studies have found.The findings contradict Bloom’s (2015) claim that remote workers are less productive, aligning instead with more recent studies (Bloom et al., 2021; Gibbs et al., 2023). Editor: Add the citation year and supporting sources — an unsupported claim needs referencing Its important to note that the sample was quite small so we cant really generalise the findings to all UK businesses, which is a limitation that will be talked about more later on in this chapter.It is important to note that the sample was small, so the findings cannot be generalised to all UK businesses; this limitation is discussed further in Section 5.4.

Another thing that was found, and this is quite interesting, was that employees who had more autonomy over there own schedule reported higher job satisfaction, this seems to back up self-determination theory in a way that wasnt really expected at the start of the study.A further finding was that employees with greater autonomy over their own schedule reported higher job satisfaction. This supports self-determination theory in a way that was not anticipated at the outset of the study. Editor: Comma splice — split into two sentences and correct “there” to “their” There was also some findings about communication problems, teams that used more asynchronous tools apparently had less problems with burnout, according to some of the interviewees, although this wasnt something that was specifically asked about so its a bit of a side finding really.There were also findings relating to communication: teams that used more asynchronous tools reported fewer problems with burnout, according to interviewees, although this was not a focus of the original interview questions. Editor: Subject–verb agreement, and remove the casual aside for a more academic tone Overall the results suggest that remote working isnt automatically bad for productivity like some people think, but it depends a lot on how its managed and what tools are used, which links back nicely to the management literature discussed previously in chapter two.Overall, the results suggest that remote working is not inherently detrimental to productivity, but its effectiveness depends on management practices and the tools employed, linking back to the management literature discussed in Chapter Two. Editor: Tighten the closing sentence and capitalise the chapter reference

A final point that come out of the interviews was around trust, several managers mentioned that they only feel comfortable letting staff work remote if they already had a strong relationship with them, this ties in to what is called swift trust theory although none of the participants used this term themselves obviously.A final theme concerned trust: several managers reported feeling comfortable allowing staff to work remotely only once a strong relationship had already been established, which aligns with swift trust theory, although none of the participants used this term themselves. Editor: Run-on sentence broken up and vague filler (‘come out of’, ‘obviously’) removed It also seems like organisations that had clear written policy on remote work before the pandemic hit tended to report less problems overall compared to organisations that just made it up as they went along, which make sense when you think about it because having a policy probably means managers already thought through the risks in advance.Organisations with a clear written remote-working policy in place before the pandemic also tended to report fewer problems overall than those that developed policy reactively, suggesting that policy clarity may matter more than the sheer amount of remote working undertaken. These findings, while limited by the small sample, does suggest that policy clarity might be more important than the amount of remote working itself, this is something future research with a bigger sample could look into more, maybe using survey method instead of just interview so the results could be generalised better across different sector and company size.These findings, while limited by the small sample, indicate that future research using a larger, survey-based sample could generalise these conclusions more confidently across different sectors and company sizes.

Clean Edited Version (After)

What the Editor Changed and Why

Grammar: The extract mixed missing apostrophes (‘isnt’, ‘cant’, ‘wasnt’) with subject–verb agreement slips such as ‘There was also some findings’ and ‘these findings … does suggest’. All contractions were expanded and verb forms corrected throughout so the chapter reads as standard, error-free written English expected of a Masters-level dissertation submission.

Clarity: Hedging fillers such as ‘kind of’, ‘basically’, ‘pretty surprising’ and ‘obviously’ softened claims without adding meaning, while long run-on sentences buried separate ideas together. Removing the fillers and splitting the overloaded sentences lets each finding, including the trust theme, stand out clearly and be assessed on its own evidence.

Structure: A comma splice joined two separate findings about autonomy and self-determination theory into one overlong sentence, and a similar run-on affected the closing paragraph on trust and policy clarity. Both were split into shorter, better-signposted sentences appropriate to a discussion chapter, so each idea can be evaluated on its own merits by the reader.

Academic tone: Conversational openers and asides — ‘This chapter is going to talk about’, ‘Another thing that was found’, ‘which make sense when you think about it’ — were replaced with formal signposting language and evidence-led statements typical of a dissertation discussion chapter written for an academic examiner rather than a general reader. The revised phrasing also avoids second-person address, which is inappropriate in formal dissertation writing.

Referencing: The claim about Bloom’s research was missing a publication year, and a later claim about ‘more recent studies’ had no citation at all. Both were corrected with full Harvard in-text citations, naming the specific studies, so every claim in the chapter can be traced back to a verifiable source, which is essential at Masters level.

Consistency: ‘Chapter two’ was capitalised to ‘Chapter Two’ to match dissertation convention, vague phrases such as ‘talked about more later on’ were tightened to a precise section reference, and future research recommendations were phrased more precisely as ‘survey-based’ research using a larger, more representative sample of UK organisations.