Thesis tips

A reference list serves two main purposes. First, to provide more detailed information on in-text citations. Second, to enable readers to track down your source material. Students often ask us, at Thesis Upgrade, to advise on the key elements they should include in their reference lists.

When writing up your list of references, the first step is to understand the system you are using. Most institutions draw on one of the principal referencing systems, such as Oxford, Harvard, MLA, American Sociological Association (ASA) and American Psychological Association (APA). Their conventions are widely known, widely disseminated and widely applied, and, thus, easily interpreted by users. Each of these systems has its advantages and disadvantages, which is why a particular institution may select one over another. In addition, institutions can adapt, change or add to their chosen system. It is, therefore, not unusual to find that you have to adhere to the ‘X’ University Harvard Referencing System. Furthermore, some professions, such as law, prefer to rely on systems that suit the types of documents they tend to utilise.

Referencing systems typically contain the same fundamental elements. We will examine the elements normally included when using the Harvard system, as it is the most widespread classification used in Business and Humanities.

What are the fundamental elements of the Harvard system?

The fundamental elements are the key pieces of information that help readers track down a source you have mentioned in your thesis or dissertation. They usually consist of the author/editor, year of publication, title, publication place and publisher. For web-based sources, additional information is required, such as, URLs, access/download dates and digital object identifiers.

The most valuable piece of information to have, whether you walk into a physical library or bookstore, or go online to search, is the author’s family name, followed by their initials or first names. Knowing when the item was ‘published’ (made public) is the next most important. There is no point in looking at the contemporary issues of journals in the library, if the item being sought was published in 1953! The title is next in line of importance, followed by the place of publication and the name of the publisher. Equipped with this limited amount of information, it is usually quite easy to track down a cited source.

Where do I find the fundamental elements of the Harvard system?

The elements for inclusion for any source tend to be found in the source item itself. For example, when Harvard referencing books (printed and online), refer to the front cover or title page to see what information is listed there. For printed journal articles, the title is included in both the table of contents for the issue and at the beginning of the article itself. With online journals, the information is usually given at the top of the first page of the article (which can be before or after the title).

For other digital material, such as a company website, the key elements are not always obvious. Check out the top and bottom of the home page (also called landing page). You should also look out for legal information (often at the bottom of a page) or logos (often at the top of a page) that contain the name of the author/publisher and consult the web address in the address bar. Alternatively, while on the home page, right-click on the mouse and select ‘properties’. This will often display the date the page was last updated or modified.

What is the most crucial element to include in a reference?

In all cases, the most important element to mention is the name of the author(s) or editor(s). If these names are numerous (four or more authors/editors), you can reference the first family name followed by et al. (meaning ‘and others’). Alternatively, if your institution requires referencing of all named authors, list all the authors. For example, Adams, A.B., Harris, G., Miller, F., Banker, P.B., and Gordon, M.L. (2023). Regardless of which format you are required to comply with, always put the family name first, followed by the initial(s) of given/first names.

Some publications are produced by companies or organisations, so if you unable to locate an author’s name, you can refer to the corporate body as the author (for example, National Referencing Board). If the publication is written by one, or more, editors, signify this by using the short form of (ed.) or (eds) after their name or names. For instance, Smith, G. and Jones, A. (eds).

It is poor academic practice to employ the word ‘anonymous’ or the abbreviation ‘anon.’ If the author/editor is unspecified, or no author/editor can be identified, the protocol is to lead with the title of the work.

What other key elements should be included?

The second most important element is the year/date of publication. This is usually given between round brackets after the name of the author/editor. For example, Smith, G. and Jones, A. (2023). Only if no date of publication can be established, can you use the phrase ‘no date’. For instance, Smith, G. and Jones, A. (no date). Please do not be tempted to rely on ‘no date’ if you are simply too lazy to find out! Most readers of a thesis or dissertation are subject matter experts, so will know the seminal material for the topic. In other words, they will know if you are bluffing!

After the author(s), and the year/date, the next key element of referencing is the title. It is important to provide the whole title as given, together with any subtitle. For example, Studying and working in psychology: A student and practitioner guide.

You may sometimes see the edition of the source material given in a reference. In such cases, only incorporate the edition number if the item you are citing is not the first edition, or if it is a revised edition. The word edition tends to be shortened to edn. This is to avoid confusion with the abbreviation ed. or eds., which is for editor or editors. For example, 3rd edn., or Rev. edn., or 4th rev. edn. If you are referring to the first edition of a publication, there is no need to state the version, as it is assumed and understood.

The next most important elements are the place of publication and publisher, but these are only required for printed (hard copy) material. It is usual to separate the place of publication and the publisher by a colon, for example, London: Hawk Publishing. If the source is digital (soft copy), it is treated differently (see sections on URLs and DOIs).

