Writing your own paper or thesis

Exercise: Finding a topic (based on Peterson 2013)

Use the following guiding questions to spark your creativity and help you discover your perfect topic. Take your time, go through each question, and jot down your thoughts and ideas as they come to you:

• What excites me? What sparks my curiosity?
• Which topics have recently inspired me?
• What surprises or astonishes me?
• What do I want to delve deeper into?
• What topics do I enjoy discussing?
• What recent changes have captured my attention?
• Which seemingly unrelated things might influence each other? How?

Exercise: Criteria for narrowing down your topic (based on Grieshammer et al. 2022)

The criteria outlined below can help you generate ideas for narrowing down your topic. For each criterion, consider how you can refine your topic accordingly and jot down your thoughts in the column on the right. This exercise will help you determine which option(s) are most suitable for narrowing down your topic area.

To illustrate the practical application of these criteria, the table below includes specific examples for the topic “Burnout as a consequence of capitalism” (based on Grieshammer et al., 2022, p.176f).

Exercise: 3 steps to your research question (based on Grieshammer et al. 2022)

To shape your research interest into a precise research question, you just need to answer the following questions:

1. What am I writing about? (identify the topic)
   “I am investigating/working on/writing about…”
   e.g: “I am investigating medium-sized companies in Austria…”
2. What do I want to know? (articulate the question)
   “… because I want to understand/find out/understand…”
   e.g.: “… because I want to understand how the measures for optimizing personnel management are designed”
3. Why do I want to know this? (define the objective)
   “… to consider/determine/examine…”
   e.g.: “… to examine whether these measures correspond to the principles of a modern corporate culture.”

Now, shape your answer to question 2 into a question, and you’ve got a first version of your research question.
For example: “Do the measures for optimizing HR management in medium-sized Austrian companies align with the principles of modern corporate culture?”

Then reformulate the answer to question 3 into a statement that begins with the following sentence: “The aim of this paper is to…”
For example: “The aim of this paper is to determine whether the measures for optimizing personnel management in medium-sized Austrian companies correspond to the principles of modern corporate culture.”

Now, you can derive a working hypothesis from your aim. Start it with: “I assume that…”
For example: “I assume that the measures for optimizing HR management in medium-sized Austrian companies do not correspond to the principles of modern corporate culture in most cases.”

Exercise: Clustering (based on Wolfsberger 2021)

Clustering is a powerful brainstorming technique for developing concepts for your text, like the table of contents for your paper. It helps you quickly get your ideas down on paper, activate and structure your knowledge, and ease the transition from reading to writing.

This is how clustering works:

1. Begin by writing a core concept in the center of a blank sheet of paper and encircle it.
2. Next, jot down every idea that comes to mind related to the core concept. Encircle each aspect and connect them with lines to the core concept or to other circles. Don’t overthink it; place terms where they spontaneously make sense to you. This will gradually form a network with an intuitive order.
3. Once complete, “evaluate” your cluster: Consider which parts are most important and which aspects can be omitted.
4. Optionally, create a second cluster focusing only on the content you want to emphasize in your writing. Here, develop a logical order for your text modules or paragraphs.

Use your completed cluster as a writing plan. Progress from circle to circle and from aspect to aspect, concentrating on each aspect as you formulate your ideas.

Exercise: Flash proposal (based on Grieshammer et al. 2022)

As you gather and select literature, it’s helpful to keep in mind what additional literature you need and how the literature you have found so far supports your research.

A proposal, also known as a concept, outline or research proposal, helps you define the framework of your work and identify the materials necessary to answer your research question.

With a flash proposal, you can create a draft of your proposal in no time at all. To create a flash proposal quickly, follow these steps: Answer the key questions below in freewriting style as swiftly as possible. Don’t know what to write? Jot down the question you need to answer first to progress through the key questions.

Topic:

• What is my paper about? What is the central idea?

Research question/hypothesis:

• What do I want to find out, show, or test? Which aspects are interesting?

Goals, personal aims of the research:

• What should the result of the work be? Why is it significant?

Methodological approach:

• How will I proceed? Which methods specific to my field will I employ and why?

Material:

• What will be studied? Which empirical data, primary texts, sources or phenomena will I study?
• What criteria will guide my selection, and how broad or narrow will my focus be?
• What key scholarly works will I reference?

Resources:

• Which methods, literature, workshops, or advisory services will support my research?

Identifying the problem and its relationship to existing literature or research:

• What state of research am I connecting to? What is the research gap, the problem?

Setting a timetable: What milestones will I set to guide my progress? When do I aim to complete the project?

Note: The questions outlined above serve as a foundational framework for your proposal. However, the specific content and format required for your proposal or concept will primarily depend on your supervisor and the guidelines of your institute or department.

Exercise: Reverse outline (based on Scheuermann 2022)

This exercise can help you improve the structure of a text section retrospectively. Follow these steps:

1. Read: Take your time to read through the section you want to work on.
2. Highlight: Identify and mark the individual trains of thought. Typically, each train of thought will be outlined in a separate section. Add content or remove repetitions as needed.
3. Headings: Write a provisional heading for each train of thought that captures the key message of the section. Use these headings to check whether the order of thoughts makes sense in the overall context.
4. Rearrange: If necessary, rearrange the sections and their corresponding headings into a more logical sequence.
5. Review: Read through the text again. Add any missing transitions between sections. Ensure each section clearly conveys the content indicated by its heading.
6. Finalize: If everything is coherent, remove the provisional headings or develop them into “real” headings that remain in the text. And that’s it!

Tip: Ask ChatGPT to create a reverse outline for you. It might provide fresh ideas for structuring your text.