Writing a Thesis

1. Writing a Thesis Ragnhild Balsvik August, 2014

2. Agenda • Requirements of a master thesis • Application for supervisor • Finding a topic • Data sources and analysis • Writing tips

3. Requirements of a master thesis • A larger unified piece of work • 30 ECTS credits (workload 1 semester) • Ca. 50-80 pages • You have to write in groups of 2 students http://www.nhh.no/en/student-pages/thesis/guidelines-related-to-theses-in-the-msc-programme.aspx

4. What to put on the application for supervisor • Try to explain as accurately as possible what you intend to do • Your choice of words will decide which supervisors are relevant • Talk to potential supervisors • Topic is not ‘cut in stone’

5. Finding and refining a topic • Spend time on this before you apply for supervisor • A research question that triggers your interest • Journal articles, courses, textbooks, newspapers • On going research projects at NHH? • Make the research question as specific as possible • Has your exact question been answered before? • Think about what information you need to actually answer your question, is this information available?

6. Reading tips:

7. Collect your own data? • Experiments, surveys, qualitative interviews, observation, etc • Software for surveys: Qualtrics • Notification of master thesis projects to NSD: http://www.nsd.uib.no/personvern/om/english.html

8. Use existing data? • Possible sources • Official registers (Statistics Norway, stock exchange, Brønnøysund, etc) • Surveys collected by a firm; ex. employees or customers • Data collected in research projects • Norwegian Social Science Data Service www.nsd.no • World Bank • Somewhere on the internet….

9. How to analyse data • Take a methodology course • ECN 402 • FIE 401E • BUS 444 • STR 402/405

10. How much information/data do I need? A bit more thanthis,…

11. Reading tips for writing tips

12. Writing tips • Start writing early in the process • Write out references in full from the start • Expect to rewrite several times • Don’t try to hand in a «perfect» first draft to your supervisor • get it done and hand it in!

13. Writing tips • Be critical to what and how your co-author writes • don’t rely on your supervisor only for that • Aim for: Clarity, structure and flow • Use your own words. Do not copy and paste

14. Writing is hard • Try to avoid distractions while you write • Be offline and stick to it for 25 min, take a short break and write for 25 min more • It is not always easy to give specific advice:

15. Googled advice that I agree with: • Start in the middle“Once you have planted the seed, just start adding on words around and over it – this builds a chunk. Don’t worry about where it fits yet – that’s a rewriting problem.” • Write as fast as you can, not as well as you can“The surest way to slow the process is to worry too much about whether your thinking is any good. So give yourself permission to write badly.” • Leave it to rest… then re-write

16. You may still feel like this during the process: butthere is only one thing to do: