THESIS WRITING AND PRESENTATION:Write down your ideas

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Lesson 42

THESIS WRITING AND PRESENTATION

Writing and Presenting Your Thesis or Dissertation

Thinking About It

Preparing the Proposal

Conducting the Research

Writing the Research Paper

Define research

Discuss basic elements of a research paper

Sharing the Research Outcomes with Others

Revising the Research Paper

Thinking about it

The "thinking about it stage" is when you are finally faced with the reality of completing your degree.

Usually the early phases of a graduate program proceed in clear and very structured ways. The beginning

phases of a graduate program proceed in much the same manner as an undergraduate degree program.

There are clear requirements and expectations, and the graduate student moves along, step by step, getting

ever closer to the completion of the program. One day, however, the clear structure begins to diminish and

now you're approaching the thesis/dissertation stage. This is a new and different time. These next steps are

more and more defined by you and not your adviser, the program, or the department.

Thinking about it

Be inclusive with your thinking.

Don't try to eliminate ideas too quickly.

Build on your ideas and see how many different research projects you can identify.

Try and be creative.

Write down your ideas.

This will allow you to revisit an idea later on.

Or, you can modify and change an idea.

write your ideas they tend to be in a continual state of change

Good feeling to sit down and scan the many ideas

Try not to be overly influenced at this time by what you feel others expect from you (your

colleagues, your profession, your academic department, etc.).

You have a much better chance of selecting a topic that will be really of interest to you if it is your

topic. .

Don't begin your thinking by assuming that your research will draw international attention to you!!

Instead, be realistic in setting your goal.

Make sure your expectations are tempered by:

... the realization that you are fulfilling an academic requirement,

Be realistic about the time that you're willing to commit to your research project. If it's a 10 year

project that you're thinking about admit it

Create a draft of a timeline. the next item)

put a start and a finish time for each.

Post your timeline in a conspicuous place (above your computer monitor?) so that it continually

reminds you how you're doing.

Periodically update your timeline with new dates as needed.

If you're going to ask for a leave of absence from your job while you're working on your research

this isn't a good time to do it. Chances are you can do the "thinking about it" stage without a leave of

absence.

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Assuming that there are six major phases that you will have during your research project, probably

the best time to get the most from a leave of absence is during the fourth stage* - the writing stage.

This is the time when you really need to be thinking well. To be able to work at your writing in

large blocks of time without interruptions is something really important.

It can be most helpful at this early stage to try a very small preliminary research study to test out

some of your ideas to help you gain further confidence in what you'd like to do.

The study can be as simple as conducting half a dozen informal interviews with no attempt to

document what is said. The key is that it will give you a chance to get closer to your research and to test out

whether or not you really are interested in the topic.

And, you can do it before you have committed yourself to doing something you may not like. Take

your time and try it first.

PREPARING THE PROPOSAL

Assuming you've done a good job of "thinking about" your research project, you're ready to actually

prepare the proposal. A word of caution - those students who tend to have a problem in coming up with a

viable proposal often are the ones that have tried to rush through the "thinking about it" part and move too

quickly to trying to write the proposal. Here's a final check. Do each of these statements describe you? If

they do you're ready to prepare your research proposal.

I am familiar with other research that has been conducted in areas related to my research project.

Read through someone else's research proposal. Very often a real stumbling block is that we don't have

an image in our mind of what the finished research proposal should look like.

How has the other proposal been organized?

What are the headings that have been used?

Does the other proposal seem clear?

Does it seem to suggest that the writer knows the subject area? Can I model my proposal after one

of the ones that I've seen? If you can't readily find a proposal or two to look at, ask your adviser to see

some.

Make sure your proposal has a comprehensive review of the literature included. Now this idea, at first

thought, may not seem to make sense. I have heard many students tell me that "This is only the proposal.

