PREFATORY NOTE

Graduate study wouldn’t be remarkable without the thesis.

Through such study, graduate students could obtain a degree and
prove their mastery on a chosen field. In addition to this, their
familiarity on minutiae of research processes, discourses with experts
in the arena and recent developments of a discipline are enhanced
(Robinson & Dracup, 2008).

Most graduate students find thesis writing the most gruesome

and dreadful task to accomplish in their quest for a degree. For them,
it means volumes of documentation and high standards on which their
thesis would be scrutinized (Dong, 1998). Moreover, they look at the
writing process merely a task that they need to finish and never do
again.

The thesis process is long and treacherous but shouldn’t be

feared. Instead, graduate students should look at it as an opportunity
to become not only good researchers but also credible practitioners. To
do this, their research should reach publication so as they could also
communicate the knowledge they’ve generated to many (Chiswick,
2004).

Because of the need to extensively propagate new findings to

other scholars and researchers, pressure to publish studies is building
up. Thus, the issue of which thesis format to be used came about. The
two most common formats according to Paltridge (2001) are the
traditional type and the dissertation by article type also known as the
‘publication option’ (Robinson & Dracup, 2008). The latter of which can
be made of two independent publishable studies.

The traditional format is typically known as the ‘IMRAD’ type

which consists of an introduction, methods, results and discussion
(Dudley-Evans, 1999, cited in Paltridge, 2001). Its contents usually
include the personal experiences of the researcher in deriving the
research problem, formulation of methodologies and data gathering
process.
 REFERENCES

Chiswick, M. (2004). Writing a research paper. Current Paediatrics, 14

(6), 513-518.

Dong, Y.R. (1998). Non-native Graduate Students’ Thesis/Dissertation

Writing in Science: Self reports by Students and Their Advisors
from Two U.S. Institutions. English for Specific Purposes, 17 (4),
369-390.

Garcia, A. (2006). Combining Professional Development with Academic

Learning in Graduate Seminars. Radical Pedagogy.Vol. 8, 2.

Paltridge, B. (2001). Thesis and dissertation writing: an examination of

published advise and actual practice. English for Specific
Purposes, 21 (2), 125-143.

Robinson, S. & Dracup, K. (2008). Innovative options for the doctoral

dissertation in nursing. Nursing Outlook. 56 (4), 174-178.