Sometimes you may find there are international editions of a publication. If there is more than one place of publication, only mention the one most local to you. For places of publication in the United States, add the abbreviated US state name (unless otherwise obvious). For example, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. If you are referencing online sources, the ‘place’ is not always known, but other information, such as URLs or DOIs, act as the proxy for an online address.

For books, the next key element is the series/volume. Indicate a series and individual volume number, if relevant, after the publisher’s name. For example, Oxford: Oxford University Press, Global Series, 60.

For journals, the equivalent of the series/volume information is the issue. When this is known/provided, you should represent the information in the following order: volume number (issue/part number) and/or date or season. For example, 87(3); or 19 July; or summer.

Should I include page numbers?

It is easy to confuse page number requirements for in-text citations, versus the requirements for citations contained in the references list. Page numbers are used in the reference list when referring to chapters in books and serial articles (such as journals, magazines and newspapers). The abbreviation p. is utilised for a single page and pp. for more than one page. For example, London: Rich Press, pp. 92–99. Page numbers are written in full, not an abridged version, in a reference list. So, for instance, pp. 90–9 is not an acceptable abbreviation, but pp. 92-99 is.

Should I include an IBSN?

International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs) represent unique identifiers for books. They thus help eliminate confusion about editions and reprints. ISBNs are, however, not commonly used in reference lists.

Should I include URLs?

With digital sources, such as web pages, it is usual to incorporate web addresses, also known as Uniform Resource Locators (URLs). The long version of an URL can be shortened so long as the route remains clear. You should cite the date you retrieved the item. For example, for a web page, ‘accessed: 3 April 2023’, or for a podcast, ‘downloaded: 3 2023’. If material is also available in hard copy, and you have accessed it online, you should also indicate the URL, in addition to the access/download date.

Are DOIs the same as URLs?

The simple answer is ‘no’. Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) are used to tag individual digital (online) sources, ranging from journal articles to conference papers and presentations. You, or your reader, can locate a source by entering its DOI in an internet search engine. The DOI denotes a unique number pinpointing the publisher, work and issue information. A DOI is usually situated at the bottom of a webpage. If a DOI is provided, it should replace the URL in the reference list. When referencing a DOI, cite it in lower case. For example, Horch, E.P. and Zhou, J. (2012) ‘Charge-coupled device speckle observations of binary stars’, Astronomical Journal, 136, pp. 312–322. doi: 10.1088/0004-6256/136/1/312. As the DOI is the permanent identifier for the source, it is not necessary to refer to an accessed date.

In conclusion, the basic information included in all in-text citations is the author’s name. Armed with this, a reader should be able to go to your reference list and find the full details of the material being cited. Apart from the most prolific writers, a name alone will tend to narrow down any search to a manageable number of items. Even if there are no other elements available, referencing the author/editor points the reader in the right direction and avoids accusations of plagiarism. The more information you can provide, the easier this task becomes. Referencing convention suggests that the year in which the item is ‘published’ follows the author’s or editor’s name, thereafter by the title, the place of publication and the publisher’s name (or equivalent). Increasingly, materials are also being made available digitally and online, so further information, such as URLs and DOIs, can help readers find the sources you have cited in your reference list.

Sue and Mark, the Directors of Thesis Upgrade, can help you decide on what information should go into the reference list for your thesis or dissertation. So, contact us now!

Researchers often spend significant time searching through academic databases for articles specifically related to their research topic. While online databases make such searches possible, and even easy, the process can be time consuming and sometimes frustrating.

Each key word search usually reveals a multitude of journal articles. You then spend time, often wasted, looking at, and briefly reviewing, each one. This is like entering a rough address in a Sat Nav, and thereafter following all the options presented to you. Instead of pursuing each address by a back alley or cul-de-sac, it is often quicker to follow the main highways to the best articles.

Perhaps contemporary thesis and dissertation students can learn from the tried and tested traditions of the past. When researchers had to search manually for journal articles in a physical library, and needed to save time, they often took a simple shortcut. They would identify their principal subject area and its key words, and search for the main journals related to the area. Typically, the journals with the highest circulation for that topic were used as a rough guide to popularity. Next, they scanned through the table of contents of each issue for the past 5 years. The researchers then relied on that scan to identify authors and sub-topics of most interest to them. This helped them to quickly establish which journals, which authors and which sub-topics were important. Both for their secondary research and in terms of contributing most to their literature review critique. The researcher could then spend productive time focusing on a review of those articles, rather than squandering time on the search process itself.

