Hi Lewis,

Like an essay, a literary analysis dissertation should include an introduction and a conclusion. The body text should be divided into chapters with clear headings (2 or 3 body chapters would generally be appropriate for a dissertation of this length). Apart from that, there are no set rules for the structure – it just needs to be logically organized.

If you’re analyzing several longer texts, you could focus on one text per chapter; if you’re working with more than one author, you could focus on a different author per chapter; if you’re working on a wider variety of texts (or on a single text), you can organize the chapters by theme or topic.

It might help to think of your dissertation as a series of smaller interrelated essays: each chapter should have a logical internal structure of its own, with an introduction and conclusion paragraph. In the main introduction and conclusion, you should make it clear how all the chapters fit together and contribute to your overall argument.

I hope that’s helpful!