I'll do a complete literature search for the dissertation. I don't want to waste the time now." But, this is the

time to do it. The rationale behind the literature review consists of an argument with two lines of analysis: 1)

this research is needed, and 2) the methodology I have chosen is most appropriate for the question that is

being asked. Now, why would you want to wait? Now is the time to get informed and to learn from others

who have preceded you! If you wait until you are writing the dissertation it is too late. You've got to do it

some time so you might as well get on with it and do it now. Plus, you will probably want to add to the

literature review when you're writing the final dissertation

What is a proposal anyway? A good proposal should consist of the first three chapters of the

dissertation. It should begin with a statement of the problem/background information (typically Chapter I

of the dissertation), then move on to a review of the literature (Chapter 2), and conclude with a defining of

the research methodology (Chapter 3).

Of course, it should be written in a future tense since it is a proposal. To turn a good proposal into the

first three chapters of the dissertation consists of changing the tense from future tense to past tense (from

"This is what I would like to do" to "This is what I did") and making any changes based on the way you

actually carried out the research when compared to how you proposed to do it. Often the intentions we

state in our proposal turn out different in reality and we then have to make appropriate editorial changes to

move it from proposal to dissertation

Focus your research very specifically. Don't try to have your research cover too broad an area. Now

you may think that this will distort what you want to do. This may be the case, but you will be able to do the

project if it is narrowly defined. Usually a broadly defined project is not do-able.

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Often the researcher finds that what he/she originally thought to be a good research project turns

out to really be a group of research projects.

Do one project for your dissertation and save the other projects for later in your career.

Don't try to solve all of the problems in this one research project.

Include a title on your proposal.

how often the title is left for the end of the student's writing and then somehow forgotten when the

proposal is prepared for the committee.

A good proposal has a good title and it is the first thing to help the reader begin to understand the

nature of your work. Use it wisely!

Work on your title early in the process and revisit it often. It's easy for a reader to identify those

proposals where the title has been focused upon by the student.

Preparing a good title means:

...having the most important words appear toward the beginning of your title,

What is Research

The word research is used in different field in different senses

If you are a beginner researcher, you are facing the same problem whether you are preparing a small

project ,an MBA dissertation or a Ph.D theses. You need to select a topic, identify the objectives of your

study plan and design a suitable methodology, devise research instrument, negotiate access to institutions

material and people, collect, analysis and present information and finally, provides a well-written repot or

dissertation.

We all learn how to do research by actually doing it but a great deal of time

Can be wasted and goodwill dissipated by inadequate preparation. But before we discuss further it better

to define the term research. Different people define it differently. For example;

A formal document

Knowing a subject thoroughly

Expression of ones undertaking About the topic

Result of ones intellectual curiosity

Analysis and syntheses of different resources

Reasonable bias free conclusion

Howard and Sharp(1983)

Seeking through methodical processes to add to one's own body of knowing and hopefully, to that of

other , by discovery of non-trivial facts and insight.

Drew (1980)

Research is conducted to solve problems and expand knowledge. Research is a systematic way of asking

questions, a systematic method of enquiry

We find the word research being used in two senses

1 the outcome of research is the establishment, publicizing or utilization of something that somebody-

not the researcher or the person commissioning it- already knows.

2the outcome of knowledge that nobody had before.

The word research is used in different field in one or other of these senses and in some fields in both

senses

Fiction

For many novelists It is essential to prepare for their writing by researching the background in which

they wish to set their narrative for accuracy of description, sensitivity to atmosphere, history of the period in

which their fiction takes place and authenticity of the language. The final criterion for them is the

authenticity and artistic conviction of the final product in their reader's eyes. Research in this sense may take

many forms, and involve considerable expense in terms of effort, time, and money: but the originality of the

novel does not lie in the research but in the artistic creation for which it provides a background.

Journalism

For journalist, especially in investigative journalism, long periods of time are spent researching their

stories to uncover facts and secrets which their editorial policy judges to be in the public interest, and in

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cross-checking what they are told or discover to establish its truth. This is not usually new truth, but

information otherwise not public or deliberately withheld by another person. For them, the final criterion of

truth may be bound up with legalities: the law of libel and slander, or the Official Secret Act.

Police work

For the police, there is an obvious parallel between preparing case against a suspect by detective work

and research in this first sense: the criminal they seek has a secret which the police are bound to uncover.

Here again the criterion of validity of the research is circumscribed by the law: laws of evidence,

police procedure, protection of the rights of the innocent, the criminal and the victim. However, it

is interesting that in this connection the language prefers the term `detection' or `investigation' to research.

