Suggestions for Starting

AND Completing a Masters Thesis![1]

  1. Pick a topic that interests you.

 If the topic is a narrow one, then think about how your research might inform broader research or policy areas. For example, someone doing a case study of one prison program might think more broadly about how information from that study might inform broader prison policy such as inmate management, rehabilitation approaches, etc. Why does “Podunk Prison’s Recreation Program” matter for others who do prison research, prison administrators, or legislators?

 You should start thinking here about what theoretical framework you should use, but if you’re new to the topic, you may not be able to make decisions about this until you’ve read more of the literature.

Do not get too caught up in this stage of the process. If you find it hard to narrow your topic area, talk to people! Talk to your potential advisor(s) about different areas and do a little bit of research to assess which of your interests might make for a good thesis. You could do a successful thesis in any number of given areas. Keep in mind that in your research career, you will have the chance to look at a number of different areas – your thesis is going to be one of the many topics you will get to examine. So, don’t let picking something be too daunting a task.

  1. Collect and read the literature.

 Search all relevant databases and laws on the topic (e.g., criminal justice abstracts, social science abstracts, psych abstracts, law reviews, etc.)

Get all relevant literature (you should also start compiling your electronic bibliography, e.g., RefWorks– see a librarian for help with this- you will be so thankful you did this!)

READ the articles, books, law reviews, etc. Don’t just skim, but really read them and take notes on them. Your organizational style will direct your best method, but a table is helpful to some people. See the attached example entitled, Literature Review Table.

Be sure to be discussing with your chair possible committee members who would be the most helpful to include on your committee. You will need to ask these faculty members to be on your committee, but sometimes it is best to wait until you have your research questions more formalized before you ask them.

  1. Use the literature to develop your research questions and methods.

What remains unanswered in the literature? If you use the table like in the example, this will be easy to see.

What “new piece” can you add to the literature? Keep your question or “new piece” manageable for the scope of your project. That is, your “new piece” should be large enough to answer an important question in the literature and to matter to the filed, but should not be so large that it is impossible to answer.

Why does your “new piece” matter? In other words, think about how you’ll convince your committee or journal reviewers that they should care about this particular issue you are studying.

What general research questions might you answer? (Develop 2-5 questions—may have subquestions)

Pick a methodology that is relevant to your research questions—in other words, how will you answer these questions?

  • If instruments from prior studies exist, try to collect them. For example, if you plan to conduct a survey, it helps to use questions that others have used already. It shows that you know the literature and based your study in the larger literature context.
  • If you plan to do qualitative research, find examples of interview instruments or coding forms that others have used (sometimes these are published, sometimes they’re only available from the authors).

Once you’ve picked your methodological approach, start drafting an instrument to use.

  • Don’t make it too long or include questions that are not really pertinent to your topic
  • Make sure every question included is related to your research questions and that you know why you picked these questions.

Determine your hypotheses – from the literature. What do you expect the results to be, given what you know from prior studies?

Determine analysis strategy to answer your research questions.

  • Sometimes you can determine this from reading articles—how do others do it? But, you should also know from your stats classes, which analyses make sense. Discussing these options with your committee chair is important. You can also read up on analysis options. If you’re a graduate student, I suggest that you take a class specific to your analysis strategy, if at all possible.
  • If you’re doing qualitative research, you should determine how you will analyze the transcripts? How will you look for themes? In this pursuit, you should be guided by your research questions and the literature. But, you must also be open to results that are unexpected and be able to code those. You will probably refine your coding scheme as you go, but it is important to have a plan.
  1. Have a thesis proposal defense.

 The more you have prepared for this defense, the better. Thesis proposals vary greatly, but the goal is to provide your committee with as much information as possible to let your committee know what your plans will be for your thesis. You chose your committee members because you thought they would be able to provide helpful insights – now is the time to get those insights! You should prepare a formal document and provide it to your committee (after your chair’s approval and likely readings of several drafts) approximately two weeks prior to the defense.

You should confirm with your chair, but generally, a ready proposal entails the following elements, all which must be approved by your chair prior to sending to your committee:

  1. A complete literature review
  2. Theoretically supported hypotheses
  3. A complete methodology proposal
  4. Developed materials for data collection
  5. IRB proposal draft
  6. Anticipated results
  7. Anticipated impact

At the defense you should do a brief presentation of your research – discuss the literature that you reviewed and the research questions that you have developed. Also, you should discuss your strategy for answering your research questions – the methods to be employed and how you will analyze your data.

Remember, even though this is called a proposal defense, you have asked these faculty members to serve on your committee because you want their input in your project. So, it is imperative that you remain open to and incorporate their ideas and suggestions

  1. Get back to work.

 Your committee will have likely provided you with some interesting questions and concerns. Be sure to type those all up as soon after the defense as possible. Although you might feel like you will remember that hour of your life forever, you actually probably won’t.