As an example, if a researcher was doing a dissertation based on social media marketing in Brazil, they might find it useful to find the top three international journals that publish peer-reviewed articles in that area. They would then find the leading marketing journals published in Brazil. For instance, four journals, each produced quarterly, with an average of ten articles per issue, equates to 160 articles. A quick perusal of the table of contents for each issue would pinpoint the significant articles most relevant to their research questions. A brief examination of the abstract for each article would confirm/deny its potential for use in the literature review. Although this process might take one or two hours, it would ascertain the top ten core articles that were a ‘must’ for the literature review. In turn, these articles would act as a springboard for finding other, similar texts, by the same authors in other places. Or, alternatively, by looking at each article’s reference list, suggest further seminal authors/material within the scope of the study. The key to success is to avoid a straight search for article by keyword. Instead, search by your subject area first, by key journal(s) second, and by article/paper/author last. This simple reordering of the search process can save you considerable time. Rather than spending futile time sourcing and reading pointless articles, your literature review search will be focused on outcomes that have a significant positive impact for your entire thesis.

To help you choose the right journals for your dissertation, you may find Thesis Upgrade’s book, Searching for Relevant Literature, useful. This informative digital resource contains easy-to-understand information and straightforward explanations to help you search smart for suitable thesis literature. Buy now for immediate use.

You open your email and your thesis supervisor congratulates you on writing a great research statement. In the next sentence, they ask you to turn this statement into research questions, aims and objectives. Unfortunately, they do not tell you how to do this. Do not worry, Thesis Upgrade can help!

The first step involves turning your research statement into an overall (core) research question (or a small number, usually two or three, sub questions). This can be done by asking: “what precisely do I need to know?” You are seeking to identify a problem, issue or area that you can research through a single question (or a small group of questions). Take, as an example, a research statement that sets out to examine the online marketing campaigns of two pharmaceutical firms – X company and Y company – in India, over the past five years (2017-2022). A core question might be to ask how did company X and company Y develop their online marketing campaigns? Alternatively maybe your research statement plans to explore the career advancement experiences of one hundred female employees in financial management positions in US-based, software multinational corporations with operations in Australia. A possible question to start with is to ask what are the career advancement experiences of such women in these financial management positions?

Step two involves taking time with the different question types and mapping how they relate to your overall topic. The good news is the process is straightforward, as there are only six question types that can be asked (who? what? where? when? why? how?). For example, if the central focus of your research is to investigate how road and weather conditions in Manchester, a region of the UK, contributes to car traffic accident rates. You might want to pose the following questions:

• Do I want to know why (for example, the causes of car accidents in Manchester, UK)? Or do I really want to know how (for instance, how are cars and drivers involved in accidents)?
• Do I wish to know where (for example, do car accidents occur on public roads or private land, on motorways, national roads or local roads)? Or do I need to know when (for instance, do car accidents occur during the day, or at night; at what time in the day; during hours of brightness or darkness)?
• Am I more concerned with what (for example, the types of car accidents that have occurred)? Or with who is responsible or has an interest (for instance, the driver, the passengers, the emergency services, the insurance company)?

It is usually best to stick to one question at a time. For instance, an insurance investigator trying to solve a particular case will want to know who caused the accident, but they may first have to establish when the incident occurred, where it happened, who was driving and who else was involved. The emergency services might prefer, for instance, to know why the accident occurred. As a researcher, exploring the topic more broadly, you may want to take a macro-view of these questions.

The more questions you have as a researcher, the more complex your research becomes. An effective way of dealing with complexity in your research statement, and ensuing questions, is to break it down into simplicity. A single question may be sufficient for many undergraduate research proposals. One, two or three research questions are usually enough to answer for postgraduate research. Doctoral studies obviously require greater depth and breadth.

Now that you have your questions, step three is to translate these questions into aims. Once you have decided an overall (core) question, it can be turned into a more specific aim, or aims, to help you design, plan and execute your actual research. An aim is the precise statement of what you, the researcher, intend to do/find out. For example:

• A research question, such as, who done it, could be changed to: “The aim of this study is to identify, define and describe who was responsible for ….”.
• Where does …. occur, could be reworded to: “The purpose of this study is to locate where … occurs and what steps can be taken to move …. to ….”.
• When did …. happen, could be rewritten as: “The intention of this research is to articulate when such events have happened in the past, so that proper risk management measurements and controls can be put in place to mitigate such events in future”.
• How could … be improved, could be expanded to: “The aim of this research is to critically evaluate the existing … operations in order to identify factors, which contribute to performance and recommend changes needed to improve technical efficiency”.

