Master
2020/2021
Research Seminar (Master Thesis Writing)
Category 'Best Course for Broadening Horizons and Diversity of Knowledge and Skills'
Category 'Best Course for New Knowledge and Skills'
Type:
Compulsory course (Comparative Social Research)
Area of studies:
Sociology
Delivered by:
School of Sociology
Where:
Faculty of Social Sciences
When:
2 year, 3, 4 module
Mode of studies:
offline
Master’s programme:
Comparative Soсial Research
Language:
English
ECTS credits:
14
Contact hours:
40
Course Syllabus
Abstract
The course on master thesis writing is designed to provide students with a thoughtful understanding of what are the main steps and procedures of social research and how they are linked to the different parts of master thesis.
Expected Learning Outcomes
- know basic principles of academic writing
- know the basic principles of academic ethics
- know the rules of writing master thesis
- be able to find and review papers on the subject of MA thesis
- to be able to put forward correct research question and identify the novelty of the MA thesis
- be able to conduct analysis according to research questing
- be able to interpret data and draw conclusions
- be able to provide a nice visualization
- have skills in writing research papers and master thesis
Course Contents
- Structure of the master thesisChapters of master thesis: Introduction, literature review, Data and Methods section, Results, Discussion and Conclusion. Main requirements for writing master thesis. Plagiarism and research ethics.
- IntroductionAims of writing introduction, main parts of introduction. Examples of good and bad introduction. Basic mistakes in writing introduction.
- Literature reviewAims of writing a literature review, the content of literature review. Examples of good and bad literature review. Basic mistakes in writing a literature review.
- Data and methodsAims of writing data and methods section, content of the section. Examples of good and bad description of data and methods. Basic mistakes in data and methods description.
- ResultsContent of the results section. Examples of good and bad description of results. Basic mistakes in interpreting results.
- Discussion and conclusionAims of writing conclusion and discussion, content of this section. Examples of good and bad conclusion. Basic mistakes.
- VisualizationWhen visualization is necessary. Visualization in quantitative and qualitative research. Main principles of creating nice graphs, tables and charts. Examples of bad and good visualization.
Bibliography
Recommended Core Bibliography
- Writing research papers from essay to research paper : student book, Zemach, D. E., 2011
Recommended Additional Bibliography
- Core concepts in data analysis: summarization, correlation and visualization, Mirkin, B., 2011
- Rahlf, T. (2017). Data Visualisation with R : 100 Examples. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1377904
- Yuk, M., & Diamond, S. (2014). Data Visualization For Dummies. Hoboken, NJ: For Dummies. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=685381