This document provides an overview of the requirements and process for writing a Master's thesis. It discusses defining research, identifying a problem, selecting a research problem, conducting a literature review, and issues to consider when reading papers. The key points are: - A thesis requires 12 credits and a published 11 page manuscript. It must follow the Graduate School's guidelines. - Research involves systematically studying a field to establish facts or principles. - Problems can come from work, literature, discussions, or courses and must be interesting, urgent, useful, within one's abilities, unique, and feasible. - Literature reviews examine if a research question was already answered and help identify gaps. Useful websites include Google Scholar and PubMed

1. Introduction to thesis Requirement for your Master degree -Thesis 12 credits -Manuscript to get published (not more than 11 pages)

2. Write up your thesis according to the guidelines set by the Graduate School. 1. Introdution 2. Literature Review 3. Research Methodology 4. Results 5. Discussion 6. Conclusion and recommendation The format will be provided in Handbook

3. Definition of Research What does “ research ” mean? Research is composed of two syllables “re” and “search”. “ Re ” is a prefix meaning again or over again. “ Search ” is a verb meaning to examine, to test and try or to probe closely and carefully. Together they form a noun describing a careful, systematic, patient study and investigation in some field of knowledge, undertaken to establish facts or principles (Grinnell 1993).

4. Problem identification Sources for identifying problems 2. Routine work In general, problems and obstacles are always a part of all types of work. Some research problems originate from problems on routine work. Formulating a research problem is the first and most important step in the research process 1. Researcher’s own interest

5. Sources for identifying problems (cont.) 4. Attending training courses, seminars, lectures and various types of gatherings Recommendations from research reports are another major sources of problem identification. 3. Reading literatures: papers, technical reports, thesis or dissertation Researcher can find gaps, weak points or incomplete results that need further investigation.

6. Sources for identifying problems (cont.) 5. Discussion with other researchers Discussion with other people or researchers bring about questions, puzzle and a heightened level of curiosity that can lead to a new project.

7. Selecting a research problem * * * Finding a suitable research topic can be difficult ! * * * Not every questions or problems that interest you can be a research problem. Research problems are selected based on 6 criteria as discussed by Sethaput (1993). Interest It is a first priority in setting the problems. Why ??? However, the background of researcher and advisor are also importance.

8. Selecting problems (cont.) 2. Urgency This criteria is related to the type and size of the population in which the problem is found, its scope and effects, the number of people impacted and the immediate need for solutions. 3. Usefulness There are two main areas of usefulness. 1. To expand knowledge and information. 2. To find solutions to problems or obstacles.

9. Selecting problems (cont.) 4. Ability The researcher’s own ability, educational and philosophical background, technical capabilities, research method knowledge as well as the ability to review the literature on a problem and synthesize out the importance points. 5. Uniqueness of your research The research should be unique to avoid answering the same questions and thus wasting research resources and ruining the researcher’s reputation. 6. Practical limitations/feasibility Time, cost, access to resources, approval of authorities, ethical concerns and expertise

10. Literature reviews “ To see if your reaearch question has already been answered properly” Literature surveys By manual searching Go to library, look up the library card/computers, go and get books from shelf. By electronic searching: internet and CD-ROMs

11. www.google.com search everything; articles, sometime found full text Useful websites !

12. Useful websites ! www.pubmed.gov PubMed is a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine that includes over 17 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for biomedical articles back to the 1950s. PubMed includes links to full text articles and other related resources

13. Literature reviews Issues to consider in reading papers What is the purpose of the paper? What is a problem they studied? Is it described clearly? Is the research goal significant? Even if the authors solve the problem, do we care? Is the quality of discussion on prior research a good clue?

14. Is the research methodology valid? Are the research methods described clearly? Do they make sense? What are the assumptions? Is the research correct? Are the formulas, algorithm, statistic methods correct? Do the experiment test what the authors said they tested? Issues to consider in reading papers (cont.)

15. Is the analysis correct? Do the results support conclusion? Do they support different/competing conclusion? Is the research described clearly enough that others can reproduce it? The fact is the authors couldn’t include everything. Have they included enough of what is important? Have they included too much of what is unimportant? Issues to consider in reading papers (cont.)

16. 7 What did you learn by reading the paper? .Have there been earlier studies of your research topic? .What was the weakness of the studies? .What were the findings? .What questions remain unanswered? Issues to consider in reading papers (cont.)