Thesis

[iguana_tonante]

I paid one guy for writing my thesis.

That guy was me.

We even had a contract and everything. We negotiated furiously for work hours, holidays, night shifts and weekends. I chastised me when I was slacking, I told me to fuck off when it was my time off. We had a systems of incentives for long hours, and pay cuts when the results didn't meet the expectations. I have to say, I was a hard-working employee, and I was an very understanding boss.

Sure, in the end I didn't earn anything that I didn't have already, but my thesis was done, and I felt good getting paid for doing it!

 

[Mary Ann]

Iguana, that is a brilliant system. I think I'm going to write up a similar contract while I study my way through *hackcough* years of law school, but I'll let my kids keep track of the contract details because they'll delight in being utterly merciless to me, thereby helping to keep me on track.

Speaking of, I need to get back to my paper on statutory interpretation...

 

[Spot's Meow]

NO! Now I am near PANIC! I have 2 professors, my main one and the second one. My main one isn´t there right now, so I went to the second one and she said what I want to put in my thesis is more like at least 4 thesises. Now I have no idea what to do, that plan how to write it that started to form in my head is destroyed and nothing works out!!!!!

TerokNor

This was a very common issue amongst my colleagues in school while working on our theses. Some people had no ideas at all, but most people had too many ideas, and tried to write something that could have amounted to several books. I know the feeling - once you start researching something, instead of giving you concrete answers it just provides more and more questions, until you find yourself following tangents that are only barely related to the original question that you had. You just have to very clearly define what your focus is, and leave out the other stuff, no matter how interesting it may be. Someone else will cover that aspect, or perhaps you will in the future when you decide to write a book or something.

Don't panic though! Try to narrow your focus on your own, and if you really feel that you can't cut anything out, wait until you can go see your main advisor. They will help you get it down to a reasonable size. But remember, it is better to cut out some stuff now rather than later, after you have spent many hours researching and writing about it. I had friends who worked months on certain sections of their thesis, just to be told later by their advisor that it needed to be cut out. They were extremely frustrated when that happened.

 

[Goliath]

Now that I re-read my last post, I think it could be mistaken for sarcasm.

It's not. I really am nonplussed that I didn't think to check for computer programs that index books.

I feel so twentieth-century sometimes.

Terok, speaking from my own experience, the problem you're describing is very common.

It's a bit strange, actually. When students are undergraduates, you have to flog and kick and curse them to write even eight or ten pages. The average undergraduate would hand in a few hastily-scribbled points on a napkin, if he or she could get away with it.

Then, suddenly, once they get to graduate school, they have the opposite problem: they can't possibly say what they have to say in just fifty or a hundred pages.

The thing to keep in mind is that you're not trying to cure cancer here. What you're trying to do is write a thesis. That is to say: you're trying to show your supervisors that you have advanced to the next stage of your academic apprenticeship.

Think of it as a specific task that you have to perform: come up with a research program that will produce a final report of a certain length. Think of it as producing a piece of work to order.

Being able to identify and articulate an appropriately-sized project is an important part of this process. In order to write a thesis, you need a thesis-sized project. If you can't come up with such a project, then you have not yet achieved kolinahr.

If you have too many ideas, then choose the one that interests you most, and pursue that. If your project is too large, then drop everything but the best and most interesting (or at least, the most do-able) part. You'll have plenty of time to do all that other stuff if you decide to do a PhD.

The important thing here is to get out of your own way. A Master's thesis is just a hoop to be jumped through. Don't try to jump through a flaming hoop over a shark tank. You'll just burn yourself, and fall in.

 

[Jadzia]

NO! Now I am near PANIC! I have 2 professors, my main one and the second one. My main one isn´t there right now, so I went to the second one and she said what I want to put in my thesis is more like at least 4 thesises. Now I have no idea what to do, that plan how to write it that started to form in my head is destroyed and nothing works out!!!!!

This was a very common issue amongst my colleagues in school while working on our theses. Some people had no ideas at all, but most people had too many ideas, and tried to write something that could have amounted to several books.

When I did my thesis, I had a wealth of ideas. My adviser wanted me to do less, but I was ambitious and defiant, so I did what I wanted.

It all came together nicely, and it was remarked upon as being one of the best theses they'd ever had.

So I say: Don't let your adviser hold you back. Be as awesome as you're confident you can be.

 

[galleywest]

In my program we have to do a thesis prospectus, basically a defence of the thesis idea. We have to outline what we want to do and exactly how we want to do it. Its a pain, but in the end no one can come back and say, "I thought you were going to do X and instead you did Y for your thesis!" You can refer them to the prospectus and explain that no, you set out to do Y all along.

 

[TerokNor]

But I am undergraduate I think. Not quite sure of how your system works. Its my Bachelor thesis. This one is shorter than the Master one (around 50 pages, instead of hundred), in lesser time (3 months instead of 6 months) and with a smaller research project than for a masters degree. Don´t you do a thesis after the Bachelor?
I don´t want to go on with a Master I think...another 2 years...a bigger thesis in the end...feel sick of thesises already. I think I do one or two practical certificates instead, I like to work practical, theory is important and interessting, but I need to be out there not in here on the computer. Drives me crazy.
I always have too many ideas, most of them my profs already talked me out of, because they were more Master thesis like or Doctorate things. So I was quite happy to finally found something that fits into a Bachelor thesis... and now its still too big. That is frustraiting, but I sorted through it now and will leave out the whole development section (was not fond on writing that anyway) and will also leave out a full explanation of the bonding theory and a big part of the neurology section and education/ learning stuff. I will mention it here and there, but will mainly focus on the quality of interaction. I still do my thing, but it was true...it just was way too big. And maybe now I get better into writing without the pressure of the impossibility of writing all the things I wanted to write. Well I hope that now its not too small.

