英语学位论文写作CHAPTER8课件.ppt

1、How to Write a DissertationIn English Introduction8.1The macrostructure8.2The abstract8.3The introduction8.4Chapter 8Writing(1):Elements of a DissertationThe literature review8.5The theoretical framework8.6Research method and data8.7Analysis and discussion8.8The conclusion8.9Summary8.10Exercises8.11

2、8.1 IntroductionHow to write a dissertation in English A dissertation is like a house in that both of them have certain expected elements of structure,which distinguish them from objects that are not a dissertation or a house.The aim of this chapter is to outline the structural elements of a dissert

3、ation.We will start with the macrostructure,and then look at different elements in more detail.From the discussions you can see the function and content of each element.We will also provide some examples to illustrate the points more clearly.8.18.28.38.48.58.68.78.88.98.108.118.2 The macrostructureH

4、ow to write a dissertation in English A BA dissertation is like a house because both of them have a macrostructure,which has both obligatory and optional components.Although different universities may have slightly different requirements in terms of structure of the BA dissertation,we would assume t

5、hat a BA dissertation usually has the following elements of structure:(1)Title,author,matriculation number,tutor,affiliation,year of submission,etc.(2)Abstract,one in Chinese,one in English;key words (3)Introduction,which includes brief information concerning the research background,the aims and obj

6、ectives,research questions,research method,theoretical framework,data,and the structure of the dissertation.(4)Literature review and theoretical preliminaries (5)Research method,data analysis (6)Results and discussion8.18.28.38.48.58.68.78.88.98.108.118.2 The macrostructureHow to write a dissertatio

7、n in English (7)Conclusion (8)Notes,Appendix,References,Acknowledgements Some of the elements of structure are obligatory,which means that they must appear in the dissertation,while others,e.g.notes,appendix,acknowledgements,are optional,that is,they may or may not appear in the dissertation dependi

8、ng on factors such as the nature of the research and the style of writing.In terms of the layout and structure of the dissertation,some elements of structure may appear in a single chapter or section,while other elements may be dealt with in different chapters or sections.For example,in many dissert

9、ations,literature review and theoretical preliminaries each form a single chapter.8.18.28.38.48.58.68.78.88.98.108.118.3 The abstractHow to write a dissertation in English Although the title of the dissertation gives an idea of the topic of investigation,it is the abstract that is the first source o

10、f information,which gives the reader a general idea of your research and writing.The abstract serves as a summary of the research from which the reader gets a birds-eye view of the whole dissertation.In their description of the structure of the abstract,Huang,Ghadessy and Zhang(2004:66-67)suggest th

11、at there are a number of elements in the abstract which are concerned with answers to the following questions:1.What is the subject matter/area the research paper is dealing with?2.What background information is provided by the author(s)?3.What is the purpose of the present study?4.How is the resear

12、ch to be done?5.What are some of the important findings?8.18.28.38.48.58.68.78.88.98.108.118.3 The abstractHow to write a dissertation in English 6.What are some of the implications of the study?The following abstract from the Journal of Asian Pacific Communication(George Braine,“From a teacher-cent

13、red to a student-centred approach:A study of peer feedback in Hong Kong writing classes”,12/2,2003:269)can be used to illustrate these points(numbers have been added to the sentences for ease of reference):8.18.28.38.48.58.68.78.88.98.108.11 (1)There is a common belief that,owing to the highly teach

14、er-centred form of education,Chinese students are passive learners.(2)As a result,a student-centred approach such as process writing is believed to be difficult to implement in classes that consist mainly of Chinese students.(3)This study tested these beliefs by introducing peer feedback,the backbon

15、e of process writing,to Chinese students enrolled in university writing classes and by8.3 The abstractHow to write a dissertation in English8.18.28.38.48.58.68.78.88.98.108.11measuring the effectiveness of the feedback both quantitatively and qualitatively.(4)The study showed that,with proper traini

16、ng,Chinese students could quickly adapt to a student-centred approach,and also provide rich and useful feedback on the writing of their peers.(5)This study has promising implications for educational contexts where students are considered passive learners,teacher-centred learning is the norm,or the p

17、rocess approach to writing faces daunting challenges to its implementation.8.3 The abstractHow to write a dissertation in English Now let us see whether we can find the answers to the six questions listed above.The following words and expressions tell the reader what the subject matter is,i.e.answer

