Undergraduate
Final-year projects and extended essays. Usually the first long piece of independent research a student has written, and the first time structure really decides the grade.
- Research question
- Chapter plan
- Referencing
Who and what we cover
Dissertation work is about argument and evidence, so the subject matters less than the research design. These are the areas, referencing styles and universities we read most often.
Who we work with
Final-year projects and extended essays. Usually the first long piece of independent research a student has written, and the first time structure really decides the grade.
Taught Master's dissertations written to a tight timetable, where methodology and critical depth carry most of the marks.
Longer research projects, upgrade documents and thesis chapters that need a consistent argument across many thousands of words.
Subjects & standards
Dissertation support is about argument and evidence, so the subject matters less than the research design. These are the areas we work in most often.
(Smith, 2024, p. 14)
The default in most business and social science departments. Author and date in brackets, the full entry at the end.
(Smith & Jones, 2024)
Psychology, education and the health sciences. Close to Harvard, but the small rules differ and markers notice.
Jane Smith, A Title (London, 2024), p. 14.
Arts and humanities. Footnotes rather than brackets, so the page stays readable and the detail sits underneath.
Smith v Jones [2024] UKSC 1
Law. Cases, statutes and no full stops in abbreviations. A neutral citation set out wrongly is an easy mark to lose.
as shown previously [3].
Medicine and nursing. Sources are numbered in the order they first appear, which makes late edits risky.
Smith, A Title (Chicago, 2024), 14.
History and parts of the humanities. Notes and bibliography, or author and date, depending on the department.
reported in [7].
Engineering and computer science. Numbered like Vancouver, with its own rules for conference papers.
Whatever yours says.
Where a handbook disagrees with the published style guide, the handbook wins. Send us yours and we follow it.
UK institutions
Marking criteria, word-count conventions and handbook rules differ by institution and often by department. We read your own criteria before we read your draft.
Where the institutions on this list sit. Criteria differ far more between departments than between cities.
Not listed? That changes nothing. Send your marking criteria and we work from those.
Get started
Tell us where you are. Even a half-finished chapter and a deadline is enough to start from.
