Theresa MacPhail is an assistant professor in the Science, Technology & Society Program at Stevens Institute of Technology. Don’t do “poms”—timed sessions of 25 minutes with five-minute breaks in between—for writing. They work well for other discrete tasks, like research or formatting or getting your bibliography together, but not here. Instead, try to write for a longer, uninterrupted time. In NYU’s workshops, we write for 50 minutes straight, with 10-minute breaks humour essays, for 4 hours daily. That might not be feasible if you work or have young children, but plan on writing five days a week, no matter what, for a minimum of two hours each day. It’s doable, I promise. The greatest obstacle to any dissertation writer, by far, is the all-too-common tendency (conscious or not) to try to avoid the negative feelings associated with the difficult stages of the writing process. If you make writing a part of your work-week routine, there will be good and bad days. On the good days, the prose will flow out of you at a rate that you didn’t think was possible. Or you’ll finally figure out how you want to argue your main point. Or you’ll realize that what you thought was one chapter is actually two or three different ones. On the bad days, nothing that you write will seem good enough. You’ll hit the backspace and delete keys so much that they’ll start sticking. You’ll move the same paragraph five times before you delete it out of frustration. The trick is to go with the ebb and flow of writing, to ride out the bad days. As a former journalist, assistant professor, and seasoned dissertation-writing-workshop coach at New York University, I can promise you there is only one fail-safe method, one secret wealth and health essay, one guaranteed trick that you need in order to finish your dissertation: Write. I am familiar with other research that has been conducted in areas related to my research project. Plan the proposal meetings well. If graphic presentations are necessary to help the committee, make sure they are clear and attractive. Rehearse your presentation. A well planned meeting will help your committee understand that you are prepared to move forward with well planned research. Depending on the amount of detail you included in your proposal, you may not need or want to repeat every point. However, you should not assume all your committee members read the proposal carefully, and you should be sure to cover all important facts and issues. Include a title on your proposal. I’m amazed at how often the title is left to the end and is 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. A good title: ____ Yes, it’s me Be judicious in your use of abbreviations. Excessive use of abbreviations makes a thesis more difficult to read. Do not abbreviate terms only used a few times in the thesis. Provide a table of abbreviations used throughout the thesis so that the reader can quickly interpret an abbreviation they have forgotten. Do not include common abbreviations in this table. Abbreviate consistently throughout the thesis. ____ Yes, it’s me When you read something that is important to your study, photocopy the relevant article or section, or archive it in an electronic citation management system such as Refworks, Mendeley or Zotero. Keep your photocopies or archived references organized according to categories and sections. And, most importantly, copy the complete bibliographic citation so that you can easily reference the material in your bibliography. Then, when you decide to sit down and actually write the literature review, bring out your photocopied or archived sections, put them into logical and sequential order, and begin your writing. Set up a formal meeting with your full committee to discuss your research proposal as soon as possible. Make sure that your supervisor and committee members are fully supportive of the project before you begin. The proposal meeting should be seen as an opportunity for you and your supervisory committee to reach agreement on the fundamental goals and procedures for your research. Don’t go into the proposal meeting with the feeling that it is you against them! Review two or three high quality, well organized dissertations produced by other students in your department or group. Examine their use of headings essays on process, style, typeface and organization. They should assist you to begin writing with a clear idea of what the final product should look like. It is a good idea to take into consideration your career goals when developing your research topic. The wise graduate student examines the range of possible topics with an idea of the type of professional direction he or she would like to follow after graduation. By doing so, you have a much better chance of selecting a topic that is not only of interest to you do a small business plan, but also advances your career plan. It's never too early to create a timeline for the project. Try using the 6 stages below. Put a start and a finish time for each step. Post your timeline in a conspicuous place (above your computer monitor?) so that it reminds you how you're doing. Periodically update your timeline with new dates as needed. A simple rule — if you are presenting information in the form of a table or graph make sure you introduce the table or graph in your text. Following the insertion of the table/graph, make sure you discuss it. If there is nothing to discuss easy ways to write a good essay, then you may want to question even inserting it. ____ Yes, it’s me Okay, you're ready to write your research proposal. Here are some ideas to help with the task: Graduate programs and faculty members have particular areas of interest and expertise. Typically, graduate students choose to enter programs that emphasize areas of interest to them and to work with faculty supervisors who are expert in those areas. Thus, your research topic will likely address a topic of interest to your supervisor. In some disciplines, the general research topic is selected by the research supervisor, although students typically have some choice of projects on which to work. In other disciplines, students have considerable latitude in selecting their own research topic or program of work. Be strategic in developing your research. Consider these points when finding and developing a research topic (from Robert Smith, Graduate Research: A Guide for Students in the Sciences. 1984: ISI Press): ____ Yes, it’s me Keep an accurate record of the bibliographical details of all the material that you read - doing this as you progress will save an enormous amount of time at the end of the project. You may have to do a great deal of thinking and background reading before you reach a decision about the topic in which you want to invest a lot of time and effort. Experienced supervisors told us that students are often over-ambitious when planning their research. Organisation is extremely important, especially if you are going to collect your own data: The dissertation or final year project requires organisational and time management skills in order to complete to a high standard. Due to competing demands on time, many students do not always devise and follow a work schedule, which can have implications for the quality of work that is produced and stress levels! I have been working myself on subject areas, reading around my chosen subject areas and trying to work out how my dissertation can be put to good use, rather than being marked and filed away to be forgotten about. Reading journal articles over the summer to look at the type of research that was being done in the topic area. The process of thinking about the dissertation topic and methods is an evolving one. It may help to get some form of personal recording of the ideas, links and resources that you come across in the initial thinking and information-gathering stages. Do not simply rely on your memory to store all the strands of information you come across. A key part of success in dissertation-writing is being organised and systematic in your approach and the earlier you can adopt this, the better. You will probably also be involved in Personal Development Planning (PDP) linked to Progress Files and you may want to link your dissertation work to your PDP as you will be using a diverse range of skills to complete the dissertation and you may be able to identify how you have progressed or acquired new skills or learning. For example you may use skills related to: Here are some web resources that you might find useful: Case Study 2 Using personal networks to choose a dissertation topic or methodology During the first 2 years of the degree, I had often chosen topics related to female offending. Because of this, I felt I had useful background knowledge. You should write in an appropriate academic style, avoiding colloquialisms should i do my summer assignment, contractions formal academic essay structure, phrasal verbs and vagueness. You do not need, however, to use long, over-formal vocabulary: you should aim at all times for clear and concise expression. In consultation with your supervisor custom writing customer service, draw up an initial reading list, making sure that this is wide-ranging, relevant and as up-to-date as possible. Approach this reading with specific questions in mind; if not, you will waste a lot of valuable time reading irrelevant information. Extensive referencing and bibliography indicate wide research, a correct approach and the use of these sources as evidence to back up the student’s argument.
Start thinking early on about what you would like to write about. Consult as soon as possible with your supervisor for advice on the expected scope of your dissertation. Remember that you will not simply be writing about “IT in Primary Education”, but instead will be focussing on specific aspects, perhaps trying to solve a problem papers for college students, querying currently held beliefs, or arguing a particular case or “thesis”. Your final title may instead be something like: have a very general or unclear title. Sentences should be well-punctuated, complete but not over-long. Paragraphs should be adequately developed, withnormally at least five or six sentences. You should use linking words or phrases to guide your reader through your writing. Make sure all figures are integrated into your text and referred to. Most of your writing will probably need redrafting several times writing medical research papers, and you must carefully proofread everything you write, or perhaps get someone else to do this for you. Any revisions needed will of course take time, as will the binding of your finished dissertation, if this is necessary. A mediocre dissertation will: If you’re going to include some sort of survey or questionnaire, make this as wide as possible, but remember that companies and organisations are swamped with this sort of thing and the response rate will probably be very disappointing.
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