However, the technique used in the presentation of the paper may make it fall under two broad categories: 1. Analytical, 2. Argumentative, in fact the strategy used by the writer to compose his paper will eventually determine the aim and purpose of the paper.

A detailed discussion of these two methods will clarify the concepts presented above:

1. Analytical Papers

In an analytical research paper, the aim is to attain a thorough expertise of the concept that is being presented so that it can be broken down and represented from the writers’ point of view.

In this form of the research paper, an individual approaches the research question without any pre-conceived notions and ideas about the subject at hand. Thereafter a careful survey of the opinions and views is undertaken. Ultimately when familiarity with the topic is achieved; a person is able to restructure and relocate the concepts that underlie the basic topic in his paper; the very essence of an analytical paper; critical contemplation and evaluation of the question at hand is necessary for an analytical paper.

2. Argumentative Papers

This type of a paper may also be termed a persuasive paper. Aside from critical thinking which is essential for the production of a quality paper, another familiar concept that dominates academic circles is the concept of an argument.

You may wish to read more at: Writing a Thesis

The basic difference from the former kind that qualifies the persuasive kind is that the paper takes a conscious stance and argues in favor of one of the arguments with cogent facts and points presented in its favor. The aim is to mould the reader’s mind in favor of one possible answer to the research question backed by reliable data and arguments.

To conclude; both approaches require logical thinking and smart evaluation alongside comprehensive research of the available sources. However the difference is created through the process of writing, analytical papers provide a more balanced approach where all views pertaining to the question are presented whereas argumentative papers debate in favor of one logical solution above the others.

More Answers available at: Are you Stuck writing a Research Paper?

Joe, a reporter, has been travelling around the world for more than a decade now and has extensive experience in many fields. Now he has a blog along with other article writers. To know more about him, do visit: Random Rants

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Red Flags

Students should be aware of red flags when choosing an advisor, such as:

1. A faculty member new to the department can make a bad advisor. He or
she is probably on a tenure track, meaning their work will be scrutinized by other members of the department and the college to which they belong.

I heard the following complaint typical of this red flag within the last month: “My department chair said Professor Smith was a rising star and had a lot of creative ideas. When I chose her and started my dissertation, she turned down the research topic I wanted to do and made me do her own. I am now doing my ninth revision of the proposal to do research, and she still keeps correcting practically every word I write.” I have heard this complaint, or a similar one, for 30 years.

New faculty members may be more interested in making a good impression on their new colleagues than in moving a student through the process in an expeditious manner, and the result can be an endless round of corrections and additions to a thesis or dissertation as they try to turn out a perfect piece of work on their first try. Also, they may never have managed a graduate student, and lack the skills to do so. Advisors do not take a class in how to be an advisor. Consequently, they tend to put students through the same process they went through themselves, and it may not have been a good model.

2. “You can call me Bob.” An advisor who insists that the student call them

by their first name is a red flag. This unfortunate behavior instantly puts the student at a disadvantage because forever afterward this artificial “friendship” prevents the student from speaking up, and may lead to all kinds of requests of the student that are not appropriate. The opposite is the advisor who acts like a king on a throne and forces the student to become a supplicant.

3. “Professor Jones is the finest researcher and scholar we have on the staff. He is supporting 10 graduate students, and is in demand as a speaker. It is an honor to be his student because he can really help you professionally.” This recommendation by a helpful faculty member is a red flag. An advisor who has a string of publications on their record and several research projects may look good on paper, but they do not necessarily make good advisors because graduate students can at the bottom of their priorities. They have little time to spare, are almost never in their offices, every meeting is hurried, and their trips to conferences and meetings can keep a student from making deadlines.

4. An advisor who fails to apprise a student of 1) the ground rules of the
departmental graduate or graduate school processes, or 2) the ground rules of their personal process for moving a student through research and writing a thesis or dissertation. The omission of information lays traps students. This particular red flag is hard to detect before it is too late, so the student should study the thesis and dissertation process of both the university and their department as if it were another class. There are several books about the process available on Amazon.com., particularly “Writing the Winning Thesis or Dissertation” by Glatthorn and Joyner.

