Re: Thesis Topic

["Renze, Janet L" <Janet -dot- Renze -at- PSS -dot- BOEING -dot- COM>]

Damien--
I cringed reading your email yesterday--simply because this was such
a painful phase for me (selecting a thesis topic) a few years back! I'm
throwing out a few thoughts - hopefully some will be of help:

** perhaps the biggest problem i had in selecting a thesis topic was
*scope*--
how can i trim down my area of study to something reasonable [after all,
the intent is to *finish* the thesis and move on to other parts of
life!! :)  ]
make sure that the topic you select is not on the magnitude of "solve
world hunger"--pick an area of study (you mentioned online Help or
internet publishing), then keep trimming until you have a managable
question that you can talk about intelligently. You should be able to
pose
your topic in a sentence or two.

** It's great if an employer is funding part of your study and/or
research--
and of course they'll have a vested interest in getting something back
from
your academic pursuits. (like a completed manual, or numbers they can
use).
but the initial audience for your thesis is your graduate committee
(advisor and
other profs.). The academics will want to see how your work ties in with

_communication_ theory (I'm assuming your degree will be granted by an
English department). If you choose a topic that examines learning ("how
users learn
a new program") or training, or cost of ownership (as mentioned in
earlier
response to this thread), you'll end up conducting research more in the
areas of cognitive psychology, education, or economics/business. If your
committee is anything like mine was, that will not fly. Not because the
research isn't valid, but it's not the area/department you're in.
(again, please
correct me if this isn't true in your case!) You will need to
demonstrate how
your work helps extend a communication theory--social construction, etc.

(We were required to take a semester-long course in communication theory

and read tons of articles [let me know if you want a copy of the reading
list] that introduced us to various current and historical theories
about communication
and writing. This course, and the discussions it provoked, were
extremely
vaulable in helping me figure out the theory part!!). Later on you can
re-work
the information for your workplace audience (like a report of findings)
or maybe
even write a journal article about the subject.

** depending on the topic you select, you may have to gather data or
generate findings. This is much more difficult than it sounds!! It is
non-
trivial to find a survey audience (if that's the instrument you're
using), develop
a questionaire or other device, and reduce the data. You will definitely
want
to work closely with your advisor or committee members to make sure
that the type of information you want to collect is feasible and will
support
your thesis topic. Different fields of study conduct research
differently--
you might find good resources in fields like psychology, statistics,
education,
or anthropology. As this list has discussed many times, there isn't a
lot
of "hard data" in the area of technical writing, for various reasons.
There are
so many variables in our discipline (and many might even argue if TW is
one!), that finding that "managable scope" will be critical for your
thesis
success.

I would be happy to ramble more off-line about how I dealt with my own
struggle for a topic and degree completion if you wish. Just thought
some of these ideas might be of general interest since there are many
students on the list.

GOOD LUCK!!
janet
Janet L. Renze
Boeing Commercial Airplane Group
(425) 237-4622       M/S 6H-WL
janet -dot- l -dot- renze -at- boeing -dot- com