#thesis topic

i’m procrastinating writing my bachelor’s thesis rn- but i’m SO curious about what other people’s topics are !

Picking a topic and narrowing it down

I’ve been looking through the internet today, to get some good advice to help me narrow down my MA thesis topic. I wrote it down in case someone finds it helpful:

“Begin by articulating why previous discussions of an idea or research topic you’re interested in are inadequate/incomplete in some way.”

“A large overarching idea isn’t a dissertation topic, its a research agenda. A dissertation topic is some specific piece of that puzzle.”

“The only bad choice is looking for more options instead of getting to work on what’s right in front of you.”

“Consider standard texts and well-known results related to your topic. What sucked about them? Be specific. If you had to be their authors, how would you set up your research on the same problems.”

“Reacquaint yourself with the work you were doing when you were the most enthusiastic.”

“If you are prone to perfectionism, you need to rein it in, or you will not finish.”

“We may define mastery in different ways, but I do believe you need to show that you are competent at investigating a particular research topic and at undertaking theoretical or empirical work that moves our understanding of a phenomena forward.”

“In-depth case study or an application of theory to a different data set could be an original contribution.”

“Am I trying to do more cases than needed to prove the hypothesis I’m testing or answer the research questions I’ve posited?”

Sources: http://www.raulpacheco.org/2017/07/narrowing-the-research-thesis-topic/

https://ask.metafilter.com/158878/How-to-get-excited-about-picking-a-dissertation-topic

HA DUDE IF YOU FIND OUT TELL ME

I’m the #1 most indecisive person on this mother fucking planet

You gain interests from the courses you take, yes, and the articles you read, whichever. You find a grad school based on if their department caters to those interests, and if the faculty want to put up with you research project (which they’ll only want to do if it’s similar to their own research). But it sounds like you already have some interests/ideas/fields in mind, so here ya go: 

I say write it out. Chose 3 of your interests, and then for each of those areas, simplify it further until you got a sentence like “I am interested in Turkey, but specifically about how Americans understand Turkey and Turkish people” or “I am interested in witchcraft, but specifically I’m interested in American witchcraft” or “I am interested in like, arrowheads, but only like arrowheads in like Montana” idfk whatever. 

Then you have to search google dot mutherfucking scholar for “Turkish American perceptions” or “American witchcraft” or “Arrowheads Montana”. Find the source/paper/essay/article most cited (make sure it’s scholarly, find the PDF through your institution or illegally online, love u jstore u paywall fuck), read THE WHOLE THING, and if you can imagine reading 234 more articles/chapters/bOOKs JUST LIKE THAT ONE, then it’s a feasible option. After that, take ur nifty article, reread their lit review section, and start reading the true experts that THEY CITED from their reference list. Follow that line forever. If you realize three or four articles in that you’d rather get hit by a bus, try your next interest. 

A good project starts with a focused research question. ResearchQuest (by Anushram) is designed to help students and researchers narrow broad interests into a clear, researchable question, align it with objectives and methodology, and avoid common topic-selection mistakes (too wide scope, weak novelty, no feasible data). Useful for thesis, dissertation, and research-paper planning.