Thesis Notes

Thesis proposal is written by a student who is working on a masters or doctoral degree to be presented and carefully reviewed by a committee to determine if the subject is appropriate or suitable and relevant to the field of study.  If your thesis proposal does not approve by the committee because they see that it does not have any value in the chosen topic, you will have to do other thesis proposal.  So, thesis proposal is one of the important parts of a dissertation or thesis.

If you want to have a successful thesis proposal, you should outline your thesis topic, discuss the issues the paper will address and explains why the topic deserves further research.  Identify a specific problem and offer a detailed solution for that problem.

Here are some basic components of your thesis proposal

• Title Page. Short and descriptive title of the proposed thesis project as well as the author, research mentor and date of delivery.
• Abstract. A brief summary of your thesis proposal and it should not excess more than 200 words.
• Table of Contents. List of headings and subheadings with page numbers.
• Introduction. Background of your study and should capture reader’s interest.
• Thesis statement. State your thesis.  It can be in the form of a hypothesis, research question, project statement or goal statement.
• Approach or Methods. Describe the methods to be used and contains description of your approach, materials and procedures as well as calculation and techniques.
• Preliminary results and discussion. Discuss the results of your study.
• Work plan. Time table of your project such as the indicating deadlines and the work already completed.
• Implication of research. New knowledge will likely to produce.
• List of reference.  Cite all references used.

Thesis statement states what you believe and what you intend to prove.  It presents the main idea of the research paper. In preparing thesis statement, make sure to draft the thesis statement in three sentences or longer and have enough fats, examples, details or reasons to support your statement.  Your thesis sentence is included in the introduction of your research paper.

According to Lester, 1994, there are specific methods in developing a thesis statement:

1.    Stating an argument for or against an issue,
2.    Offering advice or giving directions,
3.    Suggesting consequences,
4.    Giving instructions,
5.    Offering personal judgment, and
6.    Making an interpretation

In the research process, after data have been treated statistically and presented in tables, the researchers must be able to analyze and interpret the meaning of the processed data.  You should be able to give the meaning of these data, their implications to the field in which the research was conducted and to the people involved as the subjects of the research being conducted.

Below is an example of thesis statement.

A good education is important to Filipinos.  It is something they strive and work hard for.  Education is compulsory for children up to 12 years old.  Consequently, almost all children within this age bracket go to school while 78% of youths (ages 13-16) are enrolled.

At present, the country’s literacy rate is around 99%

Foreign companies prefer Filipino workers because they are intelligent, resourceful, creative and resilient.

In the above example, let us presume here that in a study on the current education trends in the Philippines, the country was found to have a very high literacy rate.  Given this, it can be surmised that education is really valued by Filipinos and this is something foreigners admire – a source of the Filipinos’ competitive edge in the global market.

From the analysis of data, the findings were as follows:

1.    Status of the Flood Control Projects in the two congressional districts of Metro Manila.

There were more than 52 flood control projects and activities undertaken by the Department of Public Works and Highways in the district of Tondo (representing 74.28% of the total projects of the Department for Metro Manila) as compared to 18 projects for the district of Sta. Cruz (25.72%)

2.    Assessment of the parents, teachers and students in the districts of Tondo and Sta. Cruz, Manila regarding the flood situation:

2.1.    The three groups of respondents indicated that the floods in the two congressional districts were caused by residents throwing garbage in the canals and water outlets.  These canals are not cleaned, and uncollected garbage clog the sewerage and streets.  The situation is aggravated by the fact that the districts belong to low-lying areas of the city. There is also the lack of flood control campaign and commitment among resident.
2.2.    The three groups of respondents in the two congressional districts of Manila manifested that oftentimes, when there are floods, schoolchildren are forced to absent themselves from their classes, obliging them to do remedial/make-up lessons.  This is in addition to make-up classes due to suspension of classes.

3.    School assistance in the promotion of the flood campaign as perceived by the three groups of respondents:

The three groups of respondents strongly agreed to three major flood control campaign programs, such as: integration/inclusion of the concepts of flood control as a unit of study in Sibika (Social Studies), Science and Health and Physical Education; orientations to be conducted by teachers and school officials in every class as early as the first week of the school year and putting up billboards in strategic places regarding the flood control campaign, posters in every house and in school educating the people on the causes of floods, the frequency of occurrence and the effects of floods on the lives of the people in the community.

4.    Significant differences in the assessment of the three groups of respondents regarding the flood situation.

No significant differences were noted among the respondents’ assessment on the rate of flood occurrence as supported b the chi-square values which were much lower than the tabular value of 33.924 with 22 degrees of freedom at .05 level.

This study was conducted to determine the anti-microbial effects of Reevera on Staphylococcus aureus.  This is important to a lot of people suffering from skin disorders for it could offer a solution to their skin problems.  The descriptive method of research was used with a questionnaire and an interview as the most important instrument utilized to gather the needed data.  The skin irritation test and the anti-microbial procedure were also used in this study.

Findings of the study show that Reevera, Brand X and Brand Y completely inhibited further growth of Staphylococcus aureus which means that these formulations are very effective in killing this kind of bacterium.  It also shows that it usually takes less than an hour to observe the effects of Reevera againsts blackheads and whiteheads.  This study also revels that Reevera is also suitable for alleviating itchiness and for killing the bacteria which causes pimples, blackheads, whiteheads and itchiness, compared to other commercial brands used in this study.

