1st Edition
Doing a Master's Dissertation in TESOL and Applied Linguistics
Doing a Master’s Dissertation in TESOL and Applied Linguistics is a practical guide for master’s students tackling research and research writing for the first time. Structured for use in class or as part of an independent study, and divided into the four stages of designing, researching, writing up and submitting a dissertation, this book:
- carefully guides readers from the very beginning of producing a research proposal, all the way through to assessment procedures and the provisions for resubmission;
- covers publishing your dissertation and applying for higher research degrees, including funding;
- addresses all the most fundamental concerns students have about master’s dissertations, including how to choose a topic and conducting a literature review;
- draws upon examples from master’s dissertations from the UK, US and Australia and provides numerous ‘how-to’ tables and checklists; and
- includes activities and resources to facilitate master’s research and dissertation writing, as well as FAQs and solutions at the end of each chapter.
Tailormade for MA students in TESOL or Applied Linguistics, this book is essential reading for students on these degrees around the world as well as for their supervisors and programme directors.
Acknowledgments
List of tables
List of figures
Chapter 1 Introduction Part I Project design
Chapter 2 Choosing a topic
Chapter 3 Reviewing the literature
Chapter 4 Methodological approach Chapter 5 The dissertation proposal
Chapter 6 Supervisors and supervision
Part II The research procedure
Chapter 7 Data collection
Chapter 8 Data analysis
Part III Writing the dissertation
Chapter 9 General writing guidelines
Chapter 10 Writing the literature review chapter
Chapter 11 writing the methodology chapter
Chapter 12 Writing the results and discussion chapters
Chapter 13 Beginning and ending the dissertation Part IV Dissertation submission
Chapter 14 The finishing touches
Chapter 15 The examination and beyond
Chapter 16 Resources
Glossary
Index
Biography
Lindy Woodrow is Honorary Senior Lecturer in TESOL at the University of Sydney, Australia.
"This is a comprehensive and accessible book which gives practical guidance to students new to the research process and which clearly draws on the author’s experience of supervising masters' dissertations. It assumes little knowledge, provides engaging examples and anecdotes to make ideas concrete and meaningful, and takes students through the entire process from critical groundwork to the publishing of articles based on their dissertations. It promises to be an extremely useful resource."Neil Murray, University of Warwick, UK
"Lindy Woodrow’s extensive experience of research supervision and teaching academic writing ensures that Doing a Master’s Dissertation in TESOL and Applied Linguistics is the ideal, step-by-step guide for students who are planning, researching and writing their dissertation. Relevant extracts from recent TESOL and applied linguistics masters' dissertations in the UK, Australia and USA enrich the wealth of advice provided."
Sue Starfield, University of New South Wales, Australia
"[...] A comprehensive and practical guidebook [...] this book would have made my dissertation writing more manageable, its goals more visible, and its difficulties more able to be prepared for."
Yali Liu, Journal of English for Academic Purposes
