This page compiles some basic information you need to write a successful thesis, undergraduate or graduate.
Much of it is also relevant to paper writing more generally.
This is still a beta version. I wrote most of it in a day or two and have been slowly checking, updating, and improving it since then.
However, there are still many errors. Don't trust it until the version number reaches at least 1.0.
Version 0.6 (Last substantial revision 2025.04)
Conceptually, all academic research has at least two parts.
You are participating in ongoing conversations about important issues in the world.
You need to understand those conversations before you contribute. In other words, you have to read and summarize what academic experts have written in academic texts (not random people in random tweets and TikToks) about your topics.
You are doing a very limited case study of one small research question.
Once you understand the conversation(s), you can add something to them. You do that with a case study. We'll come back to this, because case studies are complicated.
The BA thesis is due 2 June 2025 (week 25).
The first EAS250 class is 18 March 2025 (week 12).
You have about 12 weeks to complete the project.
Finding the right research topic is often quite hard. There are some steps you can take to make it a bit easier, and some warning signs so you can understand when you might be on the wrong track. Most of all, you need to realize that a "topic" is just step 1...
You can start with a topic, but you have to ask a question about it in order to do research. In other words, you need to go from "I'm interested in..." (topic) to "My research asks how/why/about the significance of...," etc. (question).
Step 1: Think about a topic or topics you are passionate about that relate to modern and contemporary Japan, or a topic that you care about in general but that could be studied in the context of Japan.
Step 2: What sources exist? Start with reference sources. Are there good analytical/academic sources, such as peer-reviewed articles and academic books? What primary sources can you actually get? Is that enough? Too much?
Step 3: What analytical (not descriptive) question(s) can you ask about your topic and sources? Do you care? Are you excited? Are you passionate about answering that question?
Don't discount the affective element in step 3. You're going to be stuck with your question for a long time. You don't want to start a project you won't enjoy.
What is an analytical question? How is it different from a descriptive question?
In general, descriptive questions are factual questions with clear-cut answers. In contrast, analytical questions ask how, why, and who cares, i.e., what's important and why. They force you to think about the significance of things.
This paragraph from Harvard's thesis guide sums up the difference quite nicely:
Here’s a trick: “fact-finding” questions tend to start with the interrogative words “what,” “who,” and “where.” Analytical questions tend to start with the interrogative words “how” or “why.” Think about it. Another great trick is to recognize that an analytical question creates a good discussion (at the dinner table in the dining hall, with your roommates, in the classroom — anywhere). A fact-finding question does not, because once you’ve discovered the answer to a fact-finding question, the discussion is over. Analytical questions have many possible “right” answers. This multiplicity of possible answers leads to discussion and debate (even better!) when people favor (as they tend to do) one of those answers over another. A good analytical question is exactly the same as a good question for discussion.
For reference, here are some examples of the difference between descriptive and analytical questions.
Descriptive → Analytical
Facts Their impact and significance
Summary of a theory How that theory is applicable
Methodology How and why those methods are appropriate
How something works How and why this is useful, significant, etc.
What kinds of sources do you need? Where do they come from? How can you tell if they're any good (for academic writing)?
These sections provide some quick and dirty answers.
Basically, there are three types of sources:
Reference (tertiary)
Academic (secondary / analytical)
Primary
Reference sources are summaries of a topic written by academic experts.
They have two purposes:
decide if a topic is interesting
gather background information on a topic if it is interesting
Some reference sources are whole books. Others are short articles, chapters, etc.
They don't have to be about Japan to be useful! For example, if you want to write about a topic in linguistics, you might want to read about (your topic in) linguistics in general before narrowing down to Japan.
Here are some examples from our library:
Japans historie : fra jegersamfunn til økonomisk supermakt (Kalland 2005)
Routledge Handbook of Modern Japanese History (Saaler, ed. 2017)
Cambridge Handbook of Japanese Linguistics (Hasegawa 2018)
The Anime Encyclopedia, 3rd Revised Edition : A Century of Japanese Animation (Clements 2015)
These are often be the first (and never the last) step in your research and you often won't cite them directly.
Secondary sources are interpretations and analyses by academic experts. For our purposes, this roughly means scholarly books and articles. We use secondary sources in two main ways.
First, they help us understand the state and content of our chosen fields, i.e., to survey the big issues and questions and debates that make up our academic disciplines. In other words, we use them to understand the conversation(s) we want to participate in.
