Thesis Writing for Research Students

Semester 1, 2010

Time: 9.30pm - 12.30pm Thursday

Place: Training Room 3, Level A, The Library

Lecturer: Dr. Linda Li

This series of workshops is designed to assist research students from any discipline to gain a clear understanding of the thesis writing process and develop essential skills and strategies for writing a thesis. It also aims to provide a venue for thesis writers on campus to share their research and writing experiences, give and receive constructive feedback, and benefit from such intellectual sharing during their thesis writing process.

Registration:

You may register for the entire series of workshops, or selected sessions. To register for the workshops, contact the Academic Skills Program on 6201-2205. You may also drop in the ASP office in 1B24 (located next to the Security Office on the main concourse).

For more information please contact the Academic Skills Program on 6201 2205.

Overview of Workshop Sessions:

Session 1: Understanding the Thesis Writing Process

What is a thesis?

• What constitutes effective scholarly writing?
• What are the new demands of writing a thesis?
• What are the key stages of the research process?
• How can you integrate writing into your research?
• Exploring the thesis writing experience

Session 2: Refining the research proposal

• The purpose of the research proposal
• Key components of the research proposal
• Assessment criteria of the research proposal
• Structuring the research proposal
• Revising and refining your research proposal
• Rethinking and revising exercises 

Session 3: Structuring the thesis effectively

• Disciplinary differences in thesis structure
• Key questions and the generic structure
• Outlining your thesis structure
• The general format
• Common types of thesis structure
• Structuring a chapter
• Thinking about your own thesis structure
• Examining the structure of sample theses

Session 4: Writing the literature review

• Purpose of the literature review
• Understanding the literature review process
• Steps in organising the literature review
• Structuring the literature review chapter
• Language used in the literature review
• Assessing the literature review

Session 5: Describing the research methodology

• Research questions and research methods
• What goes into the description of research methodology
• Describing quantitative and qualitative methods
• Language used in describing research methods
• Defining and justifying your chosen methods
• Organising your description of research methodology

Session 6: Presenting results and discussion

• Organising the results chapter/section
• Language used in results chapter/section
• Organising the discussion chapter/section
• Language used in the discussion chapter/section
• Combined results and discussion chapters/sections
• Reporting and discussing quantitative and qualitative data

Session 7: Thesis introductions and conclusions

• Introductions in a thesis
• • Purpose of the introduction
  • Importance of good introductions
  • The introductory chapter
  • Introduction of a chapter/section
• Conclusions in a thesis
• • Purpose of the conclusion
  • Importance of good conclusions
  • The thesis conclusion
  • Conclusion of a chapter/section

Session 8: Style, editing and presentation

• What do we mean by style?
• Elements of good writing style
• Style-related problems in thesis writing
• Examples of style-related writing problems
• Editing: what does it involve?
• Editing techniques
• The final presentation of your thesis

Session 9: Special topics in thesis writing

• Open forum on topics of interest among participants
• Discussion on topics related to participants theses

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