The Rules

The unspoken rules of the graduate process keep students blind from the beginning. First, the chain of command is never explained. When in graduate school the Dean of the graduate school is the Dean presiding over the graduate student, not the Dean of the college. This arrangement is one of the checks and balances in place to protect graduate students from abuse. The position of graduate Dean is often a part-time appointment in addition to a regular faculty role. Consequently, the graduate school Editor, or an Assistant Dean are charged with the responsibility for solving student problems, and bringing those they cannot solve to the Dean’s attention.

When I was a graduate school editor I had the lofty title of Research and Writing Coordinator, but I was just an editor. Because there was no Assistant Dean, I was usually the first person to hear about abuse of a student. Only twice in 12 years was it too late to salvage the situation with the help of the Dean. Often, it was a matter of teaching the student to “manage upward,” as I called it, which I will discuss later in this article.

Second, a department must prove it is a viable asset to the university. In large part, departmental value to the university is based upon how many students they graduate per year. For instance, if a philosophy department only graduates one or two students a year, the department may be eliminated through programmatic reduction, including all faculty, tenured or not.

The university adds up the cost of the space a department occupies, the overhead to maintain that space, the cost of journal subscriptions for the library ordered by the department (that can cost a small fortune), classroom space, and all other costs of maintaining a degree-granting department. If the department cannot justify the expense of maintaining the program, it is in danger of being eliminated. This is one reason departments write research grants. A large percentage of grant money is given to the university for “overhead,” some is used to support the research project, and some supports graduate students.

One would think advisors would be cognizant that the very existence of their department is on the line when they abuse students to the degree that they never graduate.

Bad Behavior in the Ranks

Choosing an advisor should be easy after a student has taken a few classes from each member of the department, but it is not. A “nice” instructor may be the worst advisor in the department. A bad advisor has one or more of the following characteristics after they accept a student for advisement:

1. They treat graduate students like servants, asking them to sweep floors, stock
shelves, run errands, and do other tasks more appropriately assigned to a secretary or a paid assistant, and may ask a student to help out in their personal life by grocery shopping, cleaning the pool, or taking a car in for service. One student I counseled, in addition to all of the above, was cleaning up dog scat from his advisor’s back yard every day.

2. They take credit for student work, publishing papers under their own

name, talking about discoveries in meetings as if they were their own, and may go so far as to flunk the student out and then publish on the research the student generated. I know of two cases where the graduate student shot the advisor between the eyes for this last scurrilous behavior.

In another instance, the advisor of one student I counseled, together with two of the committee members, destroyed all of the student’s notes from which the dissertation was to be written, destroyed (or hid) the mutant strain of fruit flies that the student had developed, and threw away all of the student’s possessions, claiming that they thought this abrasive, but brilliant student, had left for good when he had only gone on vacation. The research represented a breakthrough in cancer research. In this case, the graduate dean signed the three-page dissertation himself as a committee of one, and the three faculty members were fired.

3. They do not define the graduate process for students by
withholding information, such as the need for approval to use of human subjects, which is a Federal law, the need to submit only letter-perfect complete drafts for approval (there is no such thing as a “rough” draft in graduate school), graduate school editorial requirements, deadlines, or other information critical for continuous forward progress. “They’re supposed to be adults. They should find out these things for themselves,” several advisors have told me. Nonsense. This bad behavior is entrapment.

4. They deliberately delay giving a draft back in a timely manner until the student is obliged to register for another semester. This behavior is particularly prevalent in online universities, many of whom are more interested in money than they are in granting degrees to students. I know of seven students from four different online institutions who will never graduate because after three or more years of working on their dissertations they have run out of money for additional semester hours. “Register for just one more semester and we will finish up,” is what students are told. There are no checks and balances in online universities to stop advisor abuse. In at least one case, it is the online institution that is abusive.

5. They riddle draft after draft with hundreds of corrections again and again.
These advisors frequently correct their own corrections. These advisors want the thesis or dissertation to sound like they wrote it themselves, and will endlessly correct language in the belief that they are making necessary changes.

6. They read a few token pages of a draft, find a few things wrong, and send the draft back for a complete revision, giving the student the unhelpful comment “Continue as shown.” If the student could read the advisor’s mind, this would be reasonable advice. If the student knew what the advisor wanted, it would have been done right the first time.