Second, they help frame our questions about and analyses of primary sources, and help us place our work in the context and conversations that animate our respective fields, etc.
Primary sources are generally, though not always, the main objects of analysis in academic research. They vary somewhat by discipline.
In history, they are firsthand and/or contemporary accounts of historical events or phenomena, including archival documents, newspaper and magazine articles, government reports and legal documents, diaries and letters, music, artwork and photographs, pamphlets and other ephemera, etc.
In linguistics, primary sources could be both things you observe (see, hear, etc.) or data you gather with surveys, etc.
In most cases, we start with reference sources and then move on to secondary (academic/analytical) and primary sources. Sometimes it's the opposite.
We're going to use the following research questions as our example in the following sections:
How are historical controversies represented in popular media and games?
A general question to help us understand the big conversations going on and give us context for our case study.
How is WWII represented in contemporary Japanese video games?
A more specific for our case study.
Think of some basic keywords. At the beginning, this is trial and error. Some searches will give no good results. That’s okay. Try again with new keywords.
Click here to open ORIA, then follow along..
In ORIA, try:
"video games" handbook
"video games" reader
Hint: Use the “Bøker” filter in Oria.
The most interesting sources I see from these two searches are:
Fromme, Johannes., and Alexander Unger. Computer Games and New Media Cultures: A Handbook of Digital Games Studies. Springer, 2012.
Nakatsu, Ryohei, Paolo Ciancarini, and Matthias Rauterberg. Handbook of Digital Games and Entertainment Technologies. Springer Reference, 2017.
Steinkuehler, Constance, Kurt Squire, and Sasha A. Barab. Games, Learning, and Society: Learning and Meaning in the Digital Age. Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Thompson, Jason C., and Marc A. Ouellette. The Game Culture Reader. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013.
Wolf, Mark J. P. Encyclopedia of Video Games: The Culture, Technology, and Art of Gaming. Greenwood, 2012.
I also have interesting Subjects (Emner) to explore:
I can click on those links or go to Advanced Search (Avansert Søk) in Oria, select Emne, and try searching those terms (or something similar):
Hint: You can also limit the publication date! If you’re getting a lot of old sources (1950s, 1970s, etc.), try 2000-2023.
Here is a partial list of Japan-related reference books available online from the UiB library:
Avenell, Simon Andrew, ed. 2023. Reconsidering Postwar Japanese History : A Handbook. Amsterdam University Press.
Baffelli, Erica, and Fabio Rambelli, eds. 2021. The Bloomsbury Handbook of Japanese Religions. Bloomsbury Academic.
Buckley, Sandra, ed. 2002. Encyclopedia of Contemporary Japanese Culture. Routledge.
Clements, Jonathan, and Helen McCarthy. 2015. The Anime Encyclopedia, Stone Bridge Press.
Coates, Jennifer, Lucy Fraser, and Mark Pendleton, eds. 2020. The Routledge Companion to Gender and Japanese Culture. Routledge.
Darling-Wolf, Fabienne, ed. 2018. Routledge Handbook of Japanese Media. Routledge.
Davis, Bret W, ed. 2019. The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Philosophy. Oxford University Press.
Ellington, Lucien. 2002. Japan: A Global Studies Handbook. ABC-CLIO.
Friday, Karl F., ed. 2017. Routledge Handbook of Premodern Japanese History. Routledge.
Hutchinson, Rachael, and Leith Morton, eds.. 2016. Routledge Handbook of Modern Japanese Literature. Routledge.
Jiménez Murguía, Salvador, ed. 2016. The Encyclopedia of Japanese Horror Films. Rowman & Littlefield.
Lyon-Bestor, Victoria, Theodore C Bestor, and Akiko Yamagata, eds. 2011. Routledge Handbook of Japanese Culture and Society. Routledge.
McCarthy, Mary M, ed. 2018. Routledge Handbook of Japanese Foreign Policy. Taylor and Francis.
Miyao, Daisuke, ed. 2014. The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Cinema. Oxford University Press.
Mullins, Mark, ed. 2003. Handbook of Christianity in Japan. Brill.
Pellitteri, Marco. 2024. The Palgrave Handbook of Music and Sound in Japanese Animation. Palgrave Macmillan.
Prohl, Inken and John K Nelson, eds. 2012. Handbook of Contemporary Japanese Religion. Brill.
Saaler, Sven and Christopher Szpilman, eds. 2017. Routledge Handbook of Modern Japanese History. Taylor and Francis.
