Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Thesis

Everyone else uses Times New Roman

pompomtom — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 00:11:24 -0800

My SO is about to submit her doctoral thesis. What font should she use? (Australia, medieval history, if that matters)

What's a good idea for a thesis paper combining English and Physics?

Archibald Edmund Binns — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:25:49 -0800

I go to a small Liberal Arts school in Pennsylvania, and part of the graduation requirements involve writing a substantial Senior Composition, basically a baby thesis (Original research requirements, rigorous, etc.) I'm double-majoring in Physics and English, and I'd love to be able to combine both of these subjects into one comprehensive paper, especially because if i can't, I have to write two separate ones. I've tossed a few ideas around (Analysis of Quantum Mechanics in Orson Scott Card's Xenocide/Children of the Mind; A series of several parables designed to illustrate some facet of quantum mechanics to the average person, etc.), but all of them are mostly English-based and only superficially deal with Physics. (The Physics professors tend to be the harder ones to convince, most English professors are happy to do something different). Any ideas?

Ideal location for writing frenzy?

janecr — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:41:49 -0800

I am taking January off work to finish as much of my PhD writing up as I can. I know that I will be totally unproductive if I try and work at home, so am thinking of escaping somewhere (library, hotel, cottage, writing retreat?) for up to four weeks. I’d welcome suggestions, both generic ones about types of locations that have worked for you and also specific suggestions (I live in the UK). I’m thinking that working somewhere with busy but quiet people around would work better for me than total isolation, but am open to any ideas. I don’t need to bring lots of stuff with me and am probably better off without wifi (although internet access requiring a bit of hassle could be useful to check references etc). Money not a particular object as I’m going to have to pay another year’s fees (£3k) if I don’t finish soon, anyway...

Thesis topics related to the Internet

metametababe — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:40:39 -0800

Looking for a thesis topic related to the internet and society...please help give me some direction! I'm looking for Masters thesis topics related to the internet. The topic can be anything related to the internet, from the impact of Tor on Burma to peer production methods in Wikipedia to internet security.

What questions do you have about the Internet that you wish someone would take a year and some research funds to answer?

(Any other resources you may have on generating research questions from vague ideas would be VERY helpful. (I did a search, of course, but didn't find very much.))

Verbs to quote and paraphrase

CrazyLemonade — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:47:27 -0800

Help me write my thesis! I need more of those verbs used to quote or paraphrase an author. (For example: writes, suggests, found, explains.) I'm writing in spanish, but english is ok and I'll translate later.

Keeping the writing momentum in short nuggets of time.

stefnet — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:25:44 -0800

Simple enough: I have a lot of writing to do (finishing my master's thesis - research is done, just have to finish the writing) and we have an 8 month old baby. In the pre-baby past, I used to spend a long time working my way up to getting a big chunk of work done, but now I need to be able to jump in quickly and get writing in the few hours I have each day between her bedtime and mine. What are your best tips for picking up the threads each day to get the writing done? Also, every so often, I try to get some extended time in when my mom visits and babysits, so there's that. And I also recommend finishing one's thesis prior to babies arriving, for any grad students that might be reading, FYI.

Give me your dissertation advice!

quodlibet — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 11:40:09 -0800

Starting my dissertation (in the social sciences) - what advice do you have for me? I'm a third year PhD student in Political Science, studying American urban politics. I passed my exams in May (with honors, woohoo!) and spent the summer regrouping/being a research assistant/general goofing off. Now with school back in gear, I'm ready to get started - choosing a topic, creating a proposal, and so on.

So - what advice to you have? What tools did you find helpful? (Software, esp. but also otherwise). What was a lifesaver? What do you wish you had done? Who did you seek advice from? How much time did you spend in the library/reading before starting your own writing/questioning? Any advice is welcome!

I've read through the previous questions, but thought I'd get an updated answer. A lot of them seem to resolve around procrastination - which isn't a huge problem for me (atleast right now, I know some of you are laughing now..). Thanks hivemind!

Dealing with thesis examiners.

futureisunwritten — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 08:21:32 -0800

Should I thank my thesis readers? If so, how? About two weeks ago, I got a call from my department telling me that my MA thesis has passed. My supervisor and I have already been through all the examiners' comments and discussed them in depth. All I have to do is incorporate these small corrections into my thesis and hand it back in. The thesis does not have to be reexamined, nor do I have to defend.

