Doctoral students are required to write a thesis as the fulfillment of a doctoral degree requirement. However, most people consider that writing a thesis which is decent to publish is quite hard. To construct a paradigm that thesis writing is not something to be afraid of, Department of English Language Education (EED) of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY) conducted a workshop on ‘Demystifying the Thesis’ on Sunday (4/9) at meeting hall of A.R. Fachruddin A, floor 5.
Acting as the speaker was Prof. Ron Adams from Victorian University, Australia. He talked about several strategies to write the thesis easily. “A master should be able to accommodate students from various backgrounds so that she/he has to equip students to do research and find ideas what to write. Nevertheless, being a supervisor does mean providing a blueprint for the students,” he declared.
Ron told that the workshop was addressed to empower students in order that they can proposed research questions, make a framework, and find out the answer of their research questions. “Becoming an independent researcher is more than writing the thesis. Therefore, in this workshop, I would like to discuss seven strategies to write a thesis, namely querying when doubting, using theories to connect evidence ad arguments, switching a general topic to more accurate research questions, employing literature review, optimizing introductory paragraphs and conclusion, connecting paragraphs, and using dot point strategy to review the writing,” mentioned Ron.
“These strategies are very practical and easy to be applied. For instance, when you are doubt, communication between a student and a supervisor is essential since the supervisor will expect the student to ask of she/he does not understand. Another example is that the student should cite theories to link proofs and opinions so that she/he can defend her/his ideas,” explained Ron.
Indeed, when writing a thesis, students should give a new contribution. They can learn existing theories so that they will gain new knowledge and may discover something new and beyond the existing knowledge. Besides, Prof. Rons also share the strategies in a stadium general of Graduate School of UMY. Indeed, Directorate General of Science and Technology Resource of DIKTI Prof. dr. Ali Ghufron Mukti, M.Sc., Ph.D. also become a speaker of the workshop.