Takeda, Hiroko, and Mark Williams, eds. 2021. Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Japan. Routledge.
Tatsushi, Fujihara, ed. 2023. Handbook of Environmental History in Japan. Amsterdam University Press.
Tsutsui, William M., ed. 2007. A Companion to Japanese History. Blackwell.
Hasegawa, Yoko. 2018. Cambridge Handbook of Japanese Linguistics. Cambridge University Press.
Tsujimura, Natsuko. 1999. The Handbook of Japanese Linguistics. Blackwell.
Heinrich, Patrick, and Yumiko Ōhara, eds. 2019. Routledge Handbook of Japanese Sociolinguistics. Routledge.
Newspapers can sometimes be reference sources, sometimes primary sources. In any case, this UiO page is an excellent resource.
Secondary Sources (Academic Books and Articles)
Now, let's get more specific, focusing on: Japan, history, etc.
Searching for books is the same process as for reference sources, so this section focuses on articles. They’re more commonly used and often more useful at this stage anyway, because they’re often more specific than books.
First, update your keywords. If you have new keywords from reading the tertiary sources, that’s great. If not, try something like
Use filters here, too. First, limit your search to articles (Artikler). This gives you both academic and news/popular articles. This is a good place to start, and there is nothing wrong with using articles from reliable news sources (NRK, BBC, New York Times, etc., but not infowars.com, theonion.com, or Epoch Times, etc.). You can limit your search to peer-reviewed academic articles with the "Fra fagfellevurderte tidsskrift" filter
The results in Oria were disappointing. Sometimes that happens. Don't give up!
Next, I went to Google Scholar and searched:
This gave me one useful-looking source:
Metzger, Scott Alan, and Richard J. Paxton. 2016. “Gaming History: A Framework for What Video Games Teach About the Past.” Theory & Research in Social Education 44 (4): 532–64. doi:10.1080/00933104.2016.1208596.
I downloaded that, but searched again:
There are many great sources here! Check out the results yourself.
Review
I went from general to specific in two ways:
reference sources → secondary/analytical sources
search terms: “video games” japan history war → “video games” japan history “world war”
ORIA is Plan A. Google Scholar is Plan B.
Prioritize academic sources, but don't ignore news/popular sources. And vice versa, of course!
Here is a partial list of high-quality (mostly Level 1 or 2 in the Norwegian Register) Japan-related journals available through the UiB library:
Note: Many other journals publish research on Japan. The journals below focus on Japan.
Japan Studies Association Journal
"comparative study of Japan, especially within east-west, inter-Asian, cross-cultural and interdisciplinary frameworks"
game studies
"interplay between religion and society, religion and culture, religion and media, and religion and education; the dynamics of globalization and secularization related to Japanese religions; and the geography of religions, new sacred spaces, and hybridization of religion"
"research on contemporary issues related to Japan and its recent historical development in all humanities and social science disciplines"
"interdisciplinary journal publishing cutting-edge empirical and theoretical research on Japan and its place in the world"
The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus
"explores the geopolitics, economics, history, society, culture, international relations and environment of the modern and contemporary Asia-Pacific"
"All social science disciplines (anthropology, economics, history, law, political science, and sociology) are represented, including studies of Japan’s international relations and comparisons with other countries."
