All 6 Uses

dissertation
in
The Namesake
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Like Ashoke, busy with his teaching and research and dissertation seven days a week, she, too, now has something to occupy her fully, to demand her utmost devotion, her last ounce of strength.†
Chpt 2 *
She speaks of her students, the topic for the dissertation she plans to write, about twentieth-century francophone poets from Algeria.†
Chpt 8
But Gogol and Moushumi aren't thinking of children at the moment, certainly not until Moushumi finishes her dissertation.†
Chpt 9
He doesn't care about their dissertation topics, or their dietary restrictions, or the color of their walls.†
Chpt 9
There's a third thing worth celebrating but which she hasn't mentioned — she's been awarded a research fellowship to work on her dissertation in France for the year.†
Chpt 10
Though she still has a dissertation to write, still has an adviser to monitor her progress, she feels unmoored already, somehow beyond the world that has defined and structured and limited her for so long.†
Chpt 10

Definitions:

(1) (dissertation)
a lengthy academic paper -- especially a scholarly work required for an advanced academic degree
(2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)