In the commercial world, much money is invested in product development and even sponsorship of

basic research, and here one is referring to the second sense as described above. However, research is also

conducted into the people who will but the products: market research. Market research is used to establish

what can be sold who will buy it, how a product can be packaged, advertised

Business and commerce

In the commercial world, much money is invested in product development and even sponsorship of

basic research, and here one is referring to the second sense as described above. However, research is also

conducted into the people who will but the products: market research. Market research is used to establish

what can be sold who will buy it, how a product can be packaged, advertised priced to make it commercially

attractive, and, linked to advertising campaigns, even to create market to persuade people to buy

something they did not know they wanted. The final criterion for research in this field is not therefore

simply truth the description of a market situation and the authentic expression of that truth, but also the

success of an intervention or manipulation of the market measured usually in profit terms.

Some obvious examples of research in the second sense are the following:

Medical research

This is research in the second sense: to find out things nobody knew before. The final criterion is the

discovery of new truths, but also the translation of the new truths into practical treatments, and the

developments of economies of scale so that the treatment is available for the largest number of people.

Here ethical considerations receive a great deal of attention, both in terms of the human patients and the

animals which are used for trials.

Science and technology

Everyone naturally associates research with science and technology, white coats and laboratories, but is

should be remembered in this context that advances in the sciences are not restricted to the discovery of

new facts: advances in theory development and in research methods and approaches occur in parallel. It is

of course a commonplace, though nevertheless important, to highlight the ethics of the development of

scientific knowledge, both in the process of gathering the knowledge and in the fields of application

Sections of a Thesis (Format)

The following are sections that most theses should contain

Introduction

This section is an introduction to the topic and the subject. It describes the background to the research,

particularly the major ideas (or theoretical perspective) from which the research is derived. The introduction

explains the reasons for doing the research, and indicates why the research is important valuable or

significant. It outlines the contribution that the research will make to knowledge. The introduction also

outlines the aims of the research by presenting research questions or hypotheses.

Be sure to include in the introduction a clear statement of your hypothesis and how you are going to

address it Throughout the introduction you should use citations from the research literature to support your

study. These citations should include but not be limited to research presented in the Literature · Review.

The following are suggested topics that are usually covered in the introduction.

Statement of the Problem.

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You should clearly state the problem that your thesis is going to address. You should also present

relevant information about why this is an important problem. Describe what precisely you intend to

show/argue and why (i.e., address the ever-lurking "So What?" question). Is your research problem

addressing a significant social problem, or is it testing some theoretical hypothesis, such as the Marxist

argument that high television viewing levels make people feel apolitical and powerless.

The issues raised ideally are timely, relevant to the problems or trends of the present time, and have

broad applicability. Good questions are those allowing theories to be tested or, as when two theories make

opposing predictions, be compared.

In this section you should first grab the attention and interest of your readers; and secondly introduce

the problem to be studied. All assertions of feet must be documented. Be careful of any generalizations that

you make. A social science research paper is not an editorial

Statement of the Problem.

In this section you should first grab the attention and interest of your readers; and secondly introduce

the problem to be studied. All assertions of feet must be documented. Be careful of any generalizations that

you make. A social science research paper is not an editorial

Background and Need. You should present relevant literature that supports the need for your

project. Research articles, books, educational and government statistics are just a few sources that should be

used here. This section can include brief overviews of articles covered in the literature review that support

the need for your project.

Rationale The rationale should define the larger problem being investigated, summarize what is known

about the problem, define the gap(s) in the knowledge, and state what needs to be done to address the

gap(s).

Purpose of the Project Based on the above background information, explain the purpose of the study.

Explain what you hope the study will accomplish and why you chose to do this particular study. This should

be supported with citations and specific information related to the study,

Research Questions/Hypotheses. Given the background above, you carefully state the hypothesis

(ses) that will be tested in your thesis.

The hypothesis is the central question being researched. It should be expressed in straight-forward

terms. A good hypothesis is comparative, measurable, and falsifiable.

Hypotheses are usually defined in "cause -effect" relationships. Any corollary hypotheses or secondary

research questions should also be stated. Any supplemental definitions or discussion necessary to explain

the hypothesis should be offered.

