Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Writing Thesis Manual
A thesis can be one of the most rewarding, productive experiences of a graduate student's career. As an educational venture it is fundamentally different from the normal classroom experience. It is an opportunity for students to be creative, to bring together and integrate skills they have acquired, to make a real professional contribution. The thesis is a means for students to demonstrate both to themselves and the world that they have achieved a respectable level of professional maturity.
Doing a thesis is also a rare opportunity for a person to concentrate intensely on a professional project they care about, and which they have defined. Many will not have similar experiences again for a long time, if ever. Work after graduation is often spread out over many different projects, and subjected to all kinds of extraneous pressures. The period in which you do your thesis is "whatever it may seem like at the time" relatively sheltered and unpressured. You should appreciate it.
A thesis is often scary. No doubt about it. Many students are initially anxious about how they will manage to complete such a large and demanding project, generally much larger and more challenging than anything they have previously done professionally. Moreover, many naturally suffer from moments of despair along the way as things do not go according to plan. This is natural too.
Many of these thesis crises can be prevented or overcome by appropriate forethought. With the proper guidance, much of the possible pain of doing a thesis can be avoided. This manual presents some guidelines designed to help students execute their thesis expeditiously. These represent both philosophical and practical suggestions concerning issues which have appeared most troublesome to students. They get revised regularly based on comments and suggestions . yours would be most welcome.
Experience validates the usefulness of these guidelines, especially to students who have some latitude in defining their thesis topic. Over 700 graduate students in the MIT Technology and Policy Program have tested these recommendations since 1980. Experience also indicates that students doing a thesis benefit from carrying out the exercises at the end of each chapter. These explicit exercises represent tasks that all thesis students should in any case be doing, implicitly in their heads if not on paper. They are thus definitely not a waste of time. They provide opportunities for the thesis student and the advisor to check progress on the thesis and to make mid-course corrections in good time.
Download full document (right-click and select
Save Target As…)
Posted by Mystical Orient
Can't see English? click here for Language Setting
0 Comments:
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
---------------------------------------