18、 to question(1):“What is the subject matter/area the research paper is dealing with?”:teacher-centred(S-1),student-centred(S-2),process-writing(S-2),peer feedback,the backbone of process writing(S-3),writing classes(S-3),the effectiveness of the feedback(S-3),a student-centred approach(S-4),useful f

19、eedback on the writing of their peers(S-4),teacher-centred learning(S-5),the process approach to writing(S-5).These words and groups/phrases reflect the subject matter as expressed in the title of the paper:From a teacher-centred to a student-centred approach:A study of peer feedback in Hong Kong wr

20、iting classes.8.18.28.38.48.58.68.78.88.98.108.118.3 The abstractHow to write a dissertation in English From the above abstract we can see that Sentences(1)and(2)provide the background information for the study:8.18.28.38.48.58.68.78.88.98.108.11 (1)“There is a common belief that,owing to the highly

21、 teacher-centred form of education,Chinese students are passive learners.(2)As a result,a student-centred approach such as process writing is believed to be difficult to implement in classes that consist mainly of Chinese students.”The third question is concerned with the purpose of the study,and te

22、sted these beliefs.(S-3)indicates the purpose of research.8.3 The abstractHow to write a dissertation in English The fourth question is“How is the research to be done?”,which is concerned with the method of the research.The two prepositional phrases in Sentence(3)by introducing peer feedback,the bac

23、kbone of process writing and by measuring the effectiveness of the feedback both quantitatively and qualitatively clearly indicate how the research is to be carried out.Question(5)is about the result of the study“What are some of the important findings?”,and Sentence(4)“The study showed that,with pr

24、oper training,Chinese students could quickly adapt to a student-centred approach,and also provide rich and useful feedback on the writing of their peers.”serves the purpose of giving the reader two findings of the study.The final sentence in the abstract,i.e.“This study has promising implications fo

25、r educational contexts where students are considered passive learners,teacher-centred8.18.28.38.48.58.68.78.88.98.108.118.3 The abstractHow to write a dissertation in Englishlearning is the norm,or the process approach to writing faces daunting challenges to its implementation.”tells the reader the

26、implications for the study,and thus it answers the last question in the abstract,i.e.“What are some of the implications of the study?”.It should be noted that not every abstract has all these six elements,but the example above provides a useful guideline for young researchers.8.18.28.38.48.58.68.78.

27、88.98.108.118.4 The IntroductionHow to write a dissertation in English In the Introduction of a dissertation,the following sections are usually expected:(1)rationale for the research(or background to the research,reason/motivation of the research),(2)aims and objectives,(3)research questions,(4)data

28、,(5)research method,(6)theoretical framework,(7)structure of the dissertation.Since points concerning sections(2),(3),(4),(5)have been discussed in Chapter 7 and section(6)will be dealt with later in this chapter,in this section we will only focus on sections(1)and(7).The rationale for the research

29、is concerned with the reason,motivation,feasibility,necessity,appropriateness and/or the background information of the proposed research.The underlying question is often along the lines of:“Why do we undertake the present research?”.The following is adapted from the Background to the study section o

30、f a PhD thesis(YU H.(2001).Discourse as Genre:Arresting Semiotics in Research Paper Abstracts.Unpublished PhD thesis,Sun Yat-sen University,Guangzhou,China.:8.18.28.38.48.58.68.78.88.98.108.118.4 The IntroductionHow to write a dissertation in English Recent work in linguistics has extended the study

31、 of genre beyond the literary domain.The concept of genre itself is certainly not a new one.What is new,however,is the interest in the analysis of non-literary genres and the attempt to characterize genre in terms of a set of linguistic properties generally applicable across a large number of genres

32、.The underlying assumption is that there may be underlying recurrent features which are prototypically present in particular groups of texts.With the development of text linguistics and discourse analysis,linguists are no longer satisfied with surface-level linguistic description,but turn to seek de

33、eper social-cultural rationales for text construction and interpretation,thus using genre analysis as a powerful tool for an“insightful and thick description”(Bhatia 1993:11)of texts.A model for discourse or genre analysis is then called for which is rich in sociological,8.18.28.38.48.58.68.78.88.98

