Thesis Writing for Research Students

Semester 1, 2012

Time: 2.00pm - 5.00pm Wednesday

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 Centre on 6201-2205. You may also drop in the ASC office in 5A13.

For more information please contact the Academic Skills Centre 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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