Choose a Topic for a Dissertation
Steps:
1) Make a habit as early as possible in your graduate career of
jotting down ideas for research while sitting in lectures and doing
your reading. Particular findings can point to new and interesting
questions. 2) Weed out ideas as the time to choose draws nearer.
Consider such issues as level of interest (how excited do you get
when you think about it?), practicality (too broad or too narrow?),
and how significant a contribution it will make to your
discipline.3) Consult with fellow student; they may offer great
ideas.4) Ask your advisor and other professors what they know about
work that is already been done on the topics that remain after your
weeding-out process.5) Find this work, and see how similar or
different it is from your own ideas. If its too similar, you have
just eliminated another possibility.6) Choose whichever of the
remaining topics interests you the most. 7) Keep in mind that your
topic is a work in progress, and allow yourself to be flexible. Its
inevitable that some aspects of your topic will change as you
progress in your research and writing.
Write a Rough DraftIn a rough draft, you get all your ideas on
paper and flesh them out. You will add and delete material several
times before you are satisfied that your work is complete and you
are ready to write your final draft
Steps:
1) Make your thesis statement and a summary of your objective at
the top of a clean sheet of paper. This will become your topic
paragraph after revision.2) Approach your rough draft in sections;
theres no need to concern yourself with the overall flow of the
paper just yet. Each section will be a paragraph or group of
paragraphs in your final draft.3) Start with the first item on your
paper outline. Write the title of this item on a sheet of paper and
write all relevant ideas beneath it.4) Write the title of the next
item of your outline on a separate sheet of paper with all its
relevant ideas beneath it.5) Continue this process with all
sections of the outline.6) Tie together each item on your outline
in a brief conclusion at the end of the draft. This will become the
concluding paragraph after revision.7) Spend a little time
brainstorming before beginning your rough draft. Write these ideas
on a sheet of paper.8) Organise your ideas by clustering them.
Write each idea in the centre of a page and circle it.9) Arrange
related ideas around each idea, trying to place ever-more-detailed
pieces of information close to one another on the paper. This will
give you some idea of how to structure your paper: if you find you
have many ideas clustered in one are, you may want to focus
there.10) Make an informal paper outline to provide guideliness for
the format and flow of your paper. At first, you can just list
points in order. Later, you may want to arrange your information in
standard outline form.11) Do some brief, preliminary research.
Consider which authors, books or quotations might offer you good
supporting evidence. Save your in-depth research for draft
revision.
Take Research NotesTake organised research notes now, and youll
thank yourself later when writing your research paper.
Steps:
1) Write down all the bibliographical information authors name,
publisher, date and place of publication on a 3x5 index card when
you find a source for research material you would like to use. This
is your source card. Number each one.2) Skim through each source
for information on your subject3) Write down the information you
wish to note on an index card, called an information card. Write
only one piece of information per card, using a direct quote, a
paraphrase or anything that will help you remember the
information4) Jot down the page number of the source from which you
got the information on the information card.5) Number each
information card to correspond to the source card of the work from
which it comes so that you can always refer back to the source6)
Organise your information cards according to subject matter. For
example, if you are writing a paper about mountain wildlife,
separate the cards about bears from the cards about eagles. This
way, you avoid searching through the cards when writing the
paper.
Write a Research PaperWriting a good research paper is a tough
challenge, but breaking it down into smaller places helps a
lot.
Steps:
1) Choose a topic that is broad enough to be interesting but
narrow enough to be manageable.2) Find your sources. Start with
three or four, check their bibliographies for additional sources,
and repeat the process untill you have enough material to work
with.3) Reserve one index card for each source. Record the
bibliographic information for the source on its index card, and
number each card for ease of future reference.4) Take reading notes
on index cards, writing down only the material that is most
relevant to your project. Write the source number on each card.5)
Organise your index cards by topic and sub-topic.6) Write an
introduction that grabs the reader and plots out the trajectory of
your argument.7) Write the body of paper, following the structure
you created in your outline. Make sure you correctly cite your
sources.8) Write the conclusion, reviewing how youve made your
points.9) Come up with a title after youve written the paper, not
before: you dont want the content of the paper to be hamstrung by
an inappropriate title.10) Read your paper at least twice to be
sure your argument makes sense and is presented logically.