7. They demand that the student copy the exact format of the last several theses
or dissertations the advisor chaired, whether it suits the content or not. This behavior has one of two possible causes. Either the advisor is arrogant and egotistical and thinks his format is perfect, or the advisor is afraid to depart from a format with which he or she is familiar. In fact, I read a dissertation that had only 5 pages of text – and 50 pages of pictures of the wings of dragonflies. The dissertation represented four years of research. There is no “perfect” thesis or dissertation.

8. They allow students to propose such a huge research project that it will take

years, and/or thousands of dollars, to collect the data. Such students usually quit because they run out of money, or time, and become EBDs. One student I recently counseled had been allowed to propose collecting data by conducting personal interviews from over 1,000 elementary school teachers, one at a time. She would never have completed this task before her tenure in graduate school was terminated. Another last year was going to survey a giant sample of people scattered across the entire U.S. for a thesis. First, such a project for a thesis was inappropriate, and second, it would have taken years.

9. They do not have the courage to tell the student that they should drop out
of graduate school because they are not doing graduate level work. When I was
the graduate school editor I read an appalling dissertation from a very nice student. She had an advisor and three committee members. One committee member said he would “never” sign her dissertation after the oral defense, and she had come to complain about it. Her committee member was right. The dissertation looked like the work of a seventh-grade student. I wondered how she had gotten so far in higher education, and why she had not been stopped sooner by her advisor or the other committee members. Apparently, only one committee member had the courage to refuse her dissertation. She sued the university, but she did not get her doctor’s degree

There are other bad behaviors not listed here. The sign that a student has a bad advisor is when deadlines are missed, forward progress is attenuated, and no end is in sight. Becoming a victim of the Stockholm syndrome should not be the only way to get a degree.

The Cost of a Bad Advisor

Count the cost of a bad advisor. By the time a student gets to the thesis or dissertation “proposal to do research,” they have already paid 2-3 years of tuition, books and fees, and more expense looms ahead for an indefinite period of time. They have lived in places that may have been less than desirable. They have lost wages they could have had if they had not been geographically tied to the degree-granting university and unable to seek the best paying job elsewhere. They have lost 2-3 years of life when they could have been doing something more enjoyable and less costly in time and money, which is why graduate students become doormats for bad advisors. They are afraid their entire investment will be lost if they protest their treatment.

If your advisor has any one of the nine above described characteristics or others that are impeding your forward progress you need to seek help. It only takes one bad behavior on the part of an advisor to make your graduate experience a nightmare. There are several Websites that specialize in assisting students from the time they choose a research topic to the end of the oral defense, or contact the author of this article.

Manage Upward

People think of the word “manage” as downward actions people execute who are responsible for subordinates and programs. The key to surviving a bad advisor, or later, a bad boss, is to develop the skills to manage upward. Manage the manager.

Following are some tips for surviving a bad advisor.

1. Graduate school is professional school, and students should act like
the professionals they hope to be from the first day they set foot in the department. That means dressing well, keeping an appropriate social distance from members of the faculty, and keeping the majority of their personal life to themselves.

Students should choose an advisor as carefully as choosing a partner in life. The student should interview graduate students a year or two ahead in the program, or better, some who have graduated who had the same prospective advisor. Those who are still in the department may not want to say anything negative about their advisor because their own degrees might be threatened if negative remarks got back to their advisor. Some departments assign an advisor in an effort to level the work load, and the student has no choice. The bad advisors get the same number of students as everyone else, and they can hide in the numbers.

Before making a choice students should go to the library and find the last two or three theses or dissertations a prospective advisor has chaired and look at the format, the depth of the statistical analysis, the length of the review of literature, and the intensity of the detail. This should be done by every graduate student. Advisors tend to repeat themselves student after student.

2. If a student has an advisor with any one of the bad behaviors listed previously,
or another behavior that is delaying forward progress, the student should seek help immediately. Following are three Websites that specialize in assisting graduate students, or contact this author for a reference.

A. disseretationadvisors.com features consultants who have experience assisting students throughout the thesis or dissertation process including advisement about 1) choosing a research topic, and 2) writing the proposal to do research. In addition, consultants will edit all that the student writes. These consultants can also prepare the student for the defense.

B. apawriting.com lists consultants who are experts at applying the APA style
guide to theses, dissertations, journal articles, term papers, and other manuscripts that require the application of this highly specialized style. Consultants will correct citations, bibliographic references, figures and tables, as well as grammar, academic style, and word usage.