Map out a calendar of how you will get all of your tasks done before the deadlines. Note that the deadlines for turning in completed theses are usually about a month (or more) before graduation dates.

 Submit IRB (and get approval!)

 Start collecting your data (after getting IRB approval), analyzing your data, and writing your results.

 Get drafts to your chair of your completed (or as nearly completed as possible) thesis.

Set a thesis defense date and provide your committee with your thesis at least two weeks prior to that date.

  1. Defend the good cause!

Just because it is called a defense, you should not be on the defensive! You should feel confident and excited at this point. Some people suggest that you reread your thesis once every day from the point that you turn it into your committee until your defense. This insures that you remember what you wrote, but it also insures that you will find more typos that you thought you had corrected! You should also try to read it from the perspective of your committee members and try to think about what issues they will focus on.

The defense can be a formal, short Power Point presentation or just some brief opening remarks about the research. This often depends on if it is just your committee in attendance (who have all presumably read the document) or other people like other graduate students, faculty, or people from other departments. Talk to your chair about how to prepare for this

Expect to be questioned about your research and be prepared to answer with thoughtful responses. Take time to think if you need to before you respond.

The committee will ask you to leave the room when the defense is over – they always do that. The committee takes this time to finish off any snacks that you have brought – no, really the committee takes this time to discuss the thesis and the defense of it. Your chair will call you back into the room and provide you with the committee’s decision about whether you have successfully passed the defense.

  1. Get it published.

First things are first - you should definitely reward yourself with a couple hours (ok, days) to celebrate the new letters after your name once the document is all turned in to the graduate school.

After the celebrations, you need to (if you haven’t already) begin to turn this document into a manuscript that you will submit to a journal. Your chair will be able to help you with the specifics of this, but in general this process will usually involve a reduction in the literature review and overall details in the document. Traditionally, your chair would be an author with you on this manuscript (and other presentations – like at conferences). You should discuss this with the chair, but it is usually presumed that that person will get authorship credit for their work on your project. The other committee members are less of a presumption and you should consider whether their contributions are appropriate for authorship (see the American Psychology Association Publication Manual for some guidelines with authorship). Some chairs also have policies for completing the manuscript submissions in a timely fashion. For instance, your chair may suggest that you have 6 months after completing your thesis to submit the manuscript for publication and if it is not done by then, then they may choose to take over as the first author and get it ready for submission. Of course, this is more of an issue if the project was more collaborative than your own personal work where your chair did not play as important of a role. These are often uncomfortable discussions and one that you and your chair should have early on in the process so that you are both clear from the beginning.

  1. General Suggestions

Your thesis is likely one of the biggest (or the biggest) project you have ever done. Such a project can be somewhat daunting to some (if not all!) students. This project will take a long time to complete, and so some students feel quite overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of work to be done. The key is to break your project into steps that are more manageable pieces (hopefully this document will help with that!). Many students have found it helpful to make a list of the baby steps that need to be accomplished, and then work on completing each of those smaller steps, rather than the daunting task that is your whole thesis. Remember – accomplishing those baby steps eventually gets the job done!

 Keep in contact with your advisor/chair. If you are stuck, do not stay stuck. Your advisor is there to help you when you are stuck. So, if you are feeling like you don’t know which direction to take, or where to look, or how to start, consult your advisor! The worst mistake some students make is that they feel they should not contact their advisor until they have created the most perfect proposal ever seen before. Then, they are overwhelmed because they don’t know how to create the very best proposal ever seen, so they end up stuck, procrastinating and not producing anything until the very last minute. At this point, these students then come to the advisor and say, “I am stuck at the beginning,” and the advisor is surprised that they have stayed stuck for so long without contacting them. Thus, these students have wasted a month/semester/year because they did not contact the advisor when they first became stuck. Your advisor does not expect you to know exactly how to write a thesis or a proposal. If you did, there would be no reason for you to learn! Your advisor is there to help you in this process. Keep in mind they can’t do it for you, but they can help a lot along the way. So, consult with your advisor wisely and often. Remember – when in doubt, ask!

Last piece of advice: Thomas Edison once said that “There is no substitute for hard work”, and your thesis is no exception! It is going to be a challenging, demanding, rewarding project, and you should be prepared to work extremely hard to do a good job. This project is largely self-driven, and your work ethic should reflect that. Remember – ultimately, you determine the outcome of your thesis by how wisely you use your time and how hard you work!

