Whether the topic of master's thesis is appropriate or not has a great influence on the success of the thesis. It can even be said that a good topic is half the battle. Although you can write anything on any topic within your major, you must consider whether you can have new ideas, discoveries, perspectives, research methods and materials. Be careful not to choose too big a topic to expand in this relatively narrow scope. According to the experience of many master's dissertations, this level of thesis topics can be considered from the following aspects: research gaps in this major, controversial hot topics (I think my own point of view is enough), comparative topics, topics of this major from the perspective of other majors (this is an interdisciplinary or marginal effect of topic selection), old topics with new insertion angles, and new problems of this major that have just emerged.
The second step is to collect (or "document retrieval") and read relevant research materials and theoretical basis around the topic selection of the paper. This step is hard work, and it may take a lot of time and energy to find information. This step is very necessary. Without this step, the content of your thesis is likely to completely or largely repeat the work that others have already done, which is equivalent to doing it in vain; The process of searching is also a process of stimulating ideas and generating sparks of opinions. If you don't take this step, you will cut off the source of your new ideas, new perspectives and new materials. This is also to prepare for the next step in terms of viewpoints, angles and materials.
The third step is to put forward my own theoretical assumptions about the topic, or specific and core issues to be studied. Topic selection refers to the general direction and scope of the paper to be written. If you really want to start writing, you will encounter two specific problems. The first category belongs to opinions: what is my specific opinion? You can imagine one or several ideas, but they are just a hypothesis. Through a lot of evidence and materials, through rigorous argumentation and appropriate argumentation framework structure, prove that your hypothesis is established and can form the main body of the paper. The second category belongs to practice: what problems should be demonstrated specifically? You can put forward many reasons, whether the influence of various environmental conditions is related to argumentation and to what extent, all of which require scientific investigation data and (empirical) analysis.
In either case, this involves the central idea or the theme of the thesis, which must be clear and run through the whole thesis. Because the number of words in a master's thesis is relatively long, a common problem is that the author can't grasp the full text, writes and writes, and virtually breaks away from his original assumptions or specific problems, saying a lot of words that have nothing to do with the central idea or the theme of the argument, and finally gets the result of "breaking away from the theme". The fourth step is to decide which research method to adopt. The research methods of humanities and social sciences can be roughly divided into two categories, speculative research and empirical research, and the latter can be divided into qualitative research and quantitative research. In order to explore social facts or social phenomena, people adopt different research orientations, and different research orientations have different research methods, different research hypotheses, ways of collecting data and criteria for judging results. However, various research methods are increasingly showing compatibility and internal relations in current thesis writing. Generally speaking, according to your own topics and specific issues discussed, you can take one research method as the main one, supplemented by other methods. At the same time, it also needs some research methods of historical culture and political and economic speculation. In the master's thesis of arts, the quantitative analysis made by the author directly for the thesis is generally small in scale, limited in scope of application, and more people use it, rather than their own direct investigation results. This is due to the limited research funds and the author's limited ability to conduct social surveys. Based on logical analysis, this paper uses some quantitative analysis data appropriately, which sometimes adds some weight to the article. But it must be done according to the actual needs, not to show the diversity of research methods. For example, a very macro topic was originally suitable for speculative research, and it would be self-defeating to add a micro-quantitative survey result to prove anything. This is a specific problem to be grasped in writing a good paper now.
The fifth step is to design the framework of the thesis. This step is also needed in general article writing, but it is more necessary and detailed for master's thesis. Generally speaking, a master's thesis should have a preface, a first chapter, a main chapter and a conclusion. Chapter setting should have a general layout logic before writing to make its structure reasonable; There is a logical connection between chapters to prevent scribbling, drowning the theme and not knowing what to say. This step is rarely completed once, and often changes according to the situation of collecting materials and the new situation encountered in the investigation and interview. However, just as an architect must have drawings before building a house, at the level of writing a master's thesis, the general framework of the article should not only be kept in mind, but generally written in words, which is more detailed, and it is best to be specific to the "festival" (but the level of the "festival" should not be fixed at the beginning), so that it is easy to know when writing.
When it comes to designing the framework of the thesis, because it is a textual chapter design, it is a good opportunity to solicit opinions from other experts in addition to the guidance of the tutor before formal writing. By designing the framework of the paper, we can generally see the value or existing problems of the article.
The sixth step is to analyze and classify the obtained literature, investigation materials and various arguments, enrich them into various chapters respectively, and then elaborate and demonstrate them. This is actually the thesis writing itself, so this description is to let the author know the process of thesis writing. All kinds of materials and arguments can't prove arguments or explain specific problems by nature. Only by organizing and demonstrating the materials (quoting, modifying, adding or deleting) can we make them full of vitality, extremely natural and self-contained, and effectively serve their own themes. In this step, it is sometimes necessary to review basic professional knowledge (such as social survey and statistics), use rigorous data organization methods, closely focus on established theoretical assumptions or specific problems, mobilize all kinds of knowledge that you have learned, and use positive theory (this is the main), counter-theory, hypothesis theory, refutation theory, metaphor theory and other methods to demonstrate opinions or problems, draw conclusions, and complete the paper.
There will inevitably be problems such as the use or lack of materials, logical reasoning, and the mismatch between arguments and topics. It is necessary to stop and look for information or materials or visit experts, enrich or delete the contents in the framework of the original paper, and make local adjustments to the framework structure when necessary. This situation is normal and common. It is also necessary to arrange the time. If the time is not properly arranged, it may be too late to adjust the structure and content of the paper.
The seventh step is to re-evaluate the selected topics and modify the scope of the demonstration objects if necessary. This is another situation that happens at the same time as the sixth step, that is, through extensive consultation and self-thinking, I feel that the original topic is not suitable for me or difficult to complete, so I should adjust my writing plan in time, change the topic or adjust the topic. Because there has been a lot of thinking and literature retrieval on the academic research of this major, it won't take too long to change the topic.
Another situation that the topic selection is inappropriate and difficult to complete is not the topic itself, but the scope of the topic selection argument is too large. It is not difficult to solve this problem, but it narrows the scope of the argument. At this time, the author must be willing to "give up love" and give up those useless materials. In the writing of master's thesis, it is rare that the scope of argument is too small, because there are 20,000-30,000-word papers, but we should also pay attention to the problem that the topic scope is too small. Step 8, check and adjust the paper technically. The technical problems such as chapter design (including table of contents), quotation marks, notes and numbers, arrangement of references at the end of the paper, abstracts (including English abstracts) and keywords that do not belong to the paper itself should be checked and adjusted according to the requirements of standardization. Although these are technical problems, they also reflect the author's academic attitude. In particular, quotations, where others' opinions are used, must indicate the source of the materials, not vague, let alone turn other people's research results into their own. The source of the marked materials should also be very clear, such as the name of the work, the author or editor, the name of the publishing house or publication, the publication or publication time, etc. Should be complete. Sometimes a good paper is criticized in the defense, and the main problem is that the quotation is not standardized, which leads to a low evaluation of the paper and is not worth it.