C. statisticstutors.com lists consultants who can, among many other things, 1)
develop testable hypotheses, 2) determine dependent and independent variables, 3) design surveys, 4) interpret results and formulate conclusions, and 5) verify the accuracy of your technical writing.

3. Manage upward. Keep an advisor informed constantly. Send him or her
emails on a regular basis, and keep it up the entire time the thesis or dissertation is in process. Advisors like to know students are working hard and should be impressed with your enthusiasm and dedication, real or not. When a deadline approaches, remind the advisor 4 weeks in advance, and again 2 weeks before the deadline occurs.

4. Put a box somewhere at home and keep every scrap of paper pertaining to your graduate degree program. In particular, keep a CD copy or a hard copy of every corrected manuscript the advisor hands back. Keep all emails from the advisor. These records are for the graduate Dean if needed.

5. Keep track of how many weeks or months of work have gone into the proposal
to do research, and the thesis or dissertation as a whole. The average thesis project beginning to end should not take more than one semester. The average dissertation should not take more than two semesters.

6. If your advisor assigns tasks that are outside the thesis or dissertation process, or are personal in nature, refuse politely. Students pay semester hours to work on their graduate degrees, and nothing else.

7. If your advisor fails to acquaint you with

1) the thesis or dissertation process, including deadlines,
2) the need for approval for use of human subjects and what committee makes those recommendations,
3) graduate school editorial requirements, or
4) any other organizational requirements that must be met before graduating, you should track down all the information. Then put it all in an email to your advisor asking for confirmation so it is on the record.

8. If your advisor delays handing a draft back because he or she was “too busy” to read it, and it forces you to register for another semester, send an email noting the additional expense of time and money, as well as the length of time the draft has not been returned. A reasonable amount of time for an advisor to hand work back is 2 weeks. When the draft does come back, if it has been more than 2 weeks, send an email to noting the number of days it has taken to return the work.

9. If your advisor riddles your work with hundreds of corrections, hire an editor to help. Never, ever, tell an advisor that an editor has been hired. Human nature will cause the advisor to find fault with the editor to prove his or her superiority. Instead, send the advisor a series of emails noting how much hard work you are doing, mention the major changes in the document, and note approaching deadlines. Note that the finest editor in the world cannot stop an advisor from making changes, but an editor can improve the professionalism and correctness of your work.

10. If your advisor only reads a few pages, then tells you to continue through the rest of the draft with similar corrections, send it back and tell the advisor the directions were not clear and to please clarify what changes should be made in the rest of the manuscript. It does no good to be a doormat and allow an advisor to behave badly. If your email is met with further comments about following his or her directions, or there is a long delay with no word from the advisor, call and make an appointment, then present all the pages that had no corrections on them and ask how you can improve them. At this point you may need to bring a tape recorder to your meetings with your advisor.

11. If you reach the point where you are certain your advisor is not acting in your best interests, gather all your evidence together and go see the Editor or an assistant Dean of the graduate school. In writing, request a change of advisor. In all probability, your request will be denied, but you will have activated the chain of command. Someone from the graduate Dean’s office will call either the Dean of the college where you are a student, or the department head, and ask about the complaint. That person will then call your advisor and ask for comment. Good graduate Deans will monitor your progress.

If you have been polite and professional from the first day of work with your advisor, you have nothing to fear. If your department head believes that there can be no amicable resolution to the problem, he or she can appoint one of the members of your committee to the role of advisor. Remember that there are inner-departmental rivalries and friendships among faculty that you know nothing about, and you may step into fresh trouble. However, the graduate Dean will be monitoring the problem, and you can return to that office again if the situation does not improve.

A Special Note about Online Institutions

Problems with advisors at online institutions are extremely difficult to manage. Advisors commonly work for online institutions on a part-time basis. In fact, many online institutions require an advisor to have a full-time job elsewhere. Many such institutions are more interested in obtaining continuing semester tuition than they are in graduating students. There are no checks and balances in online institutions to help a student in trouble with an advisor. Nevertheless, a good editor can help students present a more professional and thorough thesis or dissertation that is technically perfect, which often solves some of the problem.