When you have written your aim or aims, it is useful to check that they are consistent with your research statement and research questions. As academics who regularly read and mark dissertations, we come across many examples of thesis drift. For example, the title claims that the research is ‘a description and explanation of the future direction of the insurance sector in Ireland’, but the introductory chapter sets out in a research statement that the student intends to ‘predict future trends in insurance fraud investigations’. They then pose a single research question, such as ‘who will be responsible for insurance fraud in the future’ and have an aim of ‘locating where fraud occurs’. All three are related, but with this aim the student is more likely to conclude their research with a finding such as ‘insurance fraud occurs in cities more than rural areas’. This finding does not align with the title, match the research statement, or answer the research question?

If you are doing quantitative (positivist) research, it is usually (though not always) necessary to convert your research question into a specific format, that is, a hypothesis. A hypothesis is a particular view, or a standpoint, which may be proposed, defended or proofed. Put simply, it is a question that is styled as a statement, which you set out to prove or disprove.

It is worth noting that an answer to a research question, or proof of hypothesis, is never definite. In many cases, demonstrating your own hypothesis does not rule out alternative hypotheses developed by you or others, and vice versa. It is, therefore, not easy to formulate a statement of this nature on your own. It is best to liaise with your supervisor or research methods lecturer when doing so. You can also check examples of hypotheses others have used (by reading similar theses and journal papers) and emulate their best practice.

Alternatively, you could buy our downloadable Developing Your Research Proposal Toolbook for immediate use. This informative handbook contains useful activities and practical checklists that help build your skills to develop a realistic, and feasible, research proposal.

The research proposal document, as well as your abstract, introduction and methodology sections of your thesis, rely, to a significant extent, on four interlinked components. These components are your research statement, research questions, research aims and research objectives. All four are crucial for a successful start to your thesis journey. You start your journey by writing a research statement.

Having a robust statement, concrete questions, clear aims and unambiguous objectives allow you to confidently describe the purpose of your research and offer a reasoned case for undertaking the study. They are the principal channels through which you define your research gap, the problem or issue you are addressing and the relevant background to your investigation. In addition, your statement, questions, aims and objectives explain why the topic is of interest to both you, and the wider academic and professional communities.

Thesis Upgrade has helped many students with writing a research statement. This is a (long) sentence that contains all the core elements from your research project. You use it for your abstract, introduction, research methodology and conclusion sections of your thesis as a constant reminder of the overall thrust of your research. Our advice is to start by researching your topic broadly. Typically, at the outset of your journey, you will have a vague topic idea for your thesis. Your initial thoughts may come to your mind:

• From a personal or professional experience (such as a problem in the workplace).
• Through interactions with peers and experts (for example, by participating in a seminar Q&A session).
• As a result of observing a problem or issue (for instance, by noting that certain colleagues are less motivated than others).
• By a critique of the literature (like reading academic, peer-reviewed, research-based journal papers) that identify the need for more research in a particular area (for example, the effect of leadership styles on motivation).

A principal of effective research, and the starting point for writing a research statement, is that you build on previous work. In other words, you stand on the shoulders of academics and scholars, and practitioners professionals, who have come before you. For example as a road-safety researcher, there is little point in investigating why car accidents occur in the UK, without first examining the existing research that has been done by others, both in the UK and globally. Secondary or desk research (such as reading existing studies and reports or consulting the ‘theory’ of accidents in the extant literature), should help you to establish what is already known about the topic. This should avoid you setting out to answer a question that has already been asked before (like how and why accidents happen in general). It may, perhaps, give your ideas for your own research based on an unknown aspect of the topic. For instance, how road and weather conditions in a particular region of the UK contribute to a higher accident rate.

The next step in producing a research statement is to focus the direction of your literature review. The thesis (or dissertation) process starts with doing ‘desk research’ or ‘writing a literature review’. This involves spending a significant amount of time immersing yourself in a topic to determine what has already been researched. Equally, it may be necessary to carry out secondary research on a ‘real world problem’ by exploring websites, annual reports, internal documents, industry guidelines, and so on, to establish the practitioners’ perspective on the issue. By combining the two (that is, scholarship and practice), you should be able to identify a ‘gap’ in the literature. Additionally, and most significantly, a ‘gap’ in knowledge (that is, something that has not been researched before).

By focusing the direction of your literature review on the core rationale for your study, you are aligning the review process with your research design. Directing the focus of your literature review is based on outlining your topic and describing the problem or issue you are going to address. The purpose is to formulate a research design that collects relevant data, analyses and interprets the data to generate credible results, and, ultimately, contributes to knowledge. It requires less depth and breadth than the traditional knowledge-focused literature review, as it emphasises discovery and experimentation, rather than analysis and evaluation. As a result, it involves a high-level review, such as reading abstracts of existing scholarly literature, executive summaries of government reports and findings of industry surveys. It can be useful to use the ‘decent and recent’ rule (that is, have I read the top ten or twenty academic, peer-reviewed papers on the topic?). If you answer in the affirmative, you are now ready to start writing your research statement.

