How to Write a Thesis - Some Points Already Known

This is a short article written by Dato' A Murad Merican of whom I have met through many official meetings. He actually sort of reviewing Italian author's book How to Write a Thesis by a name Umberto Eco first published in 1977 and has since been updated and translated in many languages. The summary of his article is the followings intermingled with my own additions: 

• Student chose topic of interest that is close to the heart and dedicated to the space and time allocated. Normally the choice of topic starts with a reading of a book or events that attract attention or sometimes personal experience such as Augusto Odone who received an honorary doctorate in Medicine from the University of Stirling giving the fact that Odone not received any medical training and was economist by profession. His story was made into a film - the Lorenzo's Oil.

• Reading literature is essentials to seek the orientation of the topics, to map the ideas and to find major sources. And based on the discipline of the topic, observation of the events. Reading the literature is "to contextualize the experience with a discussion of previous scientific literature".   

• Deciding the correct and suitable methods from the very beginning. In this respect the research questions and the objectives should be able to tell you the methods that you should be using in the writing up of your thesis.

• Both contextualization of empirical studies with scientific literature and reliable methods will make the thesis a scientific and objective piece of research.