How-to-Write-a-Better-Thesis
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Chapter 6<br />
Background Chapters<br />
Depending on the nature of your thesis, the background sections or chapters can<br />
take any of several different forms. <strong>How</strong>ever, their functions are always the same:<br />
<strong>to</strong> provide the context for your own work and <strong>to</strong> be the starting point for an examiner<br />
<strong>to</strong> think about your position in relation <strong>to</strong> the work, that is, <strong>to</strong> be the ‘you’ that<br />
you were at the start of the research project. The four most common elements in the<br />
background chapters are:<br />
• Establishment of a context <strong>to</strong> locate a study in time, location, or culture.<br />
• Identification of current theory, discoveries, and debates, including an evaluation<br />
of those most useful and salient <strong>to</strong> your <strong>to</strong>pic, as well as a nomination of<br />
gaps in literature.<br />
• Understanding of current practices and technologies in your field that highlight,<br />
and perhaps synthesize, a selection of the appropriate methods <strong>to</strong> gather data for<br />
your study.<br />
• Preliminary investigations done by you or others <strong>to</strong> help clarify research techniques,<br />
formulate hypotheses, or focus areas of investigation for the major research<br />
program <strong>to</strong> follow.<br />
You may have one or more of these, depending on the type of research you are doing.<br />
For example, if you were investigating ways that vitamins have been promoted<br />
as a regular dietary supplement, you would certainly need a descriptive section—or,<br />
perhaps a full chapter—on the development of the understanding of vitamins. You<br />
would also have a section (or chapter) that sets out many of the current controversies<br />
that surround the taking of food supplements and surveys a range of expert studies<br />
on the <strong>to</strong>pic. Next, you would need <strong>to</strong> have a section (again, or chapter) that details<br />
ways in which studies concerning the promotion of vitamin supplements have been<br />
conducted. If these are unsatisfac<strong>to</strong>ry in some way, for example, questionnaires in<br />
them are out of date or not applicable <strong>to</strong> your intended participant group, then you<br />
would need <strong>to</strong> conduct a preliminary study <strong>to</strong> clarify instruments and other aspects<br />
of methodology, including research questions. These background sections, or chapters,<br />
would provide the basis for the design of your own work, which then could be<br />
unders<strong>to</strong>od in context, located within a theoretical framework, and conducted using<br />
techniques backed with solid justification.<br />
D. Evans et al., <strong>How</strong> <strong>to</strong> <strong>Write</strong> a <strong>Better</strong> <strong>Thesis</strong>, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-04286-2_6,<br />
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014<br />
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