Abstract (heading 1)
Large numbers of ESL students are undertaking degrees throughout the world where they are required to write a thesis or dissertations in English. These students often have difficulty in meeting the demands of the kind of writing required of them at this particular level. They are often unaware of the level of preparation writing a thesis or a dissertation requires of them. This article describes a program which aims to help ESL students prepare for thesis and dissertations writing by focusing on the thesis proposal as an important part of that process.
Introduction (heading 1)
Recent years have seen increased attention being given to Custom Dissertations thesis and dissertations writing in the ESP literature. James (1984), Dudley-Evans (1986), Hopkins and Dudley Evans (1988), Jenkins, Jordan and O’Weiland (1933) and Belcher (1994) for example, have discussed the analysis and teaching various aspects of these and dissertations across a number of different disciplines. Whilst the information contained in these books is clearly important for ESL students, they do not always examine texts -such as research proposals- in a way which might be most useful to gain funding and to win contracts. There do not appear to be any teaching programs for ESL students (in published literature, at least) which focus on writing thesis Custom Dissertations and dissertations proposals.
This article describes a program, which provides ESL graduate students with guided instruction in the preparation of a thesis proposal. The program was developed to proceed over a series of 3 sessions. The content and the focus of these sessions are shown in Table 1.
Theoretical framework for the program (heading 2)
The theoretical framework for the development of the program aims to integrate goal-oriented and process-oriented approaches.
TABLE 1
Course content: writing a thesis proposal
Developing a thesis proposal
Choosing and focusing on the thesis topic
The structure of the thesis proposal
Areas to cover in a thesis proposal
Details to cover in a thesis proposal
Reviewing the literature
Thesis expectations
Further Custom Dissertations reading
The program aims at the production of thesis proposals which met the expectations of the particular discourse community at which they are directed (Swales 1990), as well as providing students with tasks and strategies which will enable them to learn, for themselves, how such a text might be developed.
Preparing to write a proposal (heading 2)
The first section of the program is devoted to preparing for writing their thesis and dissertation proposals. Ares focused on here include drawing up a shortlist of topics, selecting a topic for investigation, formulating a general question and focusing and research question. It is also pointed out that the Custom Dissertations research needs to be both significant and feasible. Students are encouraged to strike a balance between the value of their question and their ability to develop a thesis proposal, which they are capable of carrying out. Students are also encouraged to look at journal articles, and at completed theses and dissertations in their own area for research that may be suitable for replication in a different context.
Students next decide on the aims and objectives of the study, formulate their research question(s) or hypothesis and think about the data that need to be collected in order to answer their question(s). They then draw up an Custom Dissertations initial research plan, after which they continue reading to ensure they are right on the track, as well as to determine how their proposed research fits in with research already carried out in their area.
Establishing the structure of a thesis proposal (heading 3)
The next section of the program is devoted to drawing students’ attention to the overall structure of thesis proposal. The first activity student’s carry out employs a thesis proposal written by a previous student in the department. The text is copied and cut up into sections, parallel to each of the main sections of the texts. The headings for each section are Custom Dissertations separated from the body of the text and the students’ fist task is to match these headings to the relevant sections of the text. Students then sequence the sections of the text according to its logical development. From this activity, a sequence of stages is established on which to base a description of the structure of the text.
Details to include in a thesis proposal (heading 3)
The program now moves to details that need to be included in a thesis proposal. Students are directed to one of the sample proposals and a list of points that are often covered in thesis proposals. Students then examine Custom Dissertations the proposal to see how well each of these points has been covered.
The purpose of a thesis proposal (bullet point)
Now that students have examined the thesis proposal in detail, they then proceed to identify the purpose of the text as a whole, as well as the purpose of each of the stages of the texts.
Reviewing relevant background literature (bullet point)
The next section of the program focuses on the main points to consider in writing the literature review section of a thesis proposal. That should lead the reader to the gap in the research that needs to be explored. The literature review, thus, should Custom Dissertations provide the reader with an overview of the state of knowledge in the particular area of investigation and of major questions in the particular area. Students are reminded of the need to critically evaluate these studies, rather than just presenting factual information about them.
Thesis Expectations (heading 2)
A question which is commonly asked by students is what is expected of a piece of research at the particular level at which they are carrying it out; that is, in what way a Master’s thesis is different, for example from a doctoral thesis? This is not always an easy question to answer as this may vary from Custom Dissertations university to university, from department to department and from program to program. As an initial step in helping the students find an answer to this question they are directed to university and departmental guidelines and descriptions for the research component of the particular degree they are undertaking. Students bring these descriptions to class, and discuss and compare them in detail. Students look, in particular, for statements of minimum and maximum word length, level of originality and “contribution to knowledge” required of them for the particular piece of research they are undertaking.
Writing individual thesis proposals (heading 2)
The final section of the program focuses on the Custom Dissertations planning and writing of individual thesis proposals. The teacher, first of all, provides students with the abstract, and key tables and figures from the methodology section of a piece of research relevant to the interests of the particular group of students. Once students have written a “gradual approximation” of the thesis proposal, attention then turns to their own work in progress. First, students brainstorm their proposal, focusing on the areas that need to be addressed in each section of the text. They then write a rough draft of the proposal based on these working notes. Finally, students use this outline and the notes they have Custom Dissertations taken throughout the program, to develop proposals for their own individual theses.
Conclusion (heading 1)
This article has described the development of a program which aims to help ESL students to prepare for thesis and dissertation writing by focusing on the thesis proposal as an important part of that process. The program focuses, in particular, on the structure, purpose and content of thesis proposals. As Godsen (1991) argues, in discussion of questions of “cost and benefit” of preparing ESL students for research, writing activities such as thesis and dissertation writing can be a springboard for ESL students from being student-in-training to being student-researches and beyond.
Bibliography Custom Dissertations (heading 1)
Jenkins, S., Jordan, M.K., & O’Weiland, P. (1993). The role of writing in graduate engineering education: A survey of faulty beliefs and practices. English for Specific Purposes, 12, 51-67.
Hopkins, A., & Dudley-Evans, T. (1988). A genre-based investigation of the discussion section in articles and dissertations. English for Specific Purposes, 7, 113-122.
Helgenson, D. V. (1985). Handbook for writing technical proposals that win contracts. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Belcher, D. (1994). The apprenticeship approach to advanced academic literacy: Graduate students and their mentors. English for Specific Purposes, 13, 23-34.
Dudley-Evans, T. (1986). Genre analysis: An investigation of the introduction and discussion sections of MSc dissertations. In Custom Dissertations M. Coulthard (Ed.), Talking about text (pp. 128-145), Discourse Analysis Monographs No 13. English Language Research. Birmingham: University of Birmingham.
James, K. (1984). The writing of theses by speakers of English as a Foreign Language: A case study. In Common ground: Shared interest in ESP and communication studies (pp. 99-113), Elt Documents 117. Oxford: Pergamon.
Stewart, R.D., & Stewart, A.L. (1992). Proposal preparation (2nd ed.). New York: Wiley.
Huckin, T. N., & Olsen, L.A. (1991). Technical writing and professional communication for non-native speakers of English ( 2nd ed.) New York: McGraw-Hill.
Godsen, H. (1991). Teaching Research English to ESL researchers: Questions of cost and benefit. Journal of Asian Pacific Custom Dissertations Communication, 2 (1), 139-153.
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