Theses and Dissertations: A Guide to Planning, Research, and Writing

by Dale L. Brubaker, R. Murray Thomas

This book guides students through the process of planning, researching, and writing the final version of theses and dissertations. Five major stages of the process are illustrated with multiple examples from the social and behavioral sciences, humanities, and such allied fields as education, social work, and business administration. The first stage, Preparing the Way, describes problems and alternative solutions in working with faculty advisors and in searching the professional literature. Stage 2 explains how to find good research topics and define them clearly for presentation to faculty advisors.

Stage 3 describes problems often encountered in data collection and suggests solutions for those problems. At Stage 4, students learn ways of organizing and interpreting information, including classification schemes, verbal and statistical summaries, and methods of deriving meaning from data. The final stage, Presenting the Finished Product, offers guidelines for thesis and dissertation writing and for publishing the results in such media as books, journal articles, and popular periodicals. Stage 5 also includes a chapter about how students can mount a convincing defense of their work during a faculty committee's final oral examination session.

312 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[S · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book quite calming; it validates the path I took for my Master's research. The book structure is divided into 5 stages: Preparing for your project, Discovering & Defining your Project, Collection & Organisation of Data, Interpretation & Analysis of Results and finally presenting your project.
I read the book in sections - going back to my own research and thinking about some of the questions raised in this book. I found some sections to be completely irrelevant to my research and hence my rating.

[J. Pearce · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book very helpful in thinking about how to write my thesis proposal and how to conduct my research. While I found the chapters on statistics and graphs a bit slow and difficult to get through, I'm glad I persevered because they gave me much to think about in terms of what data I want to gather and how I want to present it. I would recommend this book to anyone thinking about their thesis work - I wish I had read it before writing my MA thesis!

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Research writing is more than just writing, and this guide is extremely useful for those in over their heads with the logistics of getting it all together and into the hands of others. Theses and Dissertations describes the whole process step-by-step, including possible hazards and common questions. I do not suggest that anyone read this from front to back since it covers so much, but it certainly is a great reference tool for along the way.