June 7th Class (Please post your reflections and questions under this topic)

Dear All,

Sorry to post today's topic so late. Today's PPT will be sent to our wechat group later.

Please post your reflections and questions here. Thank you!

Best,
Wendy

What I learnt today:
Three steps of introduction:
Firstly to strengthen the topic.
Secondly to find research gap.
Thirdly to demonstrate structure and research method.
How to write a literature review: to connect the review with present study.
Methodology:
 Context and Participants
 Study Design: data sources, data collection, and data analysis
(Different form of data, triangulation, to contextualize, triangulate, and sometimes confirm the information)
Three steps of results
1. Presenting meta-textual information
2. Presenting results
3. Commenting on results
 Introduce readings
 Connect analysis with previous content
Linguistics strategies: Hedges, boosters, engagement... (Hyland, 2004)
Hedges: the data suggest, illustrate, and demonstrate, one can assume, it can be summarized…

The separate part of the whole thesis was presented today: introduction, literature review, methodology and results, which accompanied by the basic steps and sample study of each part. Frist of all, we were introduced the rationale of the each part and then we were required to work in group to discuss the specific application of each part in our previous papers, which I think, is efficient for us to understand the basic rationale of constitute of a whole thesis and further contribute to our mastery of these steps.
Q：In literature part, we collect a large sum of data, but how we deal with those data in an organized and efficient way?

Refection:
I’ve learnt a lot from today’s lecture, including the necessary components in introduction and literature review writing. The introduction dose not need to be long, but obligatory points should be covered such as introducing and reviewing items of previous studies and research gap. Certain words and phrases like disagree, suffer from…are used to suggest research gaps. In literature review there is one thing that can be easily ignored that the relationship between this study and one’s own project should be involved. Making an outline before writing the whole thesis enables one to write faster. Hedging should be applied in one’s thesis to state the opinion.

Question:
How much words should each part of a thesis take up？Are there specific requirements for word number?

Reflections:
Today’s lecture mainly focused on the thesis and dissertation writing in a second language. From different chapters, the specific requirements were presented, including introduction, background, methodology and results part. And then we paid attention to Zappa Hollman & Duff’s article. While analyzing the overall framework of this article, we put the theory from the book into practice and found relevant information of each part. The example of the study showed us a general outline the research. It was surprising that the author added a findings part. Nevertheless, the three participants were showed with organized tables, from which we can get the background information very quickly. The result of each participant was discussed in a sequential way, which gave readers a clear map and could be applied to our future thesis writing.

Question:
While doing literature review, if there are so many big names and data in the related field, how can we organize them in a clear way? Thank you very much!

Reflections:
1、Today I learned how to write the introduction, literature review, study design(methodology) and results. For example, in introduction part, generally there are three detailed moves in which some content are optional and some are obligatory.

2、Each part in the article or thesis should be connected tightly so that readers know how the article move and its rationale.

3、We usually need to try to compact much information in just one sentence especially in literature review part as who, when, where and how.

4、There are also some typical and academic words and expressions we can refer to in thesis writing.

5、In the result part, maybe there are a bunch of data, but we only need to choose several representative data to illustrate according to our own consideration. But the most important thing is that the findings we list should relate to our research questions one by one.

Reflection for the 7th day:
So much information today,but quite meaningful today. Several tips have been reviewed in the class.
1.When wirting a thesis,everything need to be packed into the topic.
2.We need to borrow others' ideas and then modify them and then suit these to our own studies so as to get published.
3.When it comes to methodologies,the first thing we need to mention is what shall we study on.
4.All the words in the thesis need to be concise but informative.
5.When read a article,always remember to ask yourself what can you learn from this article and try to use it in the futural writing.
6.Every single part connects to the next part.

Reflections:
Today, we have learned many tips about writing each part of a thesis, including introduction, literature review, methodology and results, which can be summarized as follows:
First, when writing introduction, we should first establish a research territory, and then identify a research gap, that is finding out the specific research questions basded on previous studies.
Second, in literature review, what should be concluded are the key issues, major findings, major points of views and controversies, general conclusions and so on. It is expected to be informative and concise as well.
Third, when displaying the research results, we should pay attention to the metatextual information, that is to say, wording is very important in making our research reliable and convincing. So proper hedges are necessary in the thesis.

We did a review of what we read in the past several days under the guidance of the theoretical instruction of thesis writing. Peter gave us advices on what we should focus on literature review writing, like key issues, major findings, critical evaluation of thesis views and so on. We talked about questions we need to consider when summarize study and research methods. Peter suggested that getting your outline ready before writing your paper can help you avoid many troubles and also enable you to progress pretty fast with your paper, and I strongly agree with that. As Peter said, we need to keep in mind what we can learn from the journal or paper we read and how can we borrow staff from that. I really appreciate Peter’s advice, thanks for his sharing of his experience, which are of great help for me.

By reviewing the reading materials for the past week, I had a better understanding about how to write an introduction, a literature review, methodology, and the results and findings. It's a good way for us to enhance our knowledge about thesis writing and research methods. What's more, I gained some knowledge about linguistics strategies of thesis writing. It will certainly help a lot in my own thesis writing in the near future.

Dear Peter,

Today’s class is well organized. I have a clear picture of the introduction, literature review, methodologies and results parts in an academic thesis after the learning. I think your theoretical introduction with articles we learned in previous days as examples is very informative and feasible. Also, your explanation enables me to correct my misuse of inappropriate words. I feel like more confident to start a research and write an academic paper. Thanks a lot. See you tomorrow, Peter.

Best,
Lucy.

Today we came to the actual article writing part, covering introduction, literature review, methodology, and the result. The introductory chapter create a research space, and some words and phrases to research gap was introduced. The literature review deals with the key issues, major findings in the field, the main points of view and controversies, a critical evaluation of these views and a general conclusion. the next section is the methodology, how the research was conducted and how the data was obtained. In reporting result, there are three moves, 1. Presenting meta-textual information, 2.presenting results, 3. Commenting on results.

Hey, Perter!
Today, we learned the book, Thesis and Dissertation Writing in Second Language. We covered several tables, which are quite clear, concerning with the different parts in thesis, sush as introduction, literature review, methodologies and results.
Especially, in thesis introductions, there are several typical moves, firstly, establishing a researh territory; secondly, establishing a niche; thirdly, occuping the niche.
Actually, I haven't have a good command of the exact meaning of "niche", so can you explain it to me next time? By the way, you have not answer my question about the meaning of "piloting".
Have a sweet dream!

In today’s class, we have learned something about the detailed steps in writing the introduction, literature review and result. The professor asked us to read some thesis and then analyze the detailed steps in writing the introduction and literature review. When we write a thesis, we should pay attention to the logic and try our best to enable our readers to follow us. The critical analysis of the previous studies is very important in the literature review. However, different people have different styles in writing thesis, so the referential steps do not really fit all thesis. It is Ok to omit some steps in the textbook.
Question: When writing literature review, from what sides should we analyze the previous studies?

According to chapter 6~9 of the textbook Thesis and Dissertaion Writing in a Second Language, I had a clear mind of the basic structure and concept of these items. And we read some thesis in class and knew the MOVES in every part. I found that the introduction I wrote before is not qualified, and according to the explanation of typical structure of the introduction, I had learnt how to consist this part and so did the result part. So every part in a thesis need to be connected and concise especially the introduction part, which is the lead-in of one’s thesis, it might influence the first impression of your thesis. And I think the methods we learnt in the introduction part can also be used in other parts since there are many similarities of them.