A mini guide to writing a thesis in 4 steps

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This guide to the degree thesis was created after attending seminars, conferences, training moments and taking advantage of the advice of my very expert supervisor and Buy Essay Online Cheap.

The thesis is a particular work: it represents the result of a content production process studded with panic, terror and despair. For this reason, I decided to collect all the suggestions received in a single mini guide that can be of help to other undergraduates: here it is, all for you, in a single post

The mini guide is divided into four parts:  conception, preparation, drafting and presentation .

These represent the four thematic and temporal macro-areas to be respected if you do not want to write in the throes of confusion and total delirium. Rest assured, this is nothing new, your rapporteur could very well tell you the same things… or maybe not. In case your supervisor is too busy to follow you step by step, here’s what to do.

1. Ideation

First of all I recommend that you print this guide and write your goal big somewhere (I want to write a thesis with a maximum score ) . Having a checklist can be psychologically not helpful, but saving. In panic, one hardly remembers anything more than one’s own name. Let a sheet do it for you.

But let’s move on to the advice.

Theoretical phase

  1. The writing of the thesis takes place in small steps . Concentrate on short-term goals ( think of a title … download the indications for fonts and margins of the sheet from the faculty website … write the first paragraph on blablabla …): what you conceive at the beginning is never what you will have at the end, therefore do not sell the bear skin before you have captured it. You may find yourself with a fawn.
  2. Choose the topic to be covered. Do not overdo it by choosing something too complicated to attract the attention of the commission: it will never be a good job like the one you feel is yours , even if it seems simple and trivial. The de-trivialization will come later.

If you have no ideas, consult the thesis archive of your university, you could expand and / or update a topic dealt with years before that has now been innovated.

You could choose the area that you would like to be your field of work in the future, so that you can attach your thesis to the CV as a ready-made project and just wait for a possible realisation.

  1. Find the speaker. There is no perfect speaker, and, above all, you will have to fight for his attention (especially if you have chosen the last graduation session of the academic year). Among a thousand undergraduates, why you ? Answer this question and you are already halfway there.

Do not choose the best or the most beautiful, the important things are: seriousness, reliability (you must be sure that he reads   your paper), possibly punctuality and maybe hope in you. A speaker convinced of the graduate’s work is the next best thing after chocolate with guarana coffee beans, but just as hard to find.

Practical phase

Now that you have an idea of ​​what you want to do, here’s what to do before starting to collect the materials for the thesis.

  1. Print all the forms for the registration to the thesis from the website or have them given to you by the student secretariat. I recommend: make sure they are the right ones. You will fill them in together with the speaker at the right time.
  2. If you have an agenda that you always carry around, write down your email address, mobile or telephone number and reception hours on the front page.

Don’t underestimate the importance of emails. Usually the university provides a general email to each professor   with the university name as a domain is the least used, try to get another email, which you use more often. In theory, a graduate student should have a preferential path to other students.

  1. Make a list of all the libraries in the area and their respective timetables (civil, municipal and university libraries). Also add the sites from which you can download essays for free that will be able to implement your arguments by giving an extra touch of professionalism (the so-called journals or scientific articles that professors are in love with).

Here is a small list to refine:

– (it is the google version that searches only and exclusively among scientific essays);

– (social network where researchers from all over the world share their papers);

– (often here the articles are either only available or for a fee. To solve this problem, skip a few lines);

– personal page of eminences of the interested sector, sometimes the researchers upload the pdf of their essays that can be downloaded for free;

I recommend: ask your university library about their database. Almost all universities have online subscriptions to the scientific journals you need and through their computer you can download the essays you need for free. If they are not subscribers, sometimes on request they can also buy the essay you need (I am talking about online essays, not books for the thesis, unfortunately).

  1. Buy: black tea, coffee and dark chocolate. They will help you. A small supply for sleep emergencies.

2. Preparation

Ladder or division of the thesis

This method is especially valid for the three-year theses. For the master’s theses, reapply it for the number of parts in which you will divide the theses (the master’s are usually divided into parts, each of which into chapters. The three-year theses directly into chapters).

Imagine your thesis divided into 4/5 chapters plus introduction and conclusion, which you will deal with at the end of everything.

The division into chapters must be in an inverted triangle or funnel, that is, from the general to the specific.

Usually you start with a smattering of general theory and arrive at the final chapter where you summarise all your knowledge into something empirical. A questionnaire, a phonetic analysis, an interview… The first 3 chapters should prepare the reader for this.

eg .:

1) what is a forest;

2) the birth of ecology, environmentalists of the 60s;

3) current regulations;

4) questionnaire on ecology at Mario Rossi’s university.

Get help from the speaker, having his approval at the beginning will ensure you don’t have to do it all over again at the end.

Collection of materials

Do you remember the list with the addresses of the libraries and sites to consult? Use it to look for the books the speaker gave you. You can consult the catalogues of the libraries on the list from home, so you save yourself some empty trips. These catalogues are all called OPACs.

If the professor has not given you book titles, use the OPAC thematic research to get an idea of ​​the books available on the topic of your thesis.

Do not underestimate the bibliography of past theses with a similar topic to yours. You could take inspiration from those same sources.

3. Drafting

The working method

  1. timing: give yourself 1 month for each chapter + 1 month for conclusion, introduction and revisions. Eg: 4 chapters, 5 months;
  2. every time you finish a chapter, send it to your supervisor via email for a review;
  3. draw up the bibliography as you actually cite a text as you write;
  4. give yourself a minimum of time a day for writing, even if only to re-read what you have done up to that moment;
  5. remember the breaks , they help the mind not to overload;
  6. keep these sites open on your pc for a quick consultation: wordreference (for the translation of foreign words if you work on material in a foreign language), and wikiversity , the university page of wikipedia. Only for consultation to clarify doubts at the moment, they are not valid as bibliographic material!

take care of you

Usually panic causes the student to throw himself headlong into the writing in a continuous full immersion, to the detriment of his own health. Try to remember a few things:

  1. limit the coffees, or too many will cause acidity in the stomach and the thesis will wear you out more than it should;
  2. take care of your nutrition; certain vitamins help the brain work better;
  3. reserve one day a week totally away from the computer;
  4. balance the brightness of the screen according to the light in the room, so you don’t strain your eyes too much.

4. Presentation

There are universities where the thesis is delivered to the secretariat and that’s it, others where you have to present orally, still others where a powerpoint presentation is mandatory .

Leaving aside the first case, here are the tips for exhibitions.

Oral presentation without presentation

Usually in these cases you sit in front of the committee and talk. Nothing more difficult.

Anxiety, terror, panic, rapid heartbeat, sweat, stuttering… All of this can be minimised with good preparation in the previous days.

  1. Prepare the speech at least a week in advance.
  2. In the following days, take the time to memorise it. You don’t need word for word, but break up the text into paragraphs by theme or topic and learn those subdivisions. They will help the memory process.
  3. Use the recorder to listen to yourself. Usually in hearing your own voice you notice small common mistakes, such as speaking too fast, too many leaps ( er, that is, in reality, but … )
  4. As you pass aloud, give yourself a rhythm with your hand, tapping on the leg while keeping time. The voice will follow the hand.

You could record yourself with the camcorder and then watch yourself on video. Sometimes we have facial tics that show how nervous we are and writing.

With powerpoint

  1. Even in this situation, start preparing the power point a week before.
  2. Typically 24 or 28 font, Arial or Times New Roman font.
  3. Put one image per slide.
  4. As the first slide, title, university at the top, your name and email.
  5. Final slide with thanks for your attention and again email as address

 

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