Dissertations & Thesis
>> Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Today I have been wandering through Proquest's online database of dissertations & theses finding tons of stuff that I can use for my major research paper and for my Phd thesis topic.
I like working with dissertations & theses, even though they tend to be several hundred pages longer than the journal articles I could be using. In part, I find them useful for the depth of the information they provide - but also, I figure that if I'm going to have to write one, I might as well be reading them so that I will have a better idea of what my end goal is.
While I haven't found any that are directly related to my own topics - which is actually a good thing, since if my topic(s) had been done already, there wouldn't be any point to ME doing them - there are plenty that are relevant. An added benefit, of course, is that they often point me to other articles that I can use.
So ... it is more than a little time consuming - but in the long run, will make my major research paper - and eventually my thesis - just that much better. At least that is the plan.
As plans go, it sounds like a good one.
I remember the joy of finding a thesis or dissertation related to my topic when I was doing my MA thesis. I think there was a lot less on my topic than you're likely to have on yours, but it was so great to find someone who had been working on a similar thing, or had really gone to the trouble of examining one aspect of something I was writing about. Those things became real treasures to me.