Many of the Masters level courses in the US have writing a thesis as s compulsory requirement for finishing up grad school. It is a way of putting your learnings and contribution in black and white and securing it as a future reference for latter students. Here are some tips to give you basic instructions and tips on how to write a good Master’s thesis paper. This is part 1 of a 2 part series describing in detail the essential aspects of how to writing a Masters Thesis.

A good thesis paper has 2 essential qualities: first, it identifies a good question; and second, it provides a satisfactory reply to that question.

Thesis question has to be unanswered. Its reply must serve as a contribution to knowledge. By persuading the reader that you have selected an excellent thesis question and that you have answered it, you have also persuaded the reader that you have made an original and significant contribution to knowledge.

This is developed as a guide to good Master’s thesis writing. A general thesis outline is given first, followed by a few remarks on the thesis outline and a miscellany of tips for keeping your readers engaged and happy.

1. Thesis Introduction
In the opening thesis paragraphs, your goal is to introduce the reader to the specific question your thesis is seeking to answer. Unlike in the traditional five-paragraph essay, in Master’s thesis writing the introduction is not merely a summary of points to be elaborated on in later sections. Rather, your goal here is to inform the thesis reader of what the question is, why it is important, and how your Master’s thesis will provide an answer.

2. Thesis Background Information
Master’s thesis writing often produces works of highly esoteric content. Some measure of background information relevant to the thesis topic is particularly useful when your work is interdisciplinary, in which case it is even more likely that the reader will benefit from a section that contextualizes the question and supplies the terminology and history so that the reader will be better able to follow the pages the come. It is frequently more engaging to use a specific title for a section on background information.

3. Thesis Review of the Literature and Research
The follwing step is to review the current state of research on the thesis topic entertained in your paper. This tells from a section on background information in that whereas background information remains more general in scope, this section concentrates on those aspects and issues of the field that specifically relate to the question you seek to answer. As such, this section has to also incorporate an examination of the varying standpoints surrounding your question, to orient the reader in the discourse of the field. Remember, nevertheless, that at this stage of the thesis paper writing your objective is simply to present these varying points of views, not to be critical of them. That comes later.

This section ought to also be given a topic-specific title, and has to be organized by ideas rather than by works or authors. Using subsections is a practical means of differing the various approaches to the problem.

4. Thesis Statement of the Question or Problem
Various disciplines use different words to refer to the central focus of the Master’s thesis. Whether it is a question you are trying to answer or a problem you are trying to solve, there are 3 essential steps to take in establishing the role of your paper:

* State the thesis question.
* Affirm that this thesis question to be unanswered.
* Argue why this thesis question is worth answering at all.

In stating the thesis question, clarity is of utmost significance. Here it is a bad idea to beat around the bush. Use concise, clear language and exact terminology to avoid misleading the reader.

In the 2-nd part, your objective is to assert that your question remains unanswered. It is in this phase of the Master’s thesis writing that you provide critical analysis of the information you presented in the preceding section. Take the different approaches that have been put forth in other works, and show that each of them fails to provide a wholly satisfactory reply to the question. Certainly, it is not necessary to pick them apart one by one. Since you organized the preceding section by thesis ideas, you can now take on whole classes of approaches rather than individual works or authors.

Now that you have established that your question remains unanswered, your last task in this section is to argue why it is worth replying this question at all. The reader needs to have some comprehending of the purpose of your thesis writing in order to be sympathetic to your views.

This section is central to the Master’s thesis, and the reader will definitely be looking out for it. You may actually wish to include the word “problem” or “question” in the title itself to make it stand out to the reader.

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