Both examiners submitted tons of comments and constructive criticisms, including general statements about the work as a whole and all the tiny nitpicky things you'd expect. Both of my readers did a very thorough reading and I am pretty darn pleased with the feedback I have received. The final product will benefit greatly from their input. FWIW, I didn't get to find out who the readers were until the thesis had been examined.

I would like to thank them individually. The external reader is a professor at another university whom I have never met. The internal is a professor in our department. She and I have a really good rapport, even though she has never taught me a course.

I would like to send them each a card - short and sweet. Is it appropriate for me to do this while I'm still incorporating their comments into the final version or should I wait until the entire process is finished?

Furthermore, would it be cool to contact my internal and ask her to meet up with me and clarify a few of her points?

Remain Calm and Carry On: PhD Defense Version

meerkatty — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:20:01 -0800

Ph.D defense. What to know? How to keep calm? All tips and strategies welcome. So far, you wonderful Mefites have helped me find research material, walked me through my first academic conference and titled my thesis. Now there's one last thing: What should I know in regard to and how on earth to keep calm in my Ph.D defense? (It's in the UK, so technically a viva voce.) I have about 6 weeks until the big event.

WordpressFilter: Thesis, Frugal, or Headway?

Gerard Sorme — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:07:36 -0800

I am theme shopping for Wordpress and have pretty much narrowed my choices to Thesis, Frugal and Headway. You'll notice these are all Wordpress Framework Themes and can do so much more than any free theme. All three are around $75-$80 each and all have options that blow me away. The new Headway that was only released in late July is getting a lot of buzz for the drag 'n drop page layout and it is impressive. Thesis has a huge user support forum that wins a lot of raves. Frugal has many options, seems to be extremely user-friendly and is a very clean theme. They all have their good points and all have one or two things I don't like. SO.....is there anybody here with good/bad experiences with any of these 3 themes? I know Headway may be too new, but it's become a player fairly quickly in the "framework" space, so I'm hoping somebody has been able to use it and report back.

Please no "You're stupid for paying for a theme" type comments because there are no free themes that come anywhere even close to the options these three provide for customization without knowing a lick of code.

Thesis - Frugal - Headway? Are they all so good it's eeny, meeny, miny, moe?

How do get a copy of a Ph.D thesis on Hillary Clinton's hairdos?

fishtree — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 09:07:58 -0800

Was a Ph.D. thesis actually written on Hillary Clinton's hairdos? If so how do I get a copy? A NYT article today states, " “This morning I had the chance to meet two women in Nairobi, to get my hair done,” she said. “My hairdos are the subject of Ph.D. theses. I’ll let everyone know I got a good one in Nairobi.”

Are there really multiple theses on this? And if so how do I get a copy of one or more of them? I've googled around and keep stumbling upon Clinton's senior thesis. Also a google search for PH.d theses led me here. I can't determine what institution this is a database for. Is this a database for all theses in the country?

Any ideas on where to begin my search? Or perhaps who are the individuals that have written these theses? Are theses available to the public? I'd be curious to read at least one of them. Ideally one of these can be found online and are available for viewing at a minimal charge. If they are available by mail I'd be curious but probably less likely to pursue.

Thanks!

ISO, W3C, OOXML/ODF: How do tech standards impact you?

trcook — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 00:17:06 -0800

What's your stake in international tech standards and OOXML?(I'm working up a thesis and I could use some input from the computer literate world) Ok, so I'm getting set to do my masters thesis in Public Administration, and I've decided to write about the wonderful world of international standardization-- mostly ICT(read: tech) standards (eg. HTML5, CSS3, domain naming/registering rules via ICANN, OOXML, ODF, PDF, anything from IEC ISO IEEE JTC1, etc.)

One area that I am exploring is output legitimacy in the standardization process. I have a pretty good theory, but I need some ideas about where to investigate for evidence...

This is where you come in. If you feel inclined, shout out about any of the following:
Why are standards important(to you)?

How have ICT standards impacted you/your job?

Are there International standards you have resisted implementing at your job or on a project? why?

Any first-hand accounts of political manipulation of the standards development process.