Summary

This short article cannot encompass all the troubles that can occur between a graduate student and a bad advisor, nor can the writer anticipate what might be the best course of action in a given situation. The best advice for a student is to hire a professional editor who deals with graduate students on a regular basis, has sat on graduate committees, and can help make the best of a bad situation.

Dr. Barbara von Diether was a consultant for 12 years for a range of Fortune 500 organizations, as well as many government agencies. She was Dean in higher education. She has a Doctor’s degree in education administration, a Master’s degree in educational technology, and a security clearance. As a consultant for defense industry competitive bid proposals, the companies she assisted won $16 billion in contracts. Currently, she provides editorial services and advisement over the Internet for

1) company and government agency projects,
2) people who are writing non-fiction and fiction books, and
3) students writing theses and dissertations.

While in academe, she was President of a State Conference for the American Association of University Professors, and is a former President of her local Rotary Club. She loves horses but has none, keeps her saddle on a stand in her living room, has a daughter who is an attorney, has two grandsons, one a veterinarian, and the other too young to tell, but probably a lawyer, based on his negotiation ski

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Keep it Simple. The Literature Review is often the section written in the most formal, academic language. While there is not much scope for rhetoric in a Results section, a Literature Review may allow you to express yourself in a more elegant, academic or literary manner. However, it is important not to get too carried away! Shorter, less complicated sentences and paragraphs are always better – and more readable – than complicated prose. Don’t worry about trying to sound “smart”; it is better to be clear.

Remain Objective. One of the fundamental qualities of academic language is that it attempts to be objective, and it is important to maintain a respectful, scholarly tone when discussing the work of others. For example, even if you think a researcher’s methods were sloppy and arguments ridiculous, it is not appropriate to write, “This was terrible, sloppy research.” Use more neutral language; if you write, “without examining the issue directly we cannot be sure about the implications of this research,” your readers will understand what you mean. Likewise, when writing about arguments presented by other authors, use phrases like “Carter argues…”, “According to Mare…” or “The authors suggest that…” Avoid words such as “think” “believe” or “feel” when writing about scholarly discussion. Not only are those emotive, they may be inaccurate; you don’t know what the researchers felt, believes; only what they reported or wrote.

Write for a Wide Audience. In addition, be sure not to overestimate the reader’s familiarity with the topic, particularly in the Introduction. Though you may be writing for researchers in a general area, not all of them will be specialists on your particular topic. As you read through your draft, try to look at it through the eyes of another person … for example, a researcher you met at conference on your subject who worked in a different area. Though the person was intelligent and had the same general background as you, he or she may still know little about the literature or “specific nuances” that apply to your particular area of expertise.

First vs. Third Person. A stylistic area in which scientific disciplines and journals vary widely is the use of first vs. third person constructions. Some disciplines and their journals – e.g., business – have moved away from a very strict adherence to the third person construction, and permit limited use of the first person in published papers. Other disciplines like sociology or – especially the biomedical fields – still prefer the third person construction. Limit your use of first person construction (i.e., ” I” or “we” undertook this study….): usually it is most acceptable in the Introduction and Discussion sections, and then only to a limited extent. Use first person in the methods sparingly if at all, and avoid its use in the results.

Use Active Verbs: Use active verbs whenever possible; writing that overly uses passive verbs (is, was, has, have, had) is deadly to read and almost always results in more words than necessary to say the same thing.

Keep Key Words and phrases Handy
If you are well versed in the literature in your particular discipline you will notice some repeated key words and phrases used in every journal article. Make a list of these key words and phrases and be sure to ’sprinkle’ them throughout your document. A wide range of vocabulary is of course important, however, when writing academic papers, it is often helpful to find key terms that are familiar to your reading audience.

Focusing on scholarly text will also ultimately assist you in the writing process. Use academic journals to prepare a list of key words that are important in your research area – use this set of key words repeatedly throughout your document.

Resist the urge to use your thesaurus to come up alternate synonyms to substitute for key terms; these words all have different meanings, nuances, and connotations. For example, if the key phrase for your discipline is “family structure”, – do not try substituting other phrases like “family composition”, “family formation”, “family arrangement”, or “family size.” Experimenting with alternative word choice can do more harm than good.

On the other hand, purposely repeating key words and phrases links sentences and paragraphs. Moreover, repetition of key words and phrases not only emphasizes important points but also adds cohesion to your overall argument by creating powerful links between ideas in your paper and helping your reader understand the logic of your paper.