Hmm, and I never gave my profs few or hastily written things :P Thats also my problem, I am quite perfectionistic, it must all make sense, I hate loose ends...I already need for a normal essay of like 20 pages 8 weeks till I am happy with it, writing it, rewriting it, rerewriting it etc. . And now I have only 10 weeks left for the thesis and its 50 pages...and I know it will not be perfect, as the times too short for my taste and working tempo in these things...and that annoys me already greatly.

Some of my study-mates who write with other profs had to do a prosoectus too. It always depends on the prof what he/she wants.

TerokNor

 

[Goliath]

^My bad, TerokNor.

Here, you write a thesis for your master's degree, and a dissertation for your doctorate. An undergraduate "thesis" is just a paper.

So I assumed you were a master's student. My apologies.

But most of what I said still holds true, I think. Once you take out all the mistakes.

 

[TerokNor]

Really? Oh I wish I could study where you live and get around the thesis. Here it is a real ( if smaller) thesis and not just a paper.

TerokNor

 

[Jadzia]

Here, you write a thesis for your master's degree, and a dissertation for your doctorate. An undergraduate "thesis" is just a paper.

In my experience with this nomenclature (in England), the thesis is the main paper for either one's masters or doctorate.

The equivalent thing at undergraduate level and at school/college is a project. But if it's small and less important, then it's just called homework.

 

[iguana_tonante]

But most of what I said still holds true, I think. Once you take out all the mistakes.

Isn't it true for everything?

 

[Goliath]

Really? Oh I wish I could study where you live and get around the thesis. Here it is a real ( if smaller) thesis and not just a paper.

Well, it's a pretty long paper. And it has a supervisor, and a committee, and a defence--just like a master's thesis. I served on three of these committees this year.

It's essentially a whole course devoted to writing a single paper. So the grass isn't any greener on this side of the fence.

Although I understand the requirements vary from department to department.

But most of what I said still holds true, I think. Once you take out all the mistakes.

Isn't it true for everything?

Everything I say is true. Except the parts that are false.

 

[Spot's Meow]

Well, there's really not much difference between the words "thesis" and "paper" here, they can be used interchangably in some cases. Some schools call them different things. For my undergraduate degree I had to complete a thesis that was about 35 pages, and for my Master's degree I completed one that was around 75-100 pages.

The undergraduate thesis, at least here, is really not a huge deal. Some professors will grade it more harshly than others of course, but this isn't something that you have to base your entire career on. I enjoyed the topic of my undergraduate thesis, but I haven't done any further research on it and I hardly remember any of the details. So don't stress out as if this is the most important thing in your life! It is just words on paper, and you will get through it.

For a Master's thesis you are allowed to ramble on a bit and make it longer if you'd like to spend more time on it, but for undergraduate we had only one semester in which to write. So I know what you mean about it being difficult to choose a topic...50 pages is long enough to have to do in depth research, but not long enough to really expand on the topic and explain all of the details. An awful length!

Don't let having to write a thesis deter you from getting a Master's degree. It is easier than you think, because you will have more time in which to do it and your advisors will help you along. And usually it is a topic that you are more interested in and actually want to do research on because you can go more in depth.

Although you say you are a perfectionist, don't worry too much about rewriting and editing it before you even give it to your advisor to look at. It is their job to edit it, and they will probably have a lot of opinions on things you should change. So you don't want to spend a lot of time rewriting it just to have to go back and make a whole bunch of changes again! Might as well wait until you receive feedback from your advisors and then rewrite things.

 

[TerokNor]

Hmm, yes, but I think I want to work (again). When I started with the Bachelor I had no possibility to do a Master anyway (money-wise), so it was never planned..now I could do a Master, because of my stipend, but... for my goal I don´t need a research Master and we have no others than those. Don´t get me wrong I like learning things, but I think with the certificates I am thinking about I learn more what I want to learn. Career wise, for earning more money a Master surly would be wiser, but actually I get around well with a small amount of money and there are so many things I find more important than some high career, leadership or so. I love the work with the small kids and handicaped kids, but most places told me they would not take people with Master degree, too expensive. So for what should I do a masters degree, if I than cannot work anylonger in my choosen field, because of over qualification?

Well here it is the way that the advisors don´t look at it and give it back then for rewriting. They get it and then read it and give grades, no changes allowed. So as soon as I give it to them it has to be as perfect as possibel. I can ask questions of course, but they will not read the thing beforehand.


TerokNor

 

[iguana_tonante]

Everything I say is true. Except the parts that are false.

That's funny. Everything I say is false. Except the parts that are true. We should guard a portal together or something.

 

[Goliath]

Well here it is the way that the advisors don´t look at it and give it back then for rewriting. They get it and then read it and give grades, no changes allowed. So as soon as I give it to them it has to be as perfect as possibel. I can ask questions of course, but they will not read the thing beforehand.

That's different from my department. The committee members read the rough draft, after the supervisor approves it, and we suggest changes to be incoporated into the final draft. Then we read the final draft, before the defence.

 

[Naira]

There may be, but if there is, I'm not familiar with it.

What program do you use for writing? Doesn't LaTEX do the things you want?

 

[iguana_tonante]

LaTeX does everything.

 

[Goliath]

LaTeX?

[googles]

 

[Gepard]

Now that I re-read my last post, I think it could be mistaken for sarcasm.

It's not. I really am nonplussed that I didn't think to check for computer programs that index books.

I feel so twentieth-century sometimes.

And now, just to rub it in, after five seconds with Google:

Macrex

Sky Software

Clive Pyne

Ta-dah. I wouldn't be surprised if spambots tried to sell us something like this at some point in the past. You luddite.