What's your take on the OOXML/ODF controversy? How will it impact you/your work? What long-term effects do you think the controversy will be?

Much thanks all,
Tom

Seems to me if you can't trust, you can't be trusted

arcticwoman — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 08:53:00 -0800

A person's self-rated trustworthiness (how trustworthy you think you are) is correlated with their levels of trust (how willing you are to trust others). Where could I have possibly read this? I am going crazy. I read an assertion to the effect that self-rated trustworthiness correlates with willingness to trust, and I based a section of my thesis on that argument. The problem is, I read so much, so fast, and didn't take adequate notes, and so now I can't for the life of me recall where I read it. And with keywords like "trust" and "trustworthiness" - even "self-rated trustworthiness" - my searches are coming up with millions of unrelated articles and books.

Does anyone have any idea where I could have read this?

Prisoner's Dilemma citation

arcticwoman — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:33:32 -0800

How do I cite the originators of the Prisoner's Dilemma (in my thesis) when it looks like none of them actually published anything on it? The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says this:

Puzzles with the structure of the prisoner's dilemma were devised and discussed by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher in 1950, as part of the Rand Corporation's investigations into game theory (which Rand pursued because of possible applications to global nuclear strategy). The title “prisoner's dilemma” and the version with prison sentences as payoffs are due to Albert Tucker, who wanted to make Flood and Dresher's ideas more accessible to an audience of Stanford psychologists. Although Flood and Dresher didn't themselves rush to publicize their ideas in external journal articles, the puzzle attracted widespread attention in a variety of disciplines. Christian Donninger reports that “more than a thousand articles” about it were published in the sixties and seventies.

I can't find any direct citations, any original articles where this game was formulated/formalized. When I look at research that has used the PD, most don't bother to cite anyone for the formulation of the game. Am I just missing something? Do I just cite (for example) the 1993 Poundstone book where the origination is described?

Help me title my PhD thesis?

meerkatty — Thu, 28 May 2009 07:15:10 -0800

Help me title my PhD thesis! Cool Photography/Cinema/Camera phrases wanted! The subtitle will be: Aspects of Photography and Cinema in the Fiction of XXX. But I need a cool front title. Something along the lines of:

Through the Lens: Aspects of....
Adjusting the Lens: Aspects of...

But those are kind of lame. I'm trying to come up with something that incorporates both photography and film, so "camera" and "lens" work but "shutter" doesn't, for example. The thesis focuses on the various angles of this visual field, so something that indicates a multiplicity of meaning would be great. Bonus points if it's a quotation from someone like Sontag.

You will get full credit in my thesis acknowledgments!

Ph.D. Advice

Aanidaani — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 17:21:02 -0800

Ph.D. Advice: I'm going to be starting grad school in the fall and I wanted some suggestions on how to plan out my thesis. What should I be doing from day one to stay organized and what kind of system should I set up to keep myself productive? I'm going to be studying for my Ph.D. in materials science and engineering. I already know which professor I'm going to be working with and I have a rough idea of what my project is going to involve. Still, I want to be sure that when I arrive I don't waste too much time. To that end, I've been reading up on what the group has done in the past and I've been trying to study papers relevant to my field of interest.

Does anyone have any suggestions about what I should do when I arrive? What kind of systems have other people used to keep their ideas organized and how did you plan out your program? I'd really appreciate any tips or advice you could give. Thanks!

I'm kicking around a concept for a theoretical piece I hope to work on in the near future, dealing with the way "femininity" and the "female" category are conceived of linguistically. Help me find some empirical data!

parkbench — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 11:42:00 -0800

I'm kicking around a concept for a theoretical piece I hope to work on in the near future, dealing with the way "femininity" and the "female" category are conceived of linguistically. Help me find some empirical data! Thus, I want to look at everything from--

-1} "benignly" feminine morphemes, like feminine nouns in Spanish or Arabic; to

-2} idiomatic expressions that are ambiguously connotative of "femininity," like the syntactical habit in English (for example) of referring to countries, ships, and organisations with "feminine" syntax (thus "the ship's majesty reflected her righteous purpose," or the "benevolent womb" of "the motherland"--as opposed to the sagacious & stern "protective embrace" of "the fatherland"); to

-3} more directly identifiable conceptual assumptions about "the female essence"--the only case I can think of being the Japanese logograph "姦," meaning "wickedness" or "cunning," which is comprised of the radical signifying "woman" repeated three times, and is commonly known for its presence in the expression, "女三人寄れば姦しい," [おんなさんにんよればかしましい] which roughly means "wherever women gather, it is noisy [literally, "if there are 3 women, it is noisy"].