Each sentence in a dissertation must be complete and correct in a grammatical sense. Moreover, a dissertation must satisfy the stringent rules of formal grammar (e.g., no contractions, no colloquialisms, no slurs, no undefined technical jargon, no hidden jokes, and no slang, even when such terms or phrases are in common use in the spoken language). Indeed, the writing in a dissertation must be crystal clear. Shades of meaning matter; the terminology and prose must make fine distinctions. The words must convey exactly the meaning intended, nothing more and nothing less.

Remember, to complete your thesis or dissertation you must turn in a written product: the key to success is practice. You don’t become a better writer by just reading an essay like this. Instead, you need to practice, practice, practice. Every day.

About the Author: As a single mother, professor Wendy Y. Carter, Ph.D., completed three masters’ degrees and a PhD. Her motto is a Good Thesis/Dissertation is a Done Thesis/Dissertation. She is the creator of a new innovative interactive resource tool on CD-TADA! Thesis and Accomplished. To learn more contact the author at drcarter@tadafinallyfinished.com Or visit http://www.tadafinallyfinished.com

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1. Choose a Topic

The first step is to choose a broad topic for your thesis. For example, if you are undertaking a PhD in History, the topic might be as broad as women’s involvement in the Spanish Civil War. You will refine and narrow this topic at a later stage. Choosing the topic for your thesis is an important step that requires a great deal of thoughtful consideration. Many factors need to be considered. Ask yourself these questions:

•What topic in my field interests me the most?

If you are writing an Honours thesis, you will need to maintain your interest in the topic you choose for at least one year. If you are completing a PhD, you will be researching this topic for three or more years! For this reason, it is important that you choose a topic that will hold your enthusiasm, interest and passion for an extended period. There is nothing worse than being locked in to studying a thesis topic that no longer interests you.

•Will I be able to find an appropriate supervisor for that topic?

Finding a supervisor is an important step in your postgraduate journey and it is something you need to consider when choosing your topic. There needs to be a balance between your interest in a topic and the ability of a specific supervisor to work in this area. It is not useful to choose a topic that is of immense interest to you if no one at your university has sufficient knowledge in the area to act as your supervisor. However, it is also not advisable to choose a supervisor first and then choose a topic based solely on their research interests, as you may end up studying something that is not of interest to you.

•Will I have access to the appropriate sources to research this topic?

Similarly, it is not useful to choose a topic that is immensely interesting to you if there is very little information on the subject. When choosing your topic, consider what types of sources you would need to be able to research it well, and find out if you will have access to these sources. If, as in the example above, you will be studying the Spanish Civil War, can you speak Spanish? Will you be able to travel to Spain to access sources? Does a wealth of material on your chosen subject exist?

2. Conduct the Literature Review

Once you have chosen a topic to study for your thesis, you need to begin your background research to discover what has already been written on the topic by other researchers. There are several reasons why it is important to conduct a thorough Literature Review:

•Most thesis structures require you to include a well written Literature Review in your thesis, so that you can demonstrate you have conducted in-depth research in the field and possess a sound knowledge of it

•You need to study what has been written on a topic so you can identify a gap in the current literature that can be filled by your thesis, since a thesis needs to make an original contribution to a field of knowledge

3. Narrow your Topic and Define your Research Questions

Once you have conducted your Literature Review and identified a gap in the current field of knowledge in your topic, you will be able to narrow your topic further. This is an important step as this is the point at which you will decide what questions your thesis will answer.

In the example of the PhD student who knew she wanted to study women’s involvement in the Spanish Civil War, after a careful review of the literature she might have found that one unexamined area is the role of Republican women in combat during the war. This is a much narrower topic than ‘women’s involvement in the Spanish Civil War’, and thus it is a suitable subject for a thesis. The student would then need to define her research questions. Her main research question might be ‘Why was the military participation of Republican women in the Spanish Civil War significant?’ In order to answer this main research question, she would first have to answer a set of sub-questions, like these:

•How many women fought in the Spanish Civil War?
•What motivated these women to volunteer for combat?
•Why were these women removed from their combat positions only eight months after the beginning of the war?

