What Makes It a Masters?

I am often asked if a topic is "Masters Worthy".

Although the choice of topic is clearly very important, one should realize that it is not the topic itself, but how the topic is addressed that makes a given project a Masters.

More specifically, it is almost as though the domain is insignificant (although it won't seem that way to you). It is not Masters work to just talk about a current tool and tell us how nice you think it is or demonstrate it. A Masters in not a book report or product review. What is really important is the methodology with which you approach the topic, or for program projects, the control mechanisms and knowledge structures used to drive your program.

The focus of a Masters Project is not about something else; it is about your work in reviewing or creating the something else.

This is why in both the proposal and the project writeup, you will see the need for references to other work in the field. This is so that in your work you can explicitly show how your specific project's techniques are any different than any other piece of work. You cannot do this without showing the reader a discussion on these other relevant works and the contributions that they made (or didn't).

The information will center, of course, around the chosen topic area, you do need to introduce and describe the topic area, but the meat of the Masters is the work you, as a researcher, did to delve into the topic, compare and contrast it with other works, and thus be able to clearly tell the reader why this is an important piece if work.

This leads to the importance of the literature survey and referencing outside sources.
The purpose of a chapter on background materials or related research (as well as relevant citations throughout the document) is to get all readers up to speed with where you were when you started doing your specific work on the project.

The idea is that

  1. if someone is clueless about what you have done, it gives them some background
  2. if someone else wanted to look into more detail of what you have done, you are letting then know where they could look.
  3. it allows the reader to know what materials you, the writer, are aware of.
  4. are there *ANY* tools that are in any way similar. If so what are they, where are they, how does your's differ.
Usually there is SOMETHING out there that resembles something that you (the writer) wants to do. Then what you do in the literature survey is say what your's has that their's doesn't.

Another way to look at this is ...
Why are you doing this?
Either there are no tools out there whatsoever OR, more commonly, there are tools out there that are lacking something. What did people use before this? Is there another tool in another language? Is there another tool but it is missing some key things that you need?

I repeat...There are many reasons why one does a literature survey and provides references to outside sources throughout the document.

  1. One, of course is that it shows you are not simply plagiarizing and that this is your own work
  2. It lets the reader know that you know what is out there and that you are not just reinventing the wheel, but rather either
    1. adding (useful or necessary) capabilities to existing products or
    2. to your knowledge (as a result of your survey) creating something that this research shows does not exist.
  3. It gives the reader sources to find more information. . If they are really interested in what you did, but are not quite up to speed on the material, it gives them sources that you found useful. This allows them to "catch up". Remember, by writing this professional document you are their source of information. Be kind to them - help them appreciate your work by giving them the sources of information that you used when you were doing the work!

It is useful to keep a journal of sorts to remember what you did. There might be many times you went to look something up that you forget about later. The citations in your document and your bibliography do not have to be only materials that relate to your specific project. They could be as simple as programming texts or technical books that you used to look up how to do a procedure. These might be useful to the reader of your document too!

Once you have done the literature survey and are ready to write, remember to cite it properly