Thesis research is variable and depends on topic, discipline, and requirements of the thesis. Students writing a thesis will need to have strong understanding of their topic by having reviewed the literature on it. This is true, even if a student must then perform practical research, like experiments, in addition to understanding the research that underpins their topic. Researchers generally cannot be too thorough because failing to look at the majority of research available may result in thesis rejection.
Books and articles are the principal sources when doing thesis research. Anyone contemplating thesis research must find ways to easily access these sources. Many students take a mandatory research class, which helps them get familiar with the databases they’ll need to perform searches. Without such a class, talking to a school research librarian is the best way to find out where to start.
Many schools offer online or computer access their own book catalog in addition to databases like the Library of Congress. This allows students to search for books the library doesn’t possess, which is very important. Most schools also have an interlibrary loan program, which means it’s usually possible to order any books the library doesn’t have, so they can be reviewed for thesis relevance.
Students may search in different ways for books. They may use the bibliographies of literature they have to find books that they think will expand subject knowledge, or they can search for books by subject or author. Search has to be refined enough so that students don’t end up with lists of thousands of books on a topic.
Additional research resources include collections of relevant scholarly periodicals in databases. Many of these are now online, and can date back many years so that students can read articles that expand thesis research. Some online databases even have full-text articles available, but many may require students to also access interlibrary loan services. Depending on the school, students may pay a copy charge for each page of an article, or sometimes libraries provide these for free. The student usually gets to keep the article, which can be useful.
Certain searches require different databases. Searching for doctoral dissertations, theses, or for work presented at conferences may take extra hunting. In some disciplines, databases like ERIC can help people find conference material. Finding the right material, especially in article or presentation form always depends on knowing the available databases to search, and being able to perform refined searches based on subject or author.
Due to the number of searches thesis research requires, and most students’ need to depend on interlibrary loans, people should plan research well in advance of writing a thesis. When using interlibrary loan in particular, students should make certain when each book is examined that all relevant citation material is collected and written down, and they should plan on writing down all quotes they might possibly need to use before the book is returned, to avoid having to re-order it.
It should also be noted that most thesis research doesn’t take place on the Internet, per se. Most online sources, unless they’re extracted from books or articles, aren’t considered scholarly. On the other hand, sites like Wikipedia may have citations that lead people to more scholarly work, so they’re not necessarily bad starting points.