"research in subject areas ranging from archaeology, language, literature, philosophy and culture to history, economics, politics, international relations and law"
Japanese Journal of Religious Studies
"journal specializing in the publication of research on the study of Japanese religions"
"the most influential journal dealing with research on Japan available in the English language... scholarly research on Japan in a wide variety of social science and humanities disciplines, as well as translations"
Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema
"devoted to the cinemas of Japan and Korea and the interactions and relations between them"
Review of Japanese Culture and Society
"scholarly examination of Japanese culture in a trans-Pacific context... new translations of Japanese-language research, literature, and criticism, as well as original scholarship"
"interdisciplinary journal which publishes scholarly articles on various aspects of Japan, as well as book and film reviews [and] guest-edited thematic issues on such themes as postwar politics, environmental issues, literature, citizenship, the legal system, modern technology, management, Japanese language teacher education, and popular culture"
Japanese Journal of Political Science
"original theoretical and empirically tested political science research"
International Journal of Japanese Sociology
"sociological studies in and beyond Japan"
"publishes outstanding research and translations, as well as authoritative book reviews, in premodern and modern Japanese studies"
Shashi: The Journal of Japanese Business and Company History
"articles that utilize or discuss the methodology for using Shashi - self-issued company histories - but will consider any topic that deals with the history of business and manufacturing in Japan"
Other journals worth looking at:
electronic journal of contemporary japanese studies
"journal in the Humanities and Social Sciences that publishes academic research and scholarly writing on all issues related to contemporary Japanese literature, theatre, cinema, philosophy, society, economy, politics, culture, history, and more"
formerly Level 1 in the Norwegian Register
Japanese Language and Literature
"Japanese literature, Japanese linguistics, teaching Japanese as a second or foreign language, and Japanese culture"
"research journal of the Japan Association for Language Teaching"
"articles and other material related to language teaching, particularly in an Asian context"
Bunron - Journal of Japanese Literary Studies
"articles, translations, reviews and conference reports on current issues in literary studies while placing special emphasis on a theoretical approach. The journal is, however, not limited to contributions regarding canonical literary texts, but is also open to articles from contiguous disciplines such as philosophy, history, cultural studies or linguistics"
Primary sources differ from field to field, as mentioned above. In this case, we want 1-3 video games to analyze and compare. For this project, you might use:
In fact, you might find that the YouTube playlists are more interesting than the games themselves. That's okay, too! Many projects change as you learn more. Don't be afraid of that -- as long as you have enough time to make those changes, of course.
How do you know your sources are any good? Since most sources are either articles or books (or individual book chapters in a multi-author edited volume), we'll just cover those two here, but the general guidelines apply to other sources as well.
Books held by our library or any other university library, as well as books form major university publishers are generally a safe bet. Familiarize yourself with the prominent authors and publishers in your field to improve your judgment so you don't waste time reading garbage. For instance, in the field of modern Japanese history, the top university presses include California, Cambridge, Chicago, Cornell, Duke, Harvard, and Hawaii (why all the Cs and Hs?) Other important publishers include Brill and Routledge. What about your field? Pay attention to this, starting with the readings your professors assign.
Articles are a bit different.
Check the Norwegian Register. If the journal is listed as Level 1 or 2, it's almost 100% guaranteed to be good.
Otherwise, for an initial evaluation of an article, consider:
Is it peer reviewed? If not, toss it. No blogs, no MA theses posted online, etc.
How do you know if it's peer reviewed?
If you're using an academic database (Google Scholar, JSTOR, etc.) to find your articles, you're pretty safe.
The guide here is helpful. The first page of this guide is also useful for a more basic understanding of the different kinds of periodicals out there (scholarly, popular, trade).
Here are some other things to think about:
Does it have an abstract? If so, read it. What do you think? Does it look like it might be worth your time?
Is it a good and/or important journal? If you don't know the major journals in your field, familiarize yourself. Ask a professor or check the Norwegian Register for 1- and 2-point (high-quality) journals. (See above↑)
Who's the author? Check their faculty webpage to learn about their research, etc. Check to see if they have a Google Scholar page, and if they do, whether they are widely cited in their own field. If so, is it the article (or book) you're interested in? If not, is that partly because it's too new to be cited a lot?
If you're still interested in the article, skim and scan it. If it looks useful, read more in depth.
Finally, it's often said that chapters in edited volumes (not single-authored monographs) tend to be of lower quality than peer-reviewed articles. This was probably true in the past. Be careful, ask a professor if you're not sure, but don't reject edited-volume chapters without considering them first.
Notes:
As noted above, if you're not sure about the quality of a source, check the Norwegian Register for 1- and 2-point (high-quality) journals. For example, Japanese Studies is a level 1 journal (good!) and The Journal of Japanese Studies is level 2 (very good!)
Don't use more than one or two articles from non-scholarly sources or newspapers and major, reputable magazines (without checking with a professor first). You can use a few, but just a few. That's not just Wikipedia. If you have any doubt, talk to a professor. Never cite an MA thesis or undergraduate paper.
Taking good notes is very personal. Everyone has their own system, something they're comfortable with. Some people prefer a pen and their favorite Moleskine. Others only take notes in Notion or Obsidian. Many people mix digital and analog. Some take notes in full sentences, others in an idiosyncratic code of their own making. All that is fine.
You need different notes for the Introduction and Background than for the Body/Discussion.
The Introduction and Background are mostly about ideas, the "big picture." The Body is mostly about facts and data. Take notes accordingly.