To develop your research statement, it is best practice to peruse copies of previous theses, dissertations and journal articles to check how their research statements are worded. You will usually find them contained in the Abstract or Introduction. You are identifying what do you (and others) need to know that is not already known about the topic? Ask yourself: “After I have read all the relevant literature and explored the topic, what remains unknown? What do we still need to know?” Avoid a situation where you are proposing a research statement about something that was previously investigated, otherwise your study will lack originality. This does not mean that you cannot modify an existing research statement. For example, if a study has already examined the incidence of cyberterrorism attacks on the airline industry in the USA, you could adapt the research. You could explore cyberterrorism attacks in a different mode of transport, such as trains, in a different location, such as France.

Some examples of research statements are:

• Research project A is a case study examining the online marketing campaigns of two pharmaceutical firms – X company and Y company – in India, over the past five years (2017-2022).
• Research project B is an exploratory study of the career advancement experiences of one hundred female employees in financial management positions in US-based, software multinational corporations with operations in Australia.

Research statements are not just random descriptions. They contain valuable information about scope (that is, breadth and depth of the study) and approach (that is, methodology and method). For example, the research statement for project A describes a distinct method (case study) to investigate a particular phenomenon (online marketing campaigns) for two organisations (X company and Y company) from a defined sector (pharmaceuticals) in a specific location (India), over a definite period (2017-2022).

Your research statement should help you seamlessly feed-forward to your problem, aims and objectives. The essential questions to ask when finalising your research statement are:

• Will it help me achieve my aims/objectives and answer my research question(s) within the timeframe and resources I have available?
• If I achieve all my objectives, will I achieve my aim(s)?
• If I achieve my aim(s), will I have answered my overall research question?
• If I answer my overall research question, will I be able to satisfy my research statement (or, occasionally, will I be able to make a new statement that overrides the original statement)?
• If someone were to pick up my thesis and read the title, would they find it contains a relevant statement, research questions, aim and objectives that relate to the title?

If the answer to all these questions is yes, then you are on the right track. If you answer no to any question, we suggest you go back to see if you can revise your research statement, so that it works for you. Thesis Upgrade’s Developing Your Research Proposal may aid your decision-making. The digital resource contains easy-to-understand information and straightforward explanations to help you develop a robust and realistic research proposal. Buy now for immediate use.

When starting your thesis, you may feel overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of reference material that is available on your topic. Stefan Carson, a postgraduate student in data analytics, says: “Type in a keyword or phrase into any library system these days and the search will return thousands, if not tens of thousands of books, academic articles, newspaper reports and websites”. Stefan suggests that a useful motto to keep in mind is: “A successful literature search is a systematic literature search”.

Thesis Upgrade advises students to take five, sequential, steps for a successful literature search:

• Step 1 – begin by defining the scope of your search (that is, what is in, and what is not). Rather than search for ‘management’, search for ‘supply chain management’, but not ‘human resource management’.
• Step 2 – draw up a list of relevant published sources. It is easy to make the mistake of typing a phrase into a library search engine and then scrolling through hundreds of thousands of results. A more effective approach is to identify sources that have a reputable reputation in the academic field for the topic you are researching.
• Step 3 – identify appropriate keywords or phrases. Be as specific as you can be, by, for example, using full phrases, rather than keywords. Use a thesaurus and dictionary to find alternative, or synonyms. These substitute words mean the same thing as your preliminary list of keywords.
• Step 4 – search each of your published sources using these keywords and phrases. Commence your search with general publications related to your topic. For example, from the Harvard Business Review. Then, move on to the specialised publications. For instance, the Journal of Supply Chain Management.
• Step 5 – start with recent material and work backwards, chronologically.

This five-step process helps you to source, access and retrieve literature relevant for your thesis. It is also a useful approach to take when writing your research statement for your proposal, as it avoids losing time on unnecessary and irrelevant searching.

Recently we worked with a student, Elaine Neary, who was starting to compile material to use in a literature review for her MBA thesis. “Thesis Upgrade advised me to start with an extensive list (50 – 100) of all the possible words and phrases that might be useful for my search. Then, whittle those keywords down to a short list of ten words to use in the initial search”.

Elaine continued: “Using Thesis Upgrade’s Searching for Relevant Literature Toolbook, I followed a comprehensive five-step process until I had exhausted the possibilities. Then I drew up another ten key phrases from my long-list and repeated the process. I found this worked well. Within a day, I had sourced various highly relevant books, focused book chapters and important articles that helped me write a strong, first-draft, of my literature review”.

