Theses & Dissertations

Why Find Past Dissertations & Theses?

Looking at prior students' dissertations and theses can be really beneficial for several reasons:

1. Helping determine the appropriate scope of your research question.
2. Understanding the format and pacing of dissertations and theses.
3. Learning about how students have used particular methodologies.
4. Finding resources related to your topic through citation chasing.
5. Learn more about your topic, especially if it is underrepresented in peer-reviewed literature.
6. Seeing the other works your supervisor has supervised.

Local & National Databases

As a student of Adler University, you can view past theses and dissertations written by Adler students across all 3 campuses from our Adler ProQuest Database. You can search by keyword, student, or supervisor/advisor.  

We also have access to national repositories for the US and Canada where you can access theses and dissertations written by students from all over the country.

Other Places to Look

Google Scholar has many dissertations that it searches, however, there is no way to filter to only see dissertations or theses. Google Scholar can be useful when you know the name of the dissertation or theses you are looking for, but can't find the full text. 

In some cases, it can be beneficial to search other universities' dissertation and thesis repositories. You can search for universities with strong programs in the discipline you are writing about and see if they have dissertations available online.