Underlying every theory is the issue of causality. What exactly does it mean to say that poverty

"causes" crime, that cultural materialism "causes" moral decay, or that religiosity "causes*1 one's

euthanasia attitudes? Just because two events historically occur simultaneously does not

necessarily mean that one is influencing the other.

Limitations, Provide a background for any limitations to this study. Be very specific for example the

population to which your findings will be limited.

Follow these guidelines while searching for a subject 4 topic

v Understand the distinction between the subject and a topic that can help you to plan your research

paper effectively.

v Within a broader research subject decide about the topic that is more focused and worth an

investigation.

v Consider your subject or topic and answer the questions who, what, when, where, why, and how.

v Draw a short and possible list of topics and settle for the one that interests you and is worth

investigating.

v Explore your own understanding of the topic, as there's always a temptation to select a topic before

a thorough ground work, resist the temptation.

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Be sure that the topic meets the requirements of your research assignment, audience's needs, and

expectations

v Avoid dead end topics those unsuitable for your interest or resources.

v Avoid scattered, superficial research topics.

v Avoid topics that are too beaten and narrow and has nothing new to offer.

v Pick a topic that shows your individuality, ability and interests.

v Continue refining and narrowing it to make it significantly specific

ensure that there: are sufficient resources available on your selected topic because without a

worthwhile literature

REVIEW THE THESIS WILL BE WORTHLESS.

v v Ail research projects begin with the statement of hypothesis.

v Hypothesis is a guide or a sign post to the researcher that keeps one on the track.

v The researcher tests the initial presupposition or hypothesis as works along.

Hypothesis is formulated in such a way that it enables the researcher to test

it.

v Hypothesis depicts and describes the method that follows during the study.

v Hypothesis is; a kind of hunch that the researcher has about the topic.

v Hypothesis establishes the precise focus of the research study.

v Hypothesis helps decide the aims and objectives of the study.

Hypothesis is of speculative nature, an imaginative preconception of "what might be true".

v Hypothesis is a welt established research question that can be in form of a descriptive statement or a

question.

v v The thesis statement is usually considered the most important sentence and the main point of your

essay/ report or research paper because it out lines the central purpose of your essay.

A thesis, statement is one of the greatest unifying aspects of a paper. It should act as mortar, holding

together the various bricks of a paper, summarizing the main point of the paper "in a nutshell" and heralds

the development of the paper.

A thesis statement is what you'll PROVE, it is the ARGUMENT. If is the SCOPE, it is the MAIN

IDEA and the PURPOSE of your paper and that you intend to develop, prove, defend or explore with

evidence and therefore has an argumentative or informational edge and must not state the obvious.

A thesis statement is a sentence that clearly and concisely indicates the

Subject of your paper, the main points you will discuss, and the order in which you will discuss them.

v v A thesis statement establishes the writer's point of view, set the, stage or mood of the paper and

prepare, the readers what to expect.

A thesis statement is important for the writer, because it gives the structure to the paper and .is equally

important for the readers, because it guides them as what to expect.

It is precise. It is not something that one has trouble understanding and should be specific enough to

give your reader a clear sense of what your entire essay is going to discuss.

It should not be too general or so specific, that it fails to represent any strong position

Often, the thesis is stated clearly in one or two sentences at the end of, the essay's introduction. There

are exceptions to almost every rule of writing, including this one. Ideally, the position of the thesis

statement needs to be at the end of the introductory paragraph so that readers know the topic of the papers.

Examples of General to Specific Thesis Statements:

Notice the transition...from General to Specific

Men and women are different.

Men and women communicate differently.

Men and women communicate differently. Men tend to focus on the literal aspect of what is being said

in a conversation, women often "read between the lines* and focus more on intonation and body language.

v v Men and women communicate differently. Whereas men tend to focus on the literal aspect of

what is being said in a conversation, women often "read between the lines" and focus more on intonation

and body language; this phenomenon may significantly contribute to the high divorce rate among many

couples.

Hawthorn discusses evilness in Young Goodman Brown.

In Young Goodman Brown, Hawthorn discusses evilness through symbols.

In Young Goodman Brown, Hawthorn uses light and darkness to emphasize good and evil in the world

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