A good guide book on writing a Political Science thesis?

[Volition]

Hey guys! I was curious to know if anyone here had a good recommendation for a guide book for writing a solid thesis for Political Science. Throughout my search on Amazon I have came across numerous books -- some generally dealing with Master level thesis while others dealing specifically with Political Science -- so there is a lot to choose from. Does anyone here have that ultimate book they use for thesis writing, preferably for Political Science? I'm looking forward to hearing your recommendations! Thanks in advance.

 

 

[ngogirl]

I'm assuming your talking about a master's thesis, right? If you take a Research and Methods class in your program, I think there is a book that your required to get that helps with the thesis writing. My program had that requirement, and I initially had the book but I didn't end up using it or find it too helpful.

I don't remember the name of the book I used, but it was called How to Write your Dissertation (I think) and I used it in the revision stages of my thesis. That said, I wish I had       access to this book before the planning and writing stages because it was REALLY helpful. I also emailed a colleague from my program (I did 7 months of research in another country and most of my initial writing, setup, and planning was conducted from there)  from time to time for advice and that was helpful.

 

[CarefreeWritingsontheWall]

Personally, I found Marc Busch's 5 tips to writing a thesis useful on top of a research design course. I had a professor send me their dissertation prospectus as a sample of what a research design or thesis proposal should look like. Different subfields typically call for different things, and people can organize them in different ways - the key difference being book vs. article format.

http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/mlb66/5%20steps%20to%20writing%20a%20thesis.pdf

[Syas]

Lave and March-An Introduction to the Models in Social Sciences could also be helpful: http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Models-Social-Sciences/dp/0819183814

[ResearchUnit]

If you're talking about writing a thesis from scratch, Umberto Eco's How to Write a Thesis is a great starting point. It's a step-by-step guide for conducting background research, formulating research question and structuring and writing the thesis.