It is concluded that Reevera has significant difference when used against Brand X and there is significant difference between the use of Reevera against Brand Y.

Source: Rivera, Maximiano, Jr. and Roela Victoria Rivera.  Practical Guide to Thesis and Dissertation Writing.  Manila, Philippines: Katha Publishing, Inc. 1996.

This study aims to investigate the flood control programs in two congressional districts in Manila and their implications on the community-based education program.

Specifically, the study sought to answer the following problems:

1. What is the status of government flood control projects in the congressional districts of Tondo and Sta. Cruz, Manila in terms of the Department of Public Works and Highways-implemented projects?
2. How do the parents, teachers and schoolchildren in the districts of Tondo and Sta. Cruz, Manila assess the flood situation in their places in terms of their causes and their occurrences?
3. How can the schools in the area help in promoting flood control campaign?
4. How significant are the differences in response and assessment of the three groups of respondents to the rate of flood occurrence?

The hypothesis tested by the study was that there were no significant differences in the assessments of the three groups of respondents on the flood situations and the promotion of the flood control campaign.

The respondents of the study consisted of three groups: 319 students from the first sections of the elementary and high schools in the two districts; 56 teachers who were the elementary and secondary advisers and subject teachers of the students; and 139 parents of the students.

The study made use of the descriptive method using survey questionnaire and documentary analysis technique to interpret the results.  The survey questionnaire which served as the main instrument was validated and pretested to ascertain the conditions according to the purpose of the study.

Student often thinks that writing a thesis is complicated.  They seem to think of thesis writing as some special talent given only to those favored by heaven and they believe they are not one of those. Fortunately, that is not necessarily true.  The good news is thesis writing can be learned, just like how your baby brothers and sisters learned to walk or remember how you learned to bike.  All you have to do is follow some simple steps and guides in thesis writing.

First you should choose a topic that is not broad and interesting to you.  You need t seek the help of a thesis advisor.  Your thesis advisor will know if the scope of your project is too broad or too narrow.  Once the topic is selected, large task can be broken into many small ones.

Second, once the topic is broken down into smaller sections. Consider each section as its own separate project.  Treat each section as a regular research paper.  As a graduate student, you already wrote many papers.  In this way, it will be much easier to change the paper so that they all work together as a cohesive unit.

Third but not the least is managing your time effectively.  Thesis deadline is already given ahead of time to make sure that the project is finished on time so it is necessary to create a schedule.  Allocate each section a certain amount of time and make sure to complete the section within the given period.  Before starting the next section, make sure to have time between projected completion and the actual due date to fix errors.  If you have finished each section according to the schedule, there should be no worry finishing your thesis and nothing can be complicated.

After having carefully selected and limited your topic, and determined your purpose, audience, language, tone and point of view, your next step is the writing of a first or preliminary draft.

Write this draft rather quickly, without pausing or stopping over details so as not to allow anything to interrupt your thought flow.  Put down everything you know about your topic and write as quickly as you can even if you are not sure of what to say.  Do not try to write and edit at the same time.  The important thing is that you first get all your thoughts down on paper. During draft writing, forget about the spelling grammar and other issues instead focus on any idea that may later be incorporated with the final draft. It is a mental process that takes place before put it on writing.

Writing of the draft is the second stage in the process of writing.  This tentative or first draft will by no means be a final one.  First draft will be the basis of your writing.  It is important to write a draft before writing the final copy of your writing because this will allow you do editing and revising as well as catching any mistakes you might not have caught if only writing a one copy.

Point of view is the position from which a writer looks at his subject.  While pertaining specifically to description, point of view is nonetheless necessary in all writing in order to stay within a context that will insure unity in the paragraph or essay. A spectator sport, for example, could be written from your point of view as a rabid fan; but it could also be written from the viewpoint of a game official, a reporter, or a player’s girlfriend.  You may want to tell us about a trip you took during the holidays or that lovely beach outing you had last summer.  Decide if you want to tell us about it in the present or in the past tense, in the first person or in the second.

Your works as a writer is to establish a point of view early on and to remain in that point of view without unnecessary shifting of tense, number, or person.  Any shift will result in jolting your readers or at the very least, will distract or confuse them.  It is important to have a point of view in your writing to establish order and unity of thoughts.

The writing purpose of the writer should communicate thoughts and feelings with conviction and enthusiasm and provides the overall design that is to govern what the writer has set out to do.

For example, you want to write about pollution.  Why do you want to write about it?  Do you want to inform the reader of some important but little known facts concerning pollution?  Do you want to describe what the city looks like under the smog?  Maybe you want to communicate or share some strong feelings about the dangers posed by excessive pollution.  Knowing why you want to write about a subject will help you to focus and will lead you to organize the data to suit that purpose.

When you sit down to write, ask yourself: who am I addressing?  Who do I want to reach?  It is good to remember that all writing must be directed to a specific audience, for instance, your teacher, a hobby club, a magazine or newspaper editor, or a group of students like yourself  Addressing a specific group of readers will give your writing an immediacy that will catch and hold their interest.