When should you request consultation sessions and how should you prepare for them?
The final examination regulations of every higher education institution stipulate how many discussions and consultations should take place between the advisor and the graduate student during the preparation of the thesis (usually a minimum-maximum framework is given). It is worth taking advantage of these opportunities, as they can be an important and useful aid in the preparation of the thesis.
The effectiveness of the consultation mainly depends on you. You are the one who is writing the final thesis, you should know what you need (checking, encouragement, specific help, etc.). Therefore, the most important thing is to initiate a consultation when you feel that you have reached a turning point in the writing process. You should also know that the consultant is not there to "whisper" what you should write. Do not ask or expect from him anything that is unethical or incompatible with the position of consultant. You can get enough help from him by following the rules.
It is worth seeking a consultation in these cases:
- When choosing a topic and formulating a hypothesis
- After preparing a topic outline
- After completing a literature search
- After preparing an individual survey/research plan
- For presenting a completed, rough thesis
Of course, you don't have to ask for a consultation every time, but if you have the opportunity, take advantage of it!
How to make the consultation successful:
- Prepare properly and write down your questions in advance so you don't forget anything.
- Make a note of the consultant's opinions and comments. This way, you can refer to your notes later during your work and use what you heard during the consultation.
- If possible, request a personal consultation (although the possibility of this is relatively limited during COVID). If that doesn't work, definitely try to organize at least a video meeting with your consultant. Of course, you can send your thoughts and the outline of the topic by email, but there is significantly less opportunity for communication in an email than face to face (you know, metacommunication...). It helps a lot if you can see each other's gestures and facial expressions. In addition, in person, a topic/question may arise that you may not have thought of before.
- Don't waste the consultant's time. Don't be late or keep them up unnecessarily, believe me, they will appreciate it.
What will be important to our consultant?
- Structure: The overall appearance of the paper, its structure, and the way it is edited are the first things that stand out. Professional editing can only benefit even weaker content.
- Language: Whether the essay is prose, an analysis of a work of art, or a presentation of an experiment, the key is to use understandable language and a variety of expressions. It is also a reasonable expectation to use the appropriate technical language for the given topic.
- Own opinion: It is very important that our own thoughts and individual opinions appear in the thesis, since others have already written down theirs.
- Supporting figures: Almost every paper improves its evaluation if it includes figures, images, and tables that help understand the text and illustrate what is described.
- However, it is essential that these are beautiful and tastefully crafted (and that we always indicate their source).
- Table of contents: The final thesis will be more useful if we use the possibilities offered by modern word processing programs, i.e. we provide it with an automatic table of contents, use the footnote/endnote functions and provide hyperlinks to the cited literature. These do not require special computer skills, they can actually be prepared in minutes, we can say that they are standard equipment of the thesis.
If you have any further questions, we are happy to help:
Kristof Molnar
Mobile: +36 30 335 9094
Email: korrepcristof@gmail.com
Website: korrepkristof.hu