Just like Elaine, you may find our Searching for Relevant Literature Toolbook helpful. It contains useful activities and practical checklists that assist you build your skills to source and search for relevant literature for your thesis. Buy this, and our other downloadable digital resources now, for immediate use.

Would you pay money to attend a live concert where the artist, say an Elvis impersonator, could not sing? Would you trust a surgeon who was unable to expertly use a scalpel? How about a pilot who could not explain how a plane remains in the air? I suspect the answer is a resounding ‘no’!

This is why many thesis students must undergo a viva voce examination, in addition to submitting a written research document. An increasing  number of educational institutions now want to ensure they can ‘certify’ that their students have the skills to apply their knowledge in the real world before they are allowed graduate.

What exactly is a viva voce? Even though it may feel ‘all Greek‘ to you, a viva voce is a Latin phrase, literally meaning ‘with living voice’. In an academic context, it refers to an oral examination where the student ‘gives life’ to their thesis. Traditionally, the format is one in which an examiner poses questions to the student in spoken form. The student is then expected to answer ‘live’ and demonstrate sufficient knowledge and skills of the subject matter to pass the exam. Sometimes, the oral exam is offered as an alternative to a written exam for students with a learning disability, like dysgraphia, developmental coordination disorder, or non-verbal learning disorder.

Having spent weeks, months, or even years, writing-up a thesis, you might be asking what the point is of having an oral exam. You may be thinking that surely the research document is enough? Put simply, a college or university will not want to run the risk of awarding an undergraduate or postgraduate degree to a student who does not reach the overall learning outcomes of the programme. Often, these will include the ability to communicate complex concepts clearly and succinctly, to explain theoretical frameworks in an accessible way, to apply academic theories to real-life practice, and so on. The oral examination format provides a means of assessing how well the candidate has achieved these standards, or failed to reach them. It also helps reduce (although it does not eliminate) the prospect of awarding a degree to a candidate who has had their thesis, or dissertation, ghost-written by a third-party expert.

Many disciplines rely on the viva voce. In scientific research, for example, even if a student attains a high standard in the assessments for individual modules, it is felt that a viva is necessary. It is believed to be the best way to test whether the student has understood the material studied and its relationship with the universe overall. Effectively, it seeks to ascertain if students ‘see the bigger picture’. Medical schools use oral exams for second- and third-year students to test not only knowledge. They also want to gauge the ability of students to ‘think on their feet’ or ‘respond on the spot’. Increasingly, the focus is on ‘making ethical decisions in real-time’ or ‘communicating effectively with a patients’. Pilots are required, as part of the FAA and CAA practical tests, to undergo an interview to evaluate their overall knowledge and their ability to apply what they have learned. This is because flying a plane in theory is very different to flying it in practice. There is an additional expectation that would-be pilots understand not only what they are doing, but why they are doing it. Students of music, for example, are asked to perform several pieces, and are then posed a series of questions by the examiner about their choices, the composer and musical era.

When researching a business and humanities thesis, the viva voce, or oral exam, is a useful way of finding out if a student really understands the research they have conducted (or whether they carried it out themselves). It affords them an opportunity to provide a defence of their thesis by answering questions in a way that demonstrates how their research has contributed to the business or social world.

For all those who want to look like Elvis, swing like Elvis, and sing like Elvis, viva la thesis! Would be Elvis impersonators, and thesis researchers generally, may be interested in our digital resource Preparing for Your Viva and Presentation. This invaluable publication contains easy-to-understand information and straightforward explanations to help you plan, prepare and practice for your viva and presentation. Buy now for immediate use.

One of the findings from the ongoing research we carry out at Thesis Upgrade is that students tend to find it easy to pinpoint a topic to study, but difficult to identify a specific problem to research. There are numerous techniques you can use to help with your thesis. Two of our favourites are ‘bug-logging’ and ‘bug-listing’.

Bug-logging originated in the 1940’s, when large computers filled enormous rooms. The warmth of the electrical components attracted bugs – moths, flies and other flying creatures – that caused shortened circuits and malfunctions. ‘Bug’ became a generic term for any challenge or complication related to running a computer. Grace Murray Hopper, a US Navy Officer, was working on a problem that arose with the Harvard Mark II computer in September 1947. She traced the origins of her it predicament back to a moth physically stuck in a machine relay. Hopper duly recorded into the Mark II’s logbook the explanation: “First actual case of bug being found.”

As a technique, bug-logging has now come to mean making observations about the potential causes and effects of a quandary in any form. The bug is a description of any problem or issue facing an individual, group or organisation. The phrase is often now used colloquially, when we hear people saying things like ‘that bugs me’, or ‘you know what bugs me?’ The technique of bug-logging reframes this perspective by asking: ‘What is it that bugs you about …?’ This can be applied at any level in an organisation, where a bug-log can be produced for a day’s operations, or at the end of a project, or on a quarterly or yearly basis.

