Writing your dissertation limitations

You may be thinking “why would I want to criticise my dissertation?”. It’s understandable that having spent a lot of time and effort researching and writing a dissertation anyone would feel reluctant to then talk about the limitations of their work.

The marker wants to see that you can acknowledge limitations and explain how these have impacted your research. A good researcher should be able to identify ways their research can be improved. This demonstrates that you have a strong understanding of your research topic and the methodology adopted.

What are some common areas of limitation? 

Limitations can arise from several areas of your dissertation such as within your research methodology, your literature review or the topic you decided to research. 

• Lack of previous research
• Limited scope
• Research method adopted
• Issues with the data collection tool used
• Limited sample size
• Time constraints
• Limited access to data
• Lack of funding

Writing your limitations section

Your limitations section is typically included as part of the conclusion chapter and should be around 250-500 words. When beginning this section you should, first of all, identify the research limitations impacting your dissertation.

Useful phrases for your limitations section:

• This research has certain limitations which need to be considered…
• The findings of this research are impacted by certain limitations…
• There are some limitations which impact this study…
• There are several major limitations of this study which need to be addressed…
• The main limitation of this research is…
• It may be interesting for future research to consider…
• These limitations can offer a basis for further research…

More Like This: Useful phrases for your dissertation

Let’s take a look at an example:

Emma’s dissertation examines the impact of social media marketing on the sale of soft drinks in the United Kingdom. She carried out qualitative research by interviewing 15 soft drink consumers based in the UK. 

What are the limitations of Emma’s research? 

First of all, there are limitations arising from the research method chosen by Emma. As she chose to gather qualitative data in the form of interviews, her findings cannot be presented statistically. 

Emma’s dissertation examines social media marketing’s impact on soft drink sales. Therefore, she is excluding other forms of marketing such as email marketing, online advertising or content marketing. Also, Emma focused her research on consumers in the UK therefore her findings are based solely on the views of people in the UK. People from other countries may have a different viewpoint which could have influenced her research. 

All of these limitations provide areas for future research. For instance, future research could consider other forms of marketing or widen the scope to include other countries. 

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