Blog
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What Do You Do When Your Statistical Assumptions Fail? (2026)
Your normality test came back significant, Levene’s failed, or your VIFs are enormous. What each failed assumption actually means, the specific fallback for each one, and how to write it up so a marker reads competence rather than panic.
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How to Run an Independent-Samples T-Test in SPSS and Report It Properly (2026)
Run an independent-samples t-test in SPSS from data entry to the finished results paragraph — which row of the output to read, where the effect size comes from, and the exact APA sentence a UK marker expects.
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Cloud Storage and Version History for a Dissertation Compared (2026): How Not to Lose Nine Months of Work
Dropbox Basic keeps 30 days of version history. Google Drive may delete an uploaded file’s older versions after 30 days or 100 newer versions. Your university OneDrive’s retention is set by its administrators, and trimmed versions bypass the recycle bin.…
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Who Marks Your Dissertation, and How Is It Moderated? The Published UK Rules (2026)
No UK regulator requires your dissertation to be double-marked, and the external examining principles say plainly that they are not mandatory. What governs your mark is your own university’s moderation policy — and three named institutions publish incompatible rules on…
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What Happens If You Fail Your Dissertation? UK Rules and What the Data Shows (2026)
No UK body publishes a dissertation failure rate — the national data measures whole degrees, not single assessments. What the OfS actually publishes, and the resit, capping and compensation rules at three named universities that decide what happens to you.
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What Is an Acceptable Cronbach’s Alpha for a Dissertation? (2026)
What counts as an acceptable Cronbach’s alpha in a UK dissertation, where the .70 rule actually came from — and why Nunnally, the man everyone cites for it, argued for considerably higher values most of the time.
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How to Do a Thematic Analysis for Your Dissertation: The Six Phases, Step by Step (2026)
Braun and Clarke’s six phases of thematic analysis worked through step by step for a UK undergraduate dissertation, with the expected output of each phase — plus the topic-summary mistake that costs the most marks, and what not to write…
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What Happens If You Are Accused of Academic Misconduct on Your Dissertation?
You are notified in writing and given the evidence, you get a meeting to respond, and the university decides on the balance of probabilities — not beyond reasonable doubt. The stages, the time limits, who may sit with you, the…
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How Many References Should a Dissertation Have?
No UK university sets a number, and marking criteria never mention one — they grade breadth, range and synthesis. What LSE and Edinburgh actually reward, a working heuristic for how many sources a dissertation carries, and what to do if…
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Dissertation Proofreading Services UK Compared (2026): Check Your Own Policy First
UK universities do not agree on whether you may pay a proofreader at all — Reading forbids it, Nottingham requires a declaration, Sheffield Hallam allows it by default. The named services compared, what they actually publish about price, and the…