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Basic Rules for Students When Writing a Thesis

By KWS Adams Oct 11, 2022
Students Writing a Thesis

Most research starts with a question. Once you have a question in mind, you can start researching relevant information. As you become better informed about your topic by reading prior research, you will find a purpose for your thesis. Without a clearly defined purpose, a thesis is flawed from the start. Now you need to take a systematic and rigorous approach to answer the question

Clearly articulate your research topic

One of the basic rules of writing a thesis is that you need to be clear about what you want to research and in what context. You can’t research properly if you’re vague about what you want to know. Your research should answer a question that hasn’t been asked before or hasn’t been asked within a specific context. Successfully answering your research question should offer value in your field. It shouldn’t be just to satisfy your own curiosity. 

Get thesis writing help

As a student, you can do research and have all the ideas ready, but when it comes to writing the thesis paper, you might feel that you need assistance. You can reach out to a professional writer at a write my thesis service online. This means that you can submit a quality paper that’s plagiarism-free and complies with all the academic requirements. It puts you in the right place to get good grades and improve your own academic writing. EduBirdie is the most reputed name in this regard – a service that you can trust anytime.

Write a convincing research proposal

You need to convince your university that your research is worthwhile. Your research proposal defines the specific purpose of your study and its significance. It should contain a tentative review of the literature on the topic, your research hypothesis, and how you propose to collect and analyze your data. 

convincing research proposal

Craft a strong introduction

Once your proposal is approved, you can start writing a thesis paper. In the introduction, you give readers an idea of what your research is about and why it’s important. It must engage them and draw them in, so they want to read further. 

Do a literature review

Your literature review will describe and analyze previous research on your topic. The goal of this section is to determine what is already known about the topic. You need to cover all the literature related to your core question and highlight a gap where your research fits in. The existing research will also help to inform your methodology and research design. Many students underestimate how much time this step takes, so make sure you allocate enough time for it. 

Design and execute your research

The methodology chapter of your thesis paper explains the “how” of your research. It will include your research philosophy and whether you will take a quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-method approach. You will need to cover your data collection strategies, such as interviews, focus groups or surveys. Your data analysis strategy must also be included. This chapter should describe and justify your decisions. 

Data collection can take time, so you need to factor in sufficient time. Many times it doesn’t go exactly according to plan. If you conduct interviews or use focus groups, you will need transcriptions. Quantitative survey data will need to be in the right format for the analysis software you use. 

Present your findings

In a thesis, you will typically present your findings in a results chapter and a discussion chapter. In the results chapter, you will present your findings in a clear manner but won’t attempt any interpretation yet. In your discussion chapter, you will interpret the results. Your discussion should link back to your research question and answer it as thoroughly as possible. 

Draw a conclusion and discuss the implications

In the concluding chapter, you will highlight your findings. What are the practical implications of your study? Next, you will outline the practical limitations of your study and propose future areas for research. 

Finishing off

All that’s left now is your reference list and appendices. Your bibliography must contain all the sources you use in your paper in the correct format. It is extremely important to reference all your sources, so your paper doesn’t get flagged for plagiarism. You should also make sure that you check and edit your paper thoroughly before submitting it. 

Conclusion

Writing a thesis is a complex and time-consuming process. However, there are basic rules you can follow to make sure you address your thesis question in a structured way. This enables you to approach research clearly and logically, discuss your findings and draw a valid conclusion. 

Author’s Bio

Connie Elser has been in the writing field for several years, and besides writing, she is part of a team that aims to make students’ lives easier by providing them access to free essay examples online. This helps them to get ideas, inspiration, and a resource that they can truly rely on. She’s been outstanding in her career and wishes to continue working in the academic field. 

By KWS Adams

My name is KWS Adams . (Call me Kateregga). I am an IT addict who loves playing around with computers and internet. Computers help me try out different things while turning them into reality, while the internet powers me stay live online. Besides computers, I am a project planning and management professional with an Award obtained from MUK, one of the oldest and best Universities in Africa. Find me on Twitter, Facebook and Whatsapp. Find more on how to contact me using the contact me page.

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