Thesis Writing Journeys of Bachelor’s and Master’s Students

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.

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.

• TablesFiguresContributorsAcknowledgementsPart 1: Conceptual and Methodological ConsiderationsChapter 1. Bojana Petrić and Montserrat Castelló: Bachelor’s and Master’s Thesis Writing: A Research AgendaChapter 2. Montserrat Castelló, Bojana Petrić and Tiane Donahue: Investigating Bachelor’s and Master’s Thesis Writing: Research Context and Methodology of the ProjectPart 2: Students’ Thesis Writing Journeys: Two Illustrative AccountsChapter 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 MethodChapter 5. Natalie Schembri and Alma Jahić Jašić: Interview-Based Research in Multilingual Research Situations: Issues and Challenges in Context of Publishing in EnglishChapter 6. Tatyana Yakhontova and Mira Bekar: How Thesis Writers Speak about their Experiences: A Linguistic PerspectivePart 4: Aspects of Students’ Thesis Writing ExperienceChapter 7. Crista Weise and Montserrat Castelló: Re-Constructing the Emotional Process of Writing Master’s and Bachelor’s ThesesChapter 8. Claudia Doroholschi and Kristin Solli: 'The material you’re working with is yourself': Student Learning Experiences with Thesis WritingChapter 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 PracticesPart 5: Concluding RemarksChapter 11. Bojana Petrić and Montserrat Castelló: Students’ Thesis Writing Experiences: Conclusions, Implications and Ways ForwardChapter 12. Charles Bazerman: Afterword: Some Observations Index