The Dissertation：An Architecture Students Handbook（Second Edition）Presenting.pdf

5 Presenting The presentation of the final dissertation is obviously an integral part of the assignment. After all the hard work selecting, researching, develop- ing and writing your dissertation, this is the final stage necessary to ensure that you present your efforts in the best possible manner. It is surprising, however, how many dissertations are let down at this stage by relatively small errors which detract from what would otherwise be a much better product. Architecture students can occasionally be some- what slap-dash with their dissertation in a way that they would never countenance for their design work as drawings, models or renderings. General Presentation In most cases, dissertations are not intended as exercises in graphic or typographic design, so considerable efforts in this direction will not usu- ally gain extra marks from the examiners (although a different set of cri- teria may apply to the kinds of alternative dissertation discussed in Chapter 4). Nonetheless, all dissertations, of whatever format, should meet certain standards. You should consider the following: ● Multiple copies. You probably will have to submit more than one copy of your dissertation, so if your architecture school asks for three copies of your dissertation, give them that number. Many schools return one copy to you. In many institutions, one of the sub- mitted copies can be a ‘best version’ or ‘top copy’ containing, for example, full-colour or laser-copied illustrations, while the others can be of a slightly lower reproduction standard. If this is the case, 70 Presenting 71 you may want to check in advance that the superior versio