James Adams in his 1987 book, Conceptual Blockbusting: A Guide to Better Ideas, suggested that bug-logging could be modified and improved to become bug-listing. This marginally different technique is used to establish and help solve problems and overcome obstacles (which can perceptual, emotional, cultural, environmental, intellectual, and expressive). It draws on unconventional exercises that force the mind to stop and identify and explore issues. Rather than tie the problems to a specific timeline (as is the case with bug-logging), bug-listing is completely open as to what and when it records.

Bug-listing can be carried out solo (for example, as a researcher you could observe what is happening in an organisation and prepare a written list of the problems and issues as you see them). It can also be conducted in a pair (you could ‘interview’ another individual, and they could interview you). The technique can also be done in a group setting (as part of a brainstorming, braindrawing or brainwriting activity, where problems and issues could be noted on a flipchart). In addition, it could be implemented for a department or entire organisation (by circulating an email requesting staff to send you their problems, or by physically walking around an office or factory asking people what bugs them).

With bug-listing, it helps if you can let people know (in advance, or at the start) what the focus or topic is. Otherwise, you risk hearing about everything from relationship problems to common gripes! The more specific you can be, the better the results. For example, you could ask: ‘What bugs you about communications here?’ or, more particularly, you could ask: ‘What bugs you about internal meetings?’ When collecting items for a bug-list, it is important to be open and flexible, allowing for humorous and unconventional bugs, as well as common-place and straightforward ones.

The resulting bug-lists tend to be quite long and messy, and require sifting, sorting and editing before they begin to make sense. They are useful for helping at all stages of your thesis journey. For example, scanning the environment, and identifying problems, issues and gaps. Bug-lists also assist with gathering soft data, and generating ideas about causes and effects. Additionally, they signpost how to explore your research problem and topic further.

You also may find Thesis Upgrade’s downloadable digital resource, Developing Your Research Proposal Toolbook, helpful. This publication contains useful activities and practical checklists to develop a realistic, and feasible, research proposal. Buy now for immediate use.

Most students doing their thesis, or dissertation, start the process by using documents for their secondary (desk) research. Such sources include, for example, textbooks, book chapters, journal articles, government reports and industry surveys. They are written by academics and practitioners (historians, social scientists, policy analysts, industry experts, etc.) and provide a second-hand account of past events or activities. These materials are then critiqued by students to link their research questions to the literature review section of their thesis.

Another type of document, primary source, are also available to researchers. These include original evidence, such as agendas and minutes of meetings, which offer a first-hand account of past or current events and activities. Such directly sourced documents can be considered as primary data. A well-structured and systematic analysis of this material can, in certain circumstances, provide the basis for a form of primary research known as documentary analysis. It is method that interrogates and investigates original documents, rather than people, such as Christensen’s (2000) innovation research. In this seminal work, he used performance data from product and productivity announcements from computer disk drive manufacturers to provide supporting evidence for his thesis on disruptive innovation.

Documentary analysis interrogates original documents, that is, those that provide the first occurrence of a piece of work. As these documents focus on new material, they are inclined to be detailed in nature and can, sometimes, be challenging to access. Such work can be publicly available (like research theses, conference proceedings and some government and industry reports). They are, however, more likely to be privately held (like unpublished manuscripts, minutes from committee meetings and private emails). These sources do not have to be written documents per se. Documentary analysis can focus on various forms of communication (like audio recordings, radio programmes, podcasts, video recordings, television programmes, conference speeches, plans, maps, diaries, slide-presentations, paintings, monuments, photographs, and so on). The list is almost endless. In the digital age, a broad and expansive definition of what constitutes a document has been adopted. For example, a researcher we worked with last year used the events log of an experiment for a mission in space!

It can be useful to distinguish between two sources for documentary analysis – deliberate and inadvertent. Deliberate sources have been produced intentionally for future use by other researchers. It is evidence that was consciously gathered and archived for future analysis (such as a video recording of the inauguration speech of John F. Kennedy, a former president of the USA). There are also inadvertent sources that are generated for a different purpose but employed by a researcher for their specific objective. An example is a diary written for personal reflection, but later discovered and made available for other researchers (such as the authentic, hand-written Diary of Anne Frank).

Some documentary analysis researchers make a distinction between witting evidence (what the document meant to say) and unwitting evidence (what can be interpreted by ‘reading between the lines’). They also differentiate between quantitative and qualitative evidence. Furthermore, a distinction can be made between unobtrusive and obtrusive evidence (such as neutral headlines that intend to inform versus provocative headlines, which invite reaction).

