Graduation
Tips & tricks for writing your thesis When you’re writing your thesis, it’s important that you produce a practical and realistic plan. Do that with someone else and make agreements. Mirjam Ubachs, lecturer and thesis supervisor for the Commercial Management study programme, presents some and
dos
don’ts below that will help you to successfully complete
your thesis.
Think of your lecturer as someone with whom you can brainstorm about the problem, not as someone who just gives feedback. Send a joint e-mail message every week to your lecturer and company supervisor. The lecturer and company supervisor can then see each other’s feedback on the draft. In the second week of your internship, make sure that your supervising lecturer pays you a visit to discuss the research issues etc. with you and your company supervisor. Brainstorm together and make sure that everyone’s expectations are clear afterwards. Ensure you communicate regularly and openly with everyone involved, so that everyone knows about each other’s expectations, progress, and any feedback. Try to process feedback as effectively as possible and discuss with whoever is giving the feedback about why the feedback was given. Then adjust the feedback together and incorporate it into your assignment or project. Write your thesis using language that everyone understands – your neighbour should be able to read it.
14 / voorbij zuyd
Regularly print out your thesis and read your hard copy: try to optimize your use of English, sentence structure, spelling, etc. Reading the text out loud and asking yourself ‘What does this actually say’? often helps. Avoid long, complex, and unreadable sentences. Write your thesis for your target groups: the client and school/examiner. Empathize with these target groups. Make sure your thesis is in line with your study programme’s requirements in terms of the order of the parts, the research topics to be approved, and other aspects. Place a note on your laptop with your client’s business goal (i.e. the goal they want to achieve with the recommendations from your thesis), so that you work with the end goal in mind and avoid adding all kinds of other subjects. It will also help you focus better. Be brave enough to finish chapters and move on. You might be tempted to add in new theory you come across when you’ve finished your literature research, but don’t – you could easily run out of time.