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Literature Review Table

Citation / Research Question(s) / Method
(sample, data collection and analysis approach, etc.) / Findings / Questions Remaining Unanswered / Notes to Yourself
Lane & Meeker (2003), Law & Society Review /
  1. Do the relationships between our demographic, theoretical variables, and fear of gang crime parallel the relationships among these variables found in other studies that examine nongang-related crimes?
  2. Are there indirect relationships between the demographic characteristics and fear of gangs through the theoretical variables that might not be apparent in other types of analysis?
/
  1. Orange County, California
  2. RDD survey from 9/3-9/28, 1997
  3. n=1000
  4. structural equation modeling, confirmatory factor analysis & path analysis
Relevant survey questions include:
?
?
? /
  1. Each theoretical model regarding fear of crime also helps explain gang-specific fear
  • Community concern = strongest predictor
  1. Demographic characteristics are also important
  • Females, younger people, minorities = more afraid
  • Indirect relationships vary across models
/
  1. Is there an ethnic split in the relative importance of disorder versus decline in explaining gang fear?
  2. How do theoretical models about fear apply to other types of random crimes (school shootings, abductions, etc.)
  3. What happens if we combine all theoretical models into one set of analyses?
/
  1. Remember that carrying a gun in the south may not relate to fear
  2. Remember to note this article in the discussion

Example Thesis Structure
(Senior Thesis approx. 20-25 pages/M.A. Thesis length varies greatly, but are usually about 40 pages or more (sometimes much more)
**The items that are marked with an asterisk (*) are the items that should be included in your thesis proposal.
**It helps to work from an outline. Remember, you don’t have to start writing from the beginning. It is often easiest to start writing the methods section first.

Abstract*

  • This is a paragraph (usually less than 120 words) describing what you did and what you found. (see journal articles for examples)

Introduction*

  • This section should set up the problem you’re studying—why is it important, why should we care. You might include policy reasons &/or theoretical reasons
  • You should also end the section by a paragraph indicating how your study adds to the literature. For example, you might say something like: “This study adds to the literature in four ways. First….”

Literature Review*

  • Usually the lit review has sections with subheadings, typically based on how you will set up your study. For example, for Lane’s fear of crime study, she might have sections on social disorganization, the four theories that have been used to explain crime, and prior research on how demographic characteristics impact fear (or the constructs that will be in my analysis). It helps to look at how other people have done it in journal articles. But, it really will be tailored to your project.
  • You should describe the theory you’re using and summarize the findings from other studies—tell us basically what we in the field know so far. Use your own words! If you take direct wording from other people’s articles, you must use quotation marks & cite the page number where you found it.
  • You want to convince your committee that you know the literature and that your methods make sense (e.g., that you know how it’s usually done, what’s missing from prior studies, how yours will make a difference)

Methods*

  • This usually has sections as well. Sections might include subheadings like: Study Context, Sample, Data Collection Methods, Analysis. Some guidelines, such as the American Psychological Association (APA), have very specific rules to follow. But, this depends on where you plan to publish when you are done.
  • You should include as much detail as possible about your methods, so keep track of everything you do. For example: You should describe the context of your study and why it’s a good place to study this, how you chose the sample and why (who? How did you find them? How did you get them to participate?), how you collected the data (observation? Interview? Survey? When did it happen—dates, times, etc., how long did each take?) and why (why was this the best method), what instrument you used to collect the data (a survey? Interview? Coding form?) and how you analyzed the data (what type of statistical analysis and why? How exactly did you code themes—what was your guide? Did you use Nudist? Did you use post-its? Highlighters?). Remember that you are trying to convince the reader that you did a solid study and that you know what you are doing. More detail is better than less.
  • It is often a good idea to have in this section a table summarizing the sample’s demographic/personal characteristics.

Results

  • Here is where you present what you found in your study, of course. This, too, could have subsections, especially if you did different types of analysis or did analysis for different samples. For quantitative studies, you will usually discuss your statistical results, and will typically have tables presenting them. For qualitative studies, you will discuss your results (maybe by theme or topic) and usually use example quotes to support your points. You may also have tables presenting different types of findings (e.g., themes & example quotes). See journal articles for examples of how to present findings.

Discussion & Conclusions

  • This is where you usually (1) briefly summarize your findings, (2) discuss how your findings either confirm or create questions about prior research findings, (3) discuss theoretical implications, and (4) discuss policy implications. You should also discuss limitations of the study—either here or in the methods sections. This section should include citations to prior work—usually where you discuss prior research and theoretical implications.

References

  • This is a list of all references you used in the paper. See style books (e.g., APA Manual) for examples on how to cite literature

Appendices

  • This section can include many things that are pertinent to your study. For example, appendices might include your instruments, additional tables, field notes, handouts/flyers/rule books/etc. from program studied (e.g., if you do an evaluation or qualitative study of a program).

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