In practice, this means that notes on major sources for the Introduction and Background should capture:
argument (main point, conclusion, etc.) and significance
In contrast, Discussion notes should be more about:
facts, data, and details relevant to your work specifically
Both can/should include:
your own reactions and connections with other notes
page numbers, etc., for all references ― especially direct quotes
NB: Some sources are useful for your whole thesis ― both the Introduction/Background and the Body/Discussion ― so you'll take both types of notes (ideas and facts). Just make sure to keep the two separate. If they're mixed up in your mind, they'll be mixed up in your notes. If they're mixed up in your notes, they'll be mixed up in your thesis!
Taking means more than just highlighting passages, whether in a PDF or hard copy. It means synthesizing information, expressing it in your own terms, and internalizing it within your larger project.
Some people call this "making notes" instead of just "taking notes." In other words, making notes is an active process in which you are summarizing, editing, synthesizing, etc.
Overall, good note taking requires keeping your eye on the big picture ― two big pictures, in fact:
The big picture for the author, i.e., the purpose, context, and argument of the piece (Introduction and Background)
The big picture for you, i.e., how a particular work fits into your research (Body)
This means being an active and engaged reader always trying to extract as much information as efficiently as possible. Don't get bogged down. Don't get lost in the word salad. Before you start reading, skim and scan, etc., to get an idea of what you're up against and why you should care. Formulate questions or assumptions to guide your reading. Keep those in mind as you proceed. Revisit them when you're done. Make sure the relevant info is in your notes.
Take a look at this pros-cons comparison from the University of Sussex to evaluate which style of note taking is best for you. And remember that (1) it doesn't have to be the same for everything you do, and (2) there are many digital note-taking tools out there, too, for you to explore.
Most of all, the BA thesis is a project on an unprecedented scale for many or most of you. Make sure that the notes you take still make sense and are findable and usable months later.
I often use symbols and abbreviations for chronology, facts and figures, and other factual (descriptive) notes. For analytical notes, I try to write in more or less full sentences and paragraphs when I'm taking notes that are essentially analytical, i.e., for my lit review, argument, etc.
In other words:
Descriptive: symbols, abbreviations, etc., are great for taking compact and efficient notes ― especially for data that's easily simplified and easily rewritten into sentences and paragraphs if necessary later on
Analytical: full sentences are best for developing ideas and putting them in dialogue with your sources
This helps me develop my ideas early on. It also means that when I go to write a draft, I already have a whole bunch of material in full sentences and paragraphs that can be cut and pasted into the draft without too much editing or rewriting.
Especially if you're a visual learner or artistically inclined, consider adding sketchnotes to your repertoire. Personally, I recommend combining a structured approach like the Cornell method with sketchnotes, but ymmv because note taking is personal. So you should feel comfortable experimenting until you find the approach that works best for you.
The structure of most undergraduate theses looks something like this:
Frontmatter
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Conclusion
Backmatter
A good short paper is better than a bad long paper, but all of these sections together should be about 3,000-5,000 words.
Frontmatter and backmatter, for those who don't know, are your table of contents, acknowledgements, and other items that come before the body of the text (frontmatter) and any appendices, glossaries, indices, etc. that go after the conclusion (backmatter). We will not cover those sections here.
Though it is sometimes a real struggle, research and writing hones some very practical skills and offers tremendous intellectual growth and satisfaction. The process of writing an academic paper is one way to enter into conversation with some of the best minds in the world about topics you care deeply about. That process begins with reading, with understanding the conversation itself. That's true both on a factual level and for the animating issues and concerns that drive the conversation and make it stimulating and relevant. Struggling with these issues, discovering new facts, engaging with new and challenging ideas: all of these aspects of academic life can be tremendously rewarding, even joyful. (And yes, they can be... less joyful, too.)
Research is for You, Writing is for Everyone Else
Why? Well, because it's maybe the single most important piece of advice I can give you about how to rethink your writing in order to be successful. "How so?" I hear you say. The trials, tribulations, and joys of writing―beginning with research and reading―are for you and you alone. You learn. You grow. You have an epiphany. You pick up new skills. But you don't read your writing. That's the rest of us. Research and writing should never be a soliloquy, a lonely and omphaloscopic solipsism. It should be about communicating what you've learned and what you believe based on that. That means the target is not you, it's us.
This is probably obvious, but it has profound implications:
Academic writing is the opposite of a magic trick or a mystery, in which there's a "big reveal" at the end. That's much more interesting as narrative structure (for fiction!), but in academic writing the big reveal comes first.