My purpose in all of this is to take a critical eye to the common-sense argument that such gender constructions in language are purely "neutral"--as they are arbitrary, symbolic constructions--and problematise it by addressing the very real assumptions & power dynamics inherent in any linguistic exchange, which in the face of arbitrary/"relative" symbolism nonetheless manage to actively cathect meaning, perspective, and oppression onto selfsame symbols, and insodoing reinforce (intentionally or unintentionally) broader cultural/ideological conceptions of women and "femininity" (think Althusser, Butler, etc).

As you may have already guessed, then, I want to accomplish this by demonstrating the continuum between the subtle and mostly inconsequential cases (as in case #1) to the more overt and problematic ones (as in case #3) with concrete examples for a robust comparative analysis. And as you can see, I have only a handful at my disposal.

So!

What I'm soliciting the askmefi community for is two things:

-1} compelling examples/cases of different languages which have constructions falling into these categories. Anything goes. Examples of languages that manage to address "femininity" even without strictly "feminine" grammatical structures (like English), or "rare" languages surviving among uncolonised peoples which defy or problematise my thesis with highly unique constructions, are welcome.

My realm of experience is mostly with english, spanish, japanese, arabic, and russian, so any insight into languages other than these will be extremely appreciated--though prominent/interesting/striking examples that I have completely overlooked in said languages are of course still very much welcome.

-2} any existing commentaries, texts, articles, authors who touch on this issue directly or indirectly which I can look into for further research.

Thanks so much for your time & patience. I know that might have been a lot to swallow. For any who are interested, if this ever comes to fruition I'll surely share it with the mefi community.

note: I am not looking for a peer review of my thesis. I'd love to talk about it to anyone who wishes, but if it's not too much to ask, please keep this thread to empirical examples and not a debate as to whether or not women are unfairly treated in society. thank you.

Should I write a thesis for my MA?

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:37:33 -0800

Should I write an MA thesis? (Asking anonymously in case any of my professors use Metafilter)

I'm a graduate student in an MA International Relations program that requires either a comprehensive exam or a thesis in order to obtain a degree.

After graduation, my primary interests are working in journalism, consulting/analysis or State Department/UN-related work. I have no plans to continue on to a doctorate in the field.

I could definitely use some advice on the worth of writing a thesis from people who have been there before.

Is there any point to a thesis for an MA student who is not going on to doctoral-level work?

What software is helpful for writing a masters thesis?

metricfan — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:30:12 -0800

What software is helpful for writing a masters thesis? I'm working my thesis for my M.A. and I have a non-tablet PC and use OneNote a lot. What are some helpful computer programs or tips for doing research?

Here are the things I need right now:

I really need a program to allow me to take notes on PDFs directly. It seems like most of my reading is on here, and I need to be able to write in the margins like I do with actual printed things. I am broke, so I was hoping for a free program/under 30-ish dollars. Someone asked this question like two years ago, and there was not real answer.

Also, how can I import a PDF in OneNote? Actually, any tips for OneNote would be amazing.

I need a good citation program or something because Refworks has turned out to be a bust.

Is Evernote really good?

Any advice or tips are welcome.

About my thesis: I'm a communication studies ma student, and I'm writing about popular culture and politics. Specifically, I am using Barry Brummett's mosaic method in his book Rhetorical Dimensions of Popular Culture to analyze TDS and other news media surrounding Obama's race speech.

SO! If you have any research suggestions for that, that's cool too. Though, as a masters student I've taken the fundamental classes like classical rhetoric, so really abstractly related things like Aristotle's On Rhetoric (unless with a specific link to my project) I don't really need to hear.

I appreciate the help, thanks in advance.

I can barely hear myself think!