Thus, the third step in writing a thesis is narrowing your topic, deciding on a main research question and deciding on sub-questions.

4. Research Proposal

If you are writing a Masters or a PhD thesis, you will normally be required to write a detailed Research Proposal in the first few months of your candidature. If you are undertaking a PhD, for example, you might have six months to write a 10,000 word proposal. This Research Proposal will include information you have discovered in your Literature Review, and will outline what your thesis aims to achieve. For many students, this Research Proposal later becomes the basis for the Introduction and Literature Review in their final thesis. The successful completion of this proposal and its acceptance by your university is a necessary step in order to continue your candidature. Once you have written your Research Proposal, it is important that you have it professionally edited prior to submitting it, to ensure you have the best chance of its acceptance. See ‘The Final Stage: Professional Editing’ below.

5. Conduct the Research

The aim in conducting your research is to answer your research questions and develop a thesis statement. The thesis statement is your answer to your main research question. It defines the argument that you will be putting forward throughout your thesis. In fact, the word ‘thesis’ means ‘argument’ or ‘position’.

Conducting the research is the most important and time-consuming stage of writing a thesis. How you do this will depend on your field of study and the research project you have created. It is important to consult with your supervisor throughout this stage and to use time management skills to ensure that you stay on track.

6. Follow the Guidelines

Your university department or school will have guidelines that you must follow when writing your thesis and it is important to be familiar with these before you begin writing your first draft. These guidelines will vary from university to university. They even vary within universities, as different disciplines follow different guidelines. It is important that you check with your supervisor about where to find the correct guidelines to follow. Often these guidelines will be very detailed and will specify the following things: the length of your final thesis; the structure of the thesis and what elements it should contain; the referencing style to be used; and the formatting and presentation of the thesis. If you have trouble following some of the guidelines, for example the formatting and presentation or the correct referencing of your thesis, your professional editor will be able to assist you in these matters (please see ‘The Final Stage: Professional Editing’).

7. Write the First Draft of the Thesis

Once you have completed your research, you will arrive at what can be the most nerve-racking stage, writing up your results in the form of your first draft. Before you begin writing, it is important that you finalise a detailed plan for your thesis (one that you no doubt will have begun developing during the research stage). With a detailed plan and organised research, you will not feel like you are starting from scratch when you begin writing your first draft. Your professional editor at Elite Editing & Tutoring can help you during this stage, as some students find it helpful to submit individual chapters for editing as soon as they have written them. This is especially helpful for students who have English as a second language. This way you are able to submit drafts to your supervisor that have already been edited to improve the level of English and your supervisor can concentrate on advising you regarding the ideas and arguments contained in your thesis, rather than being distracted by the language use.

8. Thesis Structure

The structure of a thesis varies widely. It will depend on what level you are studying at, what field you are studying in, the guidelines you are following, your supervisor’s suggestions, and how best to present the type of research you have done. Below is an example of a common thesis structure. This is a guide only and you will need to adjust it to suit your needs and adhere to your department’s guidelines.

• Title Page
• Contents
• Abstract
• Declaration of Original Work
• Acknowledgments
• List of Figures and Tables
• Introduction
• Literature Review
• Thesis Chapters
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Appendices

9. The Final Stage: Professional Editing

Once you have completed writing your thesis, it is vital that you have it professionally edited by an academic editor. You have just spent between a year (for Honours students) and over three years (for PhD students) doing your research and writing up your results. After all this effort, it is critical that your work is presented in the best possible way. Using a professional academic editor will ensure that your work is polished, well written, and presented correctly. If English is your second language, having your thesis professionally edited is even more important. You do not want mistakes in your writing to confuse your examiners or distract them from the important arguments you are making.

This article has been written by Dr Lisa Lines, the Director and Head Editor of Elite Editing & Tutoring. For more information on how to write your thesis or dissertation, please visit our website.

Please note that some universities require postgraduate students to obtain the permission of their supervisor prior to having their thesis professionally edited. We recommend that students follow the policies of their universities.

Dr. Lisa Lines
Director and Head Editor
Elite Editing & Tutoring

Web: http://www.eliteediting.com.au
Blog: http://eliteediting.blogspot.com

Our professional, academic editors will edit your essay, assignment, thesis or dissertation to help you improve your grades. We provide an online service to high school and university students all over the world.

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