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Completing a thesis is a crucial final stage in many bachelor’s and master’s programmes across Europe and beyond. However, the process of thesis writing, how it is experienced by the writers, and how those experiences impact on writing remain underexplored. This book examines the student experience of thesis writing through an interdisciplinary perspective drawing on theories of learning, emotions, and genre and narrative/discursive analysis. As a result of this approach, the thesis is reconceptualised as a multilayered experience from the point of view of student writers. The chapters, which arose out of a collaborative research project across 10 European countries, employ an innovative combination of methods including the use of journey plots to provide a complex picture of the thesis writing process, which will be of interest to readers involved in academic writing at all levels.
Many BA and MA degree programmes do not provide adequate training and research supervisors may struggle to teach students all that is required at this level. In this timely and much-needed volume, the authors enable insight into supervisees’ experiences of the research process, with particular attention to the epistemological, methodological and emotional challenges related to becoming an early career researcher.
Bojana Petrić is Professor of Applied Linguistics at Birkbeck, the University of London, UK. Her research interests include multilingual writers’ academic literacy practices and experiences, particularly their citation practices, source use, writer voice, disciplinary socialisation and interdisciplinarity.
Montserrat Castelló is a Full Professor of Educational Psychology at Universitat Ramon Llull, Barcelona, Spain. Her research interests include academic and research writing, doctoral writing, writing regulation, doctoral trajectories and researcher identity development.
Tables
Figures
Contributors
Acknowledgements
Part 1: Conceptual and Methodological Considerations
Chapter 1. Bojana Petrić and Montserrat Castelló: Bachelor’s and Master’s Thesis Writing: A Research Agenda
Chapter 2. Montserrat Castelló, Bojana Petrić and Tiane Donahue: Investigating Bachelor’s and Master’s Thesis Writing: Research Context and Methodology of the Project
Part 2: Students’ Thesis Writing Journeys: Two Illustrative Accounts
Chapter 3. Kristin Solli: Kari’s Thesis Writing Journey: ‘This thesis I did myself’
Chapter 4. Claudia Doroholschi: Andrada’s Thesis Writing Journey: ‘My professor guided me’
Part 3: Examining the Interview Method
Chapter 5. Natalie Schembri and Alma Jahić Jašić: Interview-Based Research in Multilingual Research Situations: Issues and Challenges in Context of Publishing in English
Chapter 6. Tatyana Yakhontova and Mira Bekar: How Thesis Writers Speak about their Experiences: A Linguistic Perspective
Part 4: Aspects of Students’ Thesis Writing Experience
Chapter 7. Crista Weise and Montserrat Castelló: Re-Constructing the Emotional Process of Writing Master’s and Bachelor’s Theses
Chapter 8. Claudia Doroholschi and Kristin Solli: 'The material you’re working with is yourself': Student Learning Experiences with Thesis Writing
Chapter 9. Alma Jahić Jašić and Tanja Pavlović: Writing a Master’s Thesis: Challenges and Coping Strategies
Chapter 10. José Brandão Carvalho, Tatyana Yakhontova, Luísa Álvares Pereira and Luciana Graça: Doing the Literature Review of a Master’s/Bachelor’s Thesis: Students’ Understandings and Practices
Part 5: Concluding Remarks
Chapter 11. Bojana Petrić and Montserrat Castelló: Students’ Thesis Writing Experiences: Conclusions, Implications and Ways Forward
Chapter 12. Charles Bazerman: Afterword: Some Observations
Index