So: Pull the Rabbit out of the Hat First
Think about this for a minute.
First, it goes against all the habits we have as consumers of media, whether entertainment or academic. We want to enjoy the foreshadowing, the buildup, the tension, and then the great and cathartic dénouement. There's a reason we have the hashtag #spoileralert. In good, clear, expository academic writing―not deliberately obfuscatory, pretentious, jargon-laden nonsense―we strive for spoilers.
Second, in most cases that means that a good piece of writing doesn't follow the path that you took as a researcher and author. Your best idea, your clearest thought, your cleverest argument are almost never the first thing you wrote.
Third, edit. Then edit again. Rinse and repeat. But also don't succumb to the temptation to write alone. Remember, it's a conversation, dammit. Don't talk to yourself. Talk to us. So use your professors and peers to get feedback. They can be readers in a way you can't about your own writing, where you're still stuck at least partly being the author, too. And if the ultimate target of writing is the reader, to invest your precious blood, sweat, and tears on producing something with no reader perspective is a total waste. It's dumb. Can you imagine developing a new instant ramen, investing millions of dollars in R&D and marketing without doing a taste test? Of course not. Let someone taste test your paper. A smart reader will be able to tell you it's a bit too salty, or if it needs a bit of spice.
Here's another way to think about that. Instead of leaving your cogent argument or great idea where it first came to you (the middle of a paragraph on page 7), you have to do what we variously call "signposting" or "frontloading." In other words, you need to create a map to guide your readers. In fact, you need to create a map that forces your readers to engage with the work the way you want them to, not the way they want to. Giving them clear expectations for what's coming (signposts) at the very beginning (frontloading) is a good start.
This mapping is a kind of metacommentary, i.e. a statement like "in other words," "what I mean is" that comments on your writing itself. In the introduction, that often takes a form such as: "My research is about... I argue that.... It is significant because... In the first section, I... Next... Finally..." (see the section on your first draft below for an example).
One obvious implication is that the introduction to a paper―whether it's a seminar paper or a thesis―has to do a lot of work. It is the roadmap, and should contain within it everything a reader needs to know about your work in condensed form, i.e. the topline/bottomline takeaways.
In the intro, then, at the very least, you must:
Present your argument
Place it within the context of the conversations you're engaging in (lit review)
Provide paper section or thesis chapter summaries
For this reason, the intro is often completed last. It's almost impossible to really finish the introduction without having written everything else. For this reason, most authors come back to write or rewrite the intro at the very end. This is what I meant about writing and reading happening in different orders: the thing good readers go to first and most thoroughly (after a quick skim/scan of the whole thing) is the part that gets written last.
And guess what? You can repeat this exact same structure for each chapter and each subsection of each chapter to produce a very clear, readable piece of expository writing, which is what a thesis ought to be. In other words, each chapter and each section can have the same structure as the overall thesis:
Introduction
Body
Conclusion
This is the tried-and-true "Tell ’em what you’re gonna tell ’em. Tell ’em. Then tell ’em what ya told ’em" structure of the five-paragraph essay, etc. It's not flashy, but it works.
It is probably most helpful to think of each chapter as a longish seminar paper. You've written seminar papers before, and you know how to do that. The major difference is that the two are somehow directly related, and that you have to explain that link and weave it into a singular narrative in the introduction. That still means that the two chapters can in most cases be written as standalones. Let the introduction do the heavy lifting.
Conclusions are optional. If you feel like you want or need to provide a summary of your research at the end, by all means go ahead. But you really should have already done so in the introduction.
I have created optional templates for MA thesis submission. They are preformatted with all of the sections you might need in the proper order, including an autogenerated, autoformatted table of contents and list of figures, etc. If you would like to use the template for your final draft, please contact me. But don't write in the template; just cut and paste your work into it to make sure everything is there and in the right order, etc. It's an organizer, in a sense.
A literature review is a synthesis of existing research that (ideally) also explains why we need your research, and why we need it now. The lit review answers some or all of the following questions:
What do we know? What don’t we know?
Are there gaps in the research? Can we hypothesize an answer to those unanswered question(s)?
What methods can we use to gather and analyze more data?
Why now?