34、.108.118.4 The IntroductionHow to write a dissertation in Englishcultural and institutional explanation in order to posit a correlation between language use and extra-linguistic situations.Genres have been studied in a variety of disciplines,ranging from folklore studies,ethnography of communication

35、,ethnomethodology,psychology,rhetoric to applied linguistics.Discussions in these disciplines have contributed to the development of a theory for genres.Of the many attempts to identify the generic qualities of discourse,the systemic functional approach,which provides a plausible link between gramma

36、r and text,and between text and socio-cultural context,has proved to be most fruitful when applied to genre analysis.It offers an integrated,comprehensive and systematic model of language,which enables genres to be described at different levels.The present study will be largely set in a systemic fun

37、ctional framework with some8.18.28.38.48.58.68.78.88.98.108.118.4 The IntroductionHow to write a dissertation in Englishinspirations from the Swalesian approach.The object of analysis in this study is abstracts,a genre that remains,regretably,“a neglected field among discourse analysts”(Swales 1990:

38、181).The abstract is an essential part of a research paper.It is meant to be a condensed representation of the contents of a much longer article and gives the reader a concise knowledge of the full article.Little research,however,has been carried out on how abstracts can be characterized in terms of

39、 generic features.8.18.28.38.48.58.68.78.88.98.108.11 The above passage addresses a number of issues:(1)the motivation and necessity of the proposed study as evident from“the interest in the analysis of non-literary genres and the attempt to characterize genre in terms of a set of linguistic propert

40、ies generally applicable across a large number of genres”,(2)genre analysis as a powerful tool for an8.4 The IntroductionHow to write a dissertation in Englishinsightful and thick description of language use,(3)theoretical assumptions and framework,and(4)the object of the study.The function of this

41、rationale for the research(or background to the research)is to orientate the reader by guiding him to the proposed study.On the other hand,the section on structure of the thesis outlines the structure of the whole dissertation.Here is an example(Wang,J.(2005).Chinese/English Code-switching in Chines

42、e Newspapers:A Systemic Functional Approach.Unpublished PhD thesis,Sun Yat-sen University,Guangzhou,China.):8.18.28.38.48.58.68.78.88.98.108.11Thesis structure This thesis is divided into eight chapters.The introductory chapter considers some basic issues for the study.Chapter 2 clarifies the termin

43、ologies and taxonomies of the language phenomenon,which I term generally as8.4 The IntroductionHow to write a dissertation in English8.18.28.38.48.58.68.78.88.98.108.11code-switching,and reviews previous studies in the field.Several drawbacks of and gaps in the existing code-switching studies are al

44、so discussed.Chapter 3 provides the theoretical foundations for the present study.It introduces the theoretical assumptions and the basic principles of Systemic Functional Linguistics(SFL)as the theoretical framework,presents the rationale for a SFL approach to the code-switching in the present case

45、,and discusses briefly how the analyses are modelled in such an approach.Chapters 4 to 7 are concerned with a detailed analysis of the collected code-switching data.Chapter 4 provides a general description of the code-switching in the Chinese newspapers collected in Guangzhou by using a register ana

46、lysis approach.Chapter 5 attempts to explore the semantics of code-switching from a multifunctional perspective.While Chapter 4 and8.4 The IntroductionHow to write a dissertation in English8.18.28.38.48.58.68.78.88.98.108.11Chapter 5 are basically linguistic descriptions of the code-switching in the

47、 newspapers,Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 aim to explore the social context in which the practice of code-switching is embedded.Chapter 6 focuses on the immediate context and discusses the practice of code-switching in relation to three contextual variables,i.e.field,tenor,and mode.Chapter 7 on the other

48、hand locates code-switching in the wider social context and examines the practice of code-switching by reference to social discourses and ideologies in this particular culture.Chapter 8 is the concluding chapter,whereby main findings and basic arguments of the thesis are presented and its contributi

49、on and significance are summed up.I shall also relate the present descriptive study to some prescriptive studies and consider its implications for language standardization.Suggestions for future studies are also proposed.8.4 The IntroductionHow to write a dissertation in English From this example we

50、 can see that the writer outlines clearly the structure of the whole thesis,thus giving the reader a macrostructural view of the whole dissertation.Below is the Structure of the Dissertation sub-section within the Introduction(Jiang,Y.H.(2005).A Textual Analysis of Einstein”s“Peace in the Atomic Age