Master 2020/2021

Research Seminar (Master Thesis Writing)

Type: Compulsory course (Comparative Social Research)

Area of studies: Sociology

Delivered by: School of Sociology

Where: Faculty of Social Sciences

When: 2 year, 3, 4 module

Mode of studies: offline

Instructors: Anna Almakaeva, Christian Fröhlich

Master’s programme: Comparative Soсial Research

Language: English

ECTS credits: 14

Contact hours: 40

Course Syllabus

Abstract

The course on master thesis writing is designed to provide students with a thoughtful understanding of what are the main steps and procedures of social research and how they are linked to the different parts of master thesis.

Learning Objectives

• To have practical skills in conducting social research and writing master thesis

Expected Learning Outcomes

• know basic principles of academic writing
• know the basic principles of academic ethics
• know the rules of writing master thesis
• be able to find and review papers on the subject of MA thesis
• to be able to put forward correct research question and identify the novelty of the MA thesis
• be able to conduct analysis according to research questing
• be able to interpret data and draw conclusions
• be able to provide a nice visualization
• have skills in writing research papers and master thesis

Course Contents

• Structure of the master thesis
  Chapters of master thesis: Introduction, literature review, Data and Methods section, Results, Discussion and Conclusion. Main requirements for writing master thesis. Plagiarism and research ethics.
• Introduction
  Aims of writing introduction, main parts of introduction. Examples of good and bad introduction. Basic mistakes in writing introduction.
• Literature review
  Aims of writing a literature review, the content of literature review. Examples of good and bad literature review. Basic mistakes in writing a literature review.
• Data and methods
  Aims of writing data and methods section, content of the section. Examples of good and bad description of data and methods. Basic mistakes in data and methods description.
• Results
  Content of the results section. Examples of good and bad description of results. Basic mistakes in interpreting results.
• Discussion and conclusion
  Aims of writing conclusion and discussion, content of this section. Examples of good and bad conclusion. Basic mistakes.
• Visualization
  When visualization is necessary. Visualization in quantitative and qualitative research. Main principles of creating nice graphs, tables and charts. Examples of bad and good visualization.

Assessment Elements

• Home assignment
• Pre-defence

Interim Assessment

• Interim assessment (4 module)
  0.3 * Home assignment + 0.7 * Pre-defence

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• Writing research papers from essay to research paper : student book, Zemach, D. E., 2011

Recommended Additional Bibliography

• Core concepts in data analysis: summarization, correlation and visualization, Mirkin, B., 2011
• Rahlf, T. (2017). Data Visualisation with R : 100 Examples. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1377904
• Yuk, M., & Diamond, S. (2014). Data Visualization For Dummies. Hoboken, NJ: For Dummies. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=685381