This book on Thesis Writing for Masters and Ph.D. program focuses on the difficulties students encounter with regard to choosing a guide; selecting an appropriate research title considering the available resources