A thesis is a task which goal is, first and foremost, to teach you how to be an independent researcher. And one of the main parts of research work is work with information sources. Even if you have the most ingenious insights into your research topic, the academic community will not accept them unless you have provided a sufficient amount of connections to the existing body of literature on the subject.
However, a simple mechanical addition of as many quotations from as many sources you can find won’t solve the problem. In order to achieve the desired result, you have to know how to work with sources effectively. So what can you learn from a thesis writing service employee who knows first-hand what it means to process literature and look for materials best suited for this particular assignment?
- Quantity isn’t always translated into quality
Although there is some correlation between the number of sources used in a work and its evaluation by the thesis committee, it doesn’t mean that you should use a source just to add it to your bibliography. If it doesn’t add anything of value, get rid of it – if the committee analyzes your work at any depth, it will immediately become obvious that many of the sources add little or nothing to your argument, which will put into question the quality of your entire paper.
- Identify the most important authorities on the subject
Try using an online indexing service like EBSCO Academic Search or Google Scholar to find literature on the subject and keep an eye out for the names that keep cropping up. Also, take notice of the number of times they are quoted in other peer-reviewed papers – the higher this value is, the more authority they and their authors have in this area. After you’ve identified a few authorities, look for all their works on the subject and pay special attention to them in your work, because they are the main players in the field you’ve chosen.
- Learn to evaluate sources on your own
Sources may be very different in value – if something is written down somewhere, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you can trust it. Before making a source a part of your work, you should analyze it. Does the author have an identifiable agenda that may influence his objectivity? Does his analysis truly support his hypothesis? Are his methods relevant to this field of study? Does he provide enough evidence in support of his hypothesis? If answers to any of these questions put the quality of the source into question, either avoid using it or mention your misgivings when discussing it in your thesis.
- Don’t shy away from hiring a thesis writing service
People working for them know what they are doing – usually, they work for these agencies for many years and in the course of this time acquire more experience writing theses than you can ever hope of getting. A sample bought from a trustworthy thesis writing service like DoMyThesis.net will both show you some useful tricks you can use in your papers and, if you get one written on your topic, offer you a host of high-quality sources you can use right away.
- Differentiate your sources
Articles from peer-reviewed magazines and journals are usually considered the most valuable sources of information in academia, but it doesn’t mean that you should use them and them only. Other publications – books, articles from mass media, blogs, anthologies – all of them can serve as viable sources of information. Although you shouldn’t rely on them too much, introducing a few sources of each type will show that you are ready to look for data everywhere.
- Prefer recent sources
Science doesn’t stand still, and a source that is fifty years old, even if it is written by a highly authoritative specialist and well-reviewed by peers, can be a little bit outdated by now. The older the source is, the more numerous should be your reservations to take anything about it for granted.
Finding and analyzing sources is hard work; we hope that these tips can make it at least a little bit easier for you.