Zé Pequeno — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 05:02:02 -0800

With all the comings and goings of housemates, my home is a veritable mental aslyum at the moment and I am finding it impossible to study. I absolutely must complete a literature review for my Masters thesis this evening or I am dead. Does anyone know somewhere here in Barcelona that is quiet, cosey, conducive to study AND open until very late? Bonus points if they serve coffee and have wifi. For what it's worth, I'm writing an economics paper on Mercosur and the possibility of it creating an Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). It involves looking at lots of complicated graphs, hacking through complex economics and finance jargon, etc. so I need absolute concentration.

looking for wonderland

ndicecco — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 06:00:03 -0800

I'm writing an MA thesis based (in part) on American McGee's Alice... problem is I haven't played it and can't seem to find a copy for Mac OS in Canada. Amazon.ca doesn't have it at all. Amazon.com has it, but won't ship it to Canada (also costs about $75-$100). Ebay only has it for Windows. I could get that and load parallels (or something), but I'd prefer to find a copy for Mac. So far no luck on Craigslist. The only other option I've come up with is to have Amazon ship it to a friend in the US, and have them ship it to me. Again, I'd rather just take a trip to Toronto, if possible.

I'm in Hamilton, ON - is there anywhere in this area (including Toronto) that I might find a copy of this game. My supervisor is putting the pressure on.

How can I make my thesis look beautiful?

roofus — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 04:36:27 -0800

I have a 50,000 word medical thesis to write. I don't want it to end up looking like a big ugly Word document, just printed out on A4 and bound. I would like some graphic design inspiration/tips for making it look more like a real book, which would actually be a pleasure to pick up and read. The bulk of the thesis is made up of existing papers, which I wrote in Word 2004 for Mac, using Sente and Papers as my bibliographic system. At this stage I don't think it is worth the effort to learn to use LaTeX. Unless there are convincing arguments for switching systems, I am mostly looking for suitable design resources online, and tips for making this as painless as possible in Word.

How to 'fess up to slacking off.

jacalata — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 22:24:54 -0800

I haven't done any work yet, but I swear I will soon - (how) do I tell my thesis advisor? I'm doing my final year Engineering thesis, but I haven't really done anything yet. I'm always a terrible procrastinator and work to deadlines, and the sheer size of this thesis project makes me panic and stare at the wall when I just start trying to break it up into tasks. I have weekly meetings with my advisor where she asks me what I've done, and I talk about the deliverable for that week (meta stuff like a Lit Review, a project timeline, etc) and gloss over the actual work that I thought about doing but didn't. It's week 9 and I haven't even run half of the software I'm supposed to be working on yet.

On the bright side, I recently saw a doctor and got some antidepressants and an appointment with a psychologist (not just thesis stuff). I'm trying to cancel the job I had lined up for midyear holidays so I can spend them working on my thesis instead. It's not due till October, so I'm pretty sure (assuming meds and therapy help) I can get back on track. But I feel ridiculously guilty and don't know how I can tell my advisor where I'm actually at. (I think I'll have to, really, because some of the questions I need to ask are obvious 'I'm just getting started' material).

Summary - I don't want to go into gory personal detail and tmi, but I don't want to just give a glib "by the way, I haven't actually started yet. How do I turn this thing on?" So, what's a nice medium? What does she actually want to know? Should I not bother trying to say anything until I can say 'I have started doing x' instead of 'I'm going to start doing x' (in case I don't follow through)?

Arial or Times New Roman? Single spaced? Bold?

billtron — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 19:08:07 -0800

Who wants to share their favorite MS Word 2003 Style themes for writing academic papers? I am a terrible typesetter. All my writing looks ugly and I don't have time to learn LaTeX before May.

Software for long documents

bingoes — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 03:42:09 -0800

What Windows software should I use to write a ~70k word public health thesis? I've read through all previous posts on LyX and LaTeX and the dangers of Word with long documents and have looked into other available programs (eg OpenOffice), but I'm still having a hard time deciding what will be best for my situation.

Everyone in my department, including my supervisors, use Word and they like to review my work using "track changes".

I won't need to include any formulas or chemical structures, just a stack of tables, graphs, pictures and the odd Greek letter.

I'm also quite invested in my scrupulously maintained EndNote database. I have many custom fields and pdf's linked for every entry.

I am hoping there is something out there that's stable, and straightforward, with powerful integration capabilities?