Syllabus

Title

1255 Thesis Seminar: How to Write a Thesis

Instructors

Univ.Prof. Dr. Ben Greiner, Ass.Prof. Dr. Otto Janschek

Contact details

ims@wu.ac.at; otto.janschek@wu.ac.at

Type

Weekly hours

Language of instruction

Englisch

Registration

09/14/20 to 09/21/20
Registration via LPIS

Notes to the course

Subject(s) Master Programs

How to write a thesis

Dates

Day	Date	Time	Room
Wednesday	10/07/20	06:30 PM - 08:00 PM	Online-Einheit
Wednesday	10/14/20	11:00 AM - 07:00 PM	TC.0.04
Thursday	11/05/20	02:00 PM - 07:00 PM	Online-Einheit
Monday	01/11/21	09:00 AM - 06:00 PM	Ort nach Ankündigung

On this page:

Contact details
Procedure for the course when limited activity on campus
Contents
Learning outcomes
Attendance requirements
Teaching/learning method(s)
Assessment
Prerequisites for participation and waiting lists
Recommended previous knowledge and skills
Availability of lecturer(s)
Unit details

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Procedure for the course when limited activity on campus

Sessions are planned to be held online (distance mode) and where possible under rotation mode, in case they can not take place at Campus WU under the usual circumstances. Students will be informed of the exact procedure in due time and before the start of the course. Teaching and learning methods will include virtual course units, self-study with literature and coaching sessions. Students need to be (virtually) present during the indicated times, as attendance is required.

The Thesis Seminar 1254 will take place online in any case, so students who definitely can not be present at WU should register for this course.

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Contents

Pre-course assignment

Read Bryman/Bell (2015), Ch 1-6. We expect you to be familiar with the core concepts from these chapters (quiz in the first unit).

Part 1:

Input lectures and discussion

- What is research?

- The importance of scientific analysis

- What is a research question and how is it identified?

- The research process

- The scientific discourse: presentation & publication of new ideas, research ethics

Part 2:

Methods and data: Elaborate the main methods used in empirical research, develop a master thesis proposal that uses that method (assignment 1, group presentations)

Part 3:

Assignment 2: Learn from examples: Choose a paper and reflect on it, develop a master thesis proposal that builds on this paper (individual assignment)

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Learning outcomes

Students get a first rough idea of what is scientific research
Students understand the concept of a research question and how and why different research designs are used to answer certain research questions
Students can identify major steps in assessing a scientific paper and can develop a master thesis topic and proposal research based on prior research

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Attendance requirements

≥ 80 % Attendance Requirement

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Teaching/learning method(s)

Input presentations by instructors, individual assignments, group work.

Compulsory attendance for input lectures (part 1), for group presentations (part 2) and individual presentations (part 3). One to one consultation for the individual assignment (part 3) will be individually scheduled with the lecturers.

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Assessment

Pre-course-assignment/multiple-choice quiz: 10% Attention: For all four masters thesis courses, the quiz will take place Online on October 7.

Group Assignment “Part 2”: 30%

Individual Assignment “Part 3”: 60%

For this course, only one of two grades (pass/fail) will be awarded.

A "pass" grade requires a minimum score of 50% for each assignment and 75% in total.

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Prerequisites for participation and waiting lists

Writing skills

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Recommended previous knowledge and skills

Ability to identify relevant literature using research databases. EBSCO, Proquest are accessible via https://www.wu.ac.at/en/library/finding-literature/databases/ (requires VPN connection (https://www.wu.ac.at/en/it/services/network/vp n) if not accessed from within WU network). Other resources: http://www.jstor.org (papers), http://katalog.wu.ac.at/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=WUW&prefLang=en_US (books from the various WU libraries). WU library’s CatalogPLUS also allows for easy searching for papers including SFX links for full text access.
If you are new to WU or not familiar with the tools mentioned above, see https://learn.wu.ac.at/bibliothek/ which offers short introductions to searching by topic, search strategy, search tools, and reference management tools (Citavi, Endnote Web).

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Availability of lecturer(s)

Otto Janschek / Prof. Ben Greiner

Last edited: 2020-11-02

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