Some in the academic community believe that documentary analysis is less important, and less relevant, than research based on direct analysis of what people say (like an interview) or write (such as a questionnaire). They argue that analysing documents puts you at least one-step, and usually two, or more, steps, from reality. Moreover, they maintain that it is too easy for bias and misinterpretation to come into play, particularly if the document has not been prepared wittingly. Additionally, they contend it can be difficult for the credibility of a document to be established (is it ‘real’ or ‘fake news’). As a result, some scholars question the veracity of research based on documentary analysis.

Those who favour documentary analysis maintain it is eminently suitable for student-based research due to relative ease of access and retrieval. The permanent nature of such documents has also been highlighted as an advantage. This facilitates a return to the original source for re-analysis by other scholars. Other benefits include the low-resource outlay (in terms of time and money) of obtaining a large amount of data; the source material being amenable to a wide range of quantitative and qualitative analysis; and the provision of a subsidiary data-collection approach to help with triangulation of other data. Once credibility can be established, advocates argue documentary analysis is a highly reliable and valid method of primary research.

If you are considering using documentary analysis, it is important you explore the pros and cons, and justify the approach for your study. You may find our downloadable digital resources helpful when designing your study, collecting your data, and analysing and interpreting your data. Buy now for immediate use.

All researchers, at some stage in their thesis, need to decide what specific method and instrument to employ to collect the data required that will answer their research question or hypothesis. The choice, and the key decisions leading to it, are usually written up as part of a research methodology or research design chapter in their dissertation.

In practice, students often choose a method and/or instrument they are already familiar with, or which they feel will be ‘easy to use’. In our experience, students favour the use of surveys, specifically questionnaires, and they may prefer to use online survey websites, such as Survey Monkey to conduct their research. When asked the reason they chose this specific method (survey) and instrument (online, written questionnaire), they tend to be unable to provide a detailed answer.

If, for example, a student replied they had chosen this method because they wanted to collect quantitative data from 15 to 25 year-olds about the usability of the Amazon website, then method and instrument might be appropriate. However, if they wanted to gather data about the opinions of pensioners towards equity-release products it might be an inappropriate instrument. A possible rationale for the unsuitability of the latter approach is that the nature of the data set is sensitive, so older people are less likely to use, or trust, online surveys.

Here are five criteria you should consider when choosing an appropriate research method.

The first criteria is that choose a suitable method appropriate for the type of problem you are studying. Quantitative approaches such as surveys with written questionnaires are generally utilised to respond to hypotheses, test theories, determine facts, demonstrate causal relationships between variables and predict outcomes. Qualitative approaches such as interviews with open questions are normally used to comprehend and explore people’s behaviour, actions, views and perceptions.

Criteria two is the veracity of your method should provide ample academic rigour to address your research questions (or hypotheses). Veracity is demonstrated when you explain the way in which you apply the work of prior studies to the design your method. For instance, your choice can be justified if it reproduces the same method relied upon in earlier or similar inquires, or, alternatively, adapting a previously availed of method to fit your inquiry. For example, you may have found numerous qualitative, exploratory studies in your literature review, indicating that this is the ‘normal’ approach you should also take with your research on the topic. Alternatively, you may wish to say that the subject has already been explored qualitatively, and you now want to use a different method. Such as a quantitative technique to measure size, scope and time.

The ability of the chosen method to provide a persuasive response to your research questions (or hypotheses) is the third criteria. Persuasiveness occurs when your method is composed of correctly constructed and relevant elements. For example, when you wish to collect quantitative data, you should use forced-choice questions for surveys; but when you wish to collect qualitative questionnaire it may be more appropriate to use open-ended questions in interviews.

The fourth criteria is considering the likelihood that the type of data collected will help you address your research questions or hypotheses. For example, if my research question is “how many people …” I will probably need to use a quantitative method to arrive at a number; if it is “what do people feel about …” I will probably need to use a qualitative method to obtain their views.

Criteria five, the final one, is that the description of your method should be sufficient for others to adopt it as a blueprint, and, subsequently, replicate the study. Replication can be carried out directly (doing the research the same way again in the same setting), indirectly (doing the research the same way again in a different setting), or in a revised format (repeating a study deemed to have been flawed in some way, such as with the sample, method, analysis, or interpretation).

All research studies are designed with the primary purpose of addressing research questions, or testing research hypotheses, which produces credible results. Effective design commences with recognising that your study, or fieldwork, is shaped by your worldview, which, in turn, influences the methodologies, strategies and methods you employ for data collection.

You may find Thesis Upgrade’s Designing Your Study And Fieldwork useful. This informative digital resource contains easy-to-understand information and straightforward explanations to help you design an authentic study and conduct focused fieldwork. Buy now for immediate use.