This makes everyone’s lives easier. A lit review provides a broad overview of the studies done on a particular topic or topics. That helps both you and your readers make sense of what has been written on your topic(s). For you, it is the foundation of your analysis. For your reader, it provides the background needed to read your paper. The literature review is an analysis of existing scholarly research and literature on your topic(s). It summarizes current knowledge, gaps, and research trends in your field(s). But remember, the lit review should be specific to your project. It only covers scholarship important to the issue or issues you are writing about. In addition to describing, summarizing, and evaluating those academic works directly related to your research problem or question(s), the literature review demonstrates how your research will fit within larger fields of study, i.e., conversations about the world. In other words, you sum up the conversation(s) you want to be part of and how you want to be part of them.
The literature review usually is part of the introduction or between the introduction and the body. Think of it as “background” or “backstory” if that helps. The contents and form will differ depending on your field. For historians, this includes the facts, arguments (conclusions), and sometimes theories that make up the topic or topics you are researching. Linguists will probably need a description of methods, for example.
Here is an oversimplified sample (adapted from Calarco 2020:116):
“Research consistently shows that the sky is blue (Smith 2008; Johnson 2009; Peters 2010). However, the specific hue of blue varies across different locations (Peters 2010). Less clear, however, are the factors that lead to variations in hues across locations.”
The first two sentences summarize the existing research. That is why there are citations at the end of each one.
The final sentence is different. It identifies a gap, i.e., new research that can be done. Obviously, this is your research!
For an actual example from linguistics, check out the Introduction to this article.
For an example from history, try the second section (“Morality politics, moral entrepreneurship, and populism”) in this article.
This section outlines some basic principles and steps for the thesis writing process.
When planning your schedule, take into account that most sections will require several rounds of feedback and revision before they are ready to be part of your final draft and then to be presented at your oral defense. You need to give your supervisor at least one week to read and return your drafts, so that means that you should be writing early and often, and submitting drafts for feedback regularly.
You should also plan to complete your thesis about 10 days (or more) before the deadline for submission. So if the due date is June 20, plan on being done June 10. You won't be. There's always something. Do you need to do more revision? Do you need to fix your citations? formatting? tables and images? Give yourself the cushion to actually do this.
Writing 5,000 words can be overwhelming. So don't. Instead, write in small, manageable chunks of a few hundred words, then a few hundred more. Break down the thesis into its component pieces, and take care of them one at a time.
Also, remember that writing is generally not a linear process. In general, don't try to write all the elements of your thesis in the order they should be read in. It's almost impossible, and usually undesirable, to start with the first paragraph and just write straight through. Successful academic authors often write in small, manageable chunks and then cut and paste them into the right order to make a cohesive and cogent argument.
As I pointed out above, the big reveal comes first in a thesis. Pull the rabbit out of the hat, show it to us, explain how the trick is done, then stuff Mr. Cottontail back in and do the trick. Tell us it was Colonel Mustard in the kitchen with a wrench, then explain how you figured that out and why we should care. Because this is generally the opposite of both how we are used to writing and telling stories, and also tends not to be the order in which we actually find or determine things in our research, it means that you can't just write everything down linearly.
So, write each chapter separately and compile them into a single file only late in the game.
Consider even writing each subsection separately. This is especially helpful if you're having a bit of writer's block or feeling overwhelmed. Remember, small, manageable chunks.
Lipson (2005) defines prewriting as "the basic work of organizing your materials, writing informally about them, and preparing to write a first draft, based on these notes and writings." It can also include brainstorming and other exercises and activities you might do before sitting down to write your first draft of a chapter, the introduction, etc. In other words, prewriting is most of the stuff we've discussed so far. It is also a stage of writing that doesn't just come around once. You'll probably return to prewriting each time you take on a new chapter at least.
The number one goal here is getting and staying organized. Organized prewriting is necessary but not sufficient to organized writing.
Organization 1: Prewriting
Try these four steps to organize your materials in the prewriting stage.
Categorize: How will you split your thesis and its individual chapters into categories/sections?
Order: What order should you present those sections in?
Triage: Which research data goes into which category?
Rightsize: Missing anything? Conversely, any chaff that can be discarded?
The following two quotes about first drafts are from the same Harvard guide mentioned above.
Remember that there’s nothing really at stake in the rough draft. It’s just a narrative of your notes — a gathering place for your ideas, loosely structured in essay form.
In writing the rough draft you should, in consultation with your tutor, formulate an argument, introduce that argument, describe how your evidence supports that argument, and explain the broader implications of that argument.
There's a clear tension between these two statements. I think it's fair to say that they appear incompatible. On the one hand, a first draft is just your notes fleshed out a bit. On the other, it should express, support, and explain the importance of your argument.
