The purpose of this course is to provide a collaborative environment in which students can share their MPhil/PhD project as a ‘work-in-progress’, receive feedback from peers and further refine their ideas. The course will also seek to foster a discussion with students regarding what a thesis in Sociology might look like: the basic structure, the conceptual framework, the empirical findings, and the references and how they should be systemically organized into a thesis.

This course is divided into two sections:

The first section focuses on a series of discussion based on the students’ actual research topic. Topics to be examined and discussed include the selection and the significance of the research topic, relevant literature review and theories, field research and interviews and problems arising from it and methods of assembling data collected.

The second section involves seminar-style presentation by academic and postgraduate students. This will enable the students to learn from different styles of presentations and benefit from comments given during the seminars.

(* – The order in which students take semester one and semester two parts of this course may vary depending on the date they started their MPhil/PhD programme.)

This course is also offered in the second semester, under course code SOCI6003-B.