thesis writing help

thesis writing help

Effective Strategies for Thesis Writing

1. Introduction

A thesis which lacks a clear and effective plan of attack is bound to fizzle out soon in its tracks. Your strategy, in terms of how you will accomplish your goal, is the most crucial factor in determining whether or not you will find success. First, determine how much time you have available for this assignment. Create a timetable and meet it at all costs. Be sure to allocate enough time for each. Aim to finish well before your deadline so you can focus on other more important assignments.

The following is a how-to guide on preparing a thesis with a cohesive structure that addresses the task of assembling and presenting your information in an effective way.

In recent years, the need for advanced degrees and evidence of more than an undergraduate degree has been steadily increasing. More and more students are enrolling in postgraduate studies and need to write a thesis based on thorough research. It is something most of us look forward to with keen anticipation, but also with a slight tinge of anxiety and self-doubt. It might become too overwhelming and at times engaging with the depth of research and dedicating to paper might prove too great a task for some, causing them to lose interest. Some might start and give up halfway. Others, feeling completely clueless, don’t even know how or where to start. It is at this last instance that a question arises. What can I do to make sure I will be able to complete a thesis? The answer, you must prepare an overall effective strategy for undertaking the task that lies ahead.

2. Choosing a Topic

The first thing you need to do when choosing a topic is think about how much time you have. Will you be able to complete it in the time allocated? Consider how much you actually like the topic – the more you like this topic, the less it will feel like a chore. This may seem trivial, but it does have an actual bearing on what your finished product will look like. Your supervisor will probably be your first point of contact when deciding upon your topic. They will provide you with sound advice and guidance that can steer you in the right direction. They can raise questions and suggest areas for you to start thinking about. Always keep an open channel of communication with your supervisor; as they are the ones marking your work, it’s essential that they know what you are doing.

The importance of choosing the right topic for your thesis is not to be underestimated. Very few people will ever read your entire thesis, and it’s extremely unlikely that anyone will ever read it again. What they will do is skim through it. Even extremely dedicated examiners, who conscientiously plough through a student’s work and write lengthy, detailed reports, will often only read the first few chapters of the thesis. So, if you are going to endure such a large task, you should make it as readable and searchable as possible. This is where a good topic comes in – you need one that you can easily answer the question to, and also one that can be easily identified through an internet search. Always keep in mind that you are writing an academic paper and remain in an academic way of thinking. This might be an obvious thing to say, but it’s the students who ignore this that get caught out. Look at your potential topic and ask yourself if you can answer the question with a resounding yes. Will your research paper be identifiable with academic readers? If you have a topic that can be answered yes and is easily identifiable, then you are well on the way to writing a great thesis. Be wary of choosing a topic that is too general.

3. Conducting Research

At the same time, you will conduct primary research. This involves gaining information directly from the source. The most common methodology is using questionnaires and surveys, interviews or focus groups. Strictly observe ethical guidelines when performing any of these methods. Ensure all questionnaire and survey participants remain anonymous. Interview or focus group questions need to be approved by your research advisor. A safer and less intrusive method is to use participant or non-participant observation. This can be on a group or individual level and variable settings. All of these methods will at some stage produce data that is usually in the form of transcripts or notes. Other forms of research can involve analyses of already existing data (quantitative or qualitative), a case study can focus on proving a theory on the specific case, or an experiment testing a hypothesis.

The research process is recursive and non-linear, not following a list of steps. Your research will become more effective when you can adapt research strategies and select methods as you learn more about the research topic. An initial activity when commencing a research project is to review the work that has already been done on your topic. You do this by exploring and sifting through information in a variety of forms. Start first with secondary research: read about your topic in textbooks, reference books, and journal articles. This will help you get an overview of the topic and identify the research problem or question you will investigate. Take notes – the citation of the source and summary of the information is sufficient at this stage. A literature review and critique on the work found is then written.

4. Structuring Your Thesis

According Ziman model there are three model thesis diagram above, you could take a model that is suitable for you. Let say, you have a papers which is still not accomplished or just an idea, you could choose the first diagram. If you have too much text it is better to convert it into two-dimension; usually process on converting a tree diagram into the other is very easy. Next, create diagram for the parts that you will write. This way, it could help you to connect your idea between one chapter and another. An example for the first diagram, you could grouping article 1 and 2 become chapter 3. and change completely the title for article of chapter 5 and 6 into own idea. This method is suitable to the sequence of thesis as a series of papers. Step by step, you should build up your thesis underlay the diagram that you have made.

The first thing you should to do is realizing the type of yours thesis. If you dont have any idea which type of yours, you may ask to your supervisor. Often, many student confuse to differ a series of paper on monograph, eventhought the difference of it is very clear. The series of papers is only a compilation several paper which is published or not to be a thesis whereas the monograph is a thesis form itself. Usually there is a rule in one department, for determine which type of thesis is permitted. You must follow it on the first time you start your thesis, because to convert from one type to another it isn’t an easy task. To avoid compilexity, you must to choose the type of your thesis on the aptitude.

The thesis standard…the term is, need a lot of instruction and correction. Many ways to express, especially the finding and analyzing data. Because so many data should be managed and reported, very often someone get mired in to much pulp data. Writing a thesis is same with writing a researcher reports. Thats way, good thesis structure is very necessary to passed yours ideas to the reader. Thats the idea in the mind, Gerard Michael Ziman when he wrote Effective Strategies for Thesis Writing. He has a lot of experience in PhD supervising and has read so many student thesis, to be produce some classification or models for thesis a structure. This classification is *thesis as a series of papers, *thesis as monograph, *thesis including published works.

5. Writing and Editing Techniques

Effective writing is a process of many stages and planning. At this level, you must finish your previous planning and read carefully and critically your draft and do some improvement. First, you should improve your whole draft for a big structure and obvious, the word and sentences already correct and coherence for a paragraph, also check for the logic flow for the content of your thesis and fix the implementation if there are deviations from your desired goal. After you are sure your thesis big content is already appropriate, you can check it more specifically to every paragraph and every sentence, then you can decide to make some improvements for your draft. It is recommended to let your draft and start to focus on another activity, and then go back again to read your draft, you get a new perspective to judge and improve your draft.