How can it be both?
Especially if you've been taking notes that include full sentences and are attentive to issues of analysis, by this point you probably have a substantial portion of your first chapter and intro drafts already written! What you need to do now is arrange those notes and fill in the gaps, etc., and also arrange them within the context of your argument as it is developing.
What does that mean in practice?
Ideally, you should have at least have the following four elements. You might not be there yet, and that's (usually) OK, too. That's what drafts are for.
a clearly stated research question, even if it's somewhat different from the question you started with
a tentative answer to that question, i.e. your argument or thesis statement
a statement about the significance or implications of your research
evidence arranged to support your argument
4 is the body of the draft. Each paragraph should contain a single major idea, which should, if possible, be clearly stated in the first sentence. You'll have to do this eventually, so why not start early and save yourself the heartaches and headaches later?
1-3 together form the backbone of an abstract. Here's an example, the abstract for an article I published in 2019:
(1) This article explores the early history of nutrition science and nutritional activism in Japan, 1920–40, focusing on the role of the Imperial Government Institute for Nutrition (IGIN). (2) I argue that the IGIN, the world’s first government-sponsored nutrition institute, was a manifestation and key instrument of Japan’s state-led program of national nutrition as civilization and national defense. (3) The IGIN’s successes in science and dietary reform were viewed as a triumph, an indication that Japan had surpassed the West in the most fundamentally modern and rational of pursuits, science—and specifically nutrition science, a critical technology of nation building.
In retrospect, I feel like I should have more explicitly used metacommentary in sentence 3 to explain the significance of this work more clearly.
Edit. Then edit some more. Then again. Then more.
And you have to remember that writing is not meant to be done alone. If you've forgotten that already, go back to the top and start over.
Getting feedback will make this process more efficient and ultimately more successful. Whatever you do, don't hold on to your drafts because they're "not good enough yet." The whole point is to get help making them good enough. Making use of the resources available to you ― in this case, your peers and professors ― is key to success. Suck it up and turn it in.
Organization 2: Drafts
For your sake and ours, stay organized.
For instance, use a filename structure that clearly indicates:
your name, thesis section (chapter 2? introduction?), and version number and/or date
Example: Hopson thesis - ch1 - 01 = first draft of chapter 1
Don't be afraid to Save As... and assign a new filename to each draft. You can always go back and delete old drafts later. Plus, keeping old drafts allows you to be bolder in the new ones―you have nothing to lose, after all...
Aso, use the Track Changes feature so we know what has been edited and how:
Word: Review > Track Changes (Ctrl+Shift+E / ⌘+Shift+E)
LibreOffice: Edit > Changes > Record
Pages: Edit > Track Changes
Following these guidelines will help you as a writer, and will also allow us to give faster, better feedback.
Perhaps this goes without saying, but let me be clear: you need a computer. Not a smartphone. Preferably not a tablet either, even a good one like an iPad or Surface. Computers are far more powerful and feature rich at every step of the way.
You will need at least the following apps on your computer:
Word processor
The default option is Microsoft Word. You have free access via your UiB account. There are other options, some of which are free and feature rich. Google Docs is okay, but not the best option for most people.
Browser
The most popular browser is probably Google Chrome, but check your options.
Citation manager
We strongly recommend Zotero, which is free, feature rich, and has excellent support communities.
Citation managers are software applications that do the heavy lifting of recording your references (books, articles, etc.) and automatically producing perfectly formatted citations and source lists in your papers -- and producing them over and over, as many times as you need!
Zotero is free and open source. There are other options, such as Mendeley.
All citation managers have the same basic purpose and functions:
Purpose: To automate (as much as possible) the process of importing, managing, and using references for in-line citations, footnotes, and lists of sources.
Functions:
Gather citation information automatically from the internet (can also be entered and/or edited manually, since the automatic import isn't perfect)
Insert and/or update citations in any format (MLA, Chicago, etc.) automatically with a few keystrokes and/or clicks
Insert and/or update a source list at the end of your paper
Manage imported PDF articles, etc., and/or your notes, if you want
Both applications support Microsoft Word. Zotero also supports free options (Google Documents and LibreOffice), if you don't want to spend the money on Microsoft Office, use Zotero.
Note: There is a more detailed guide here, and there are many online tutorials in both text and video format. The UiB library has information about Zotero, including workshops, here.
Use the UiB VPN when you are not on campus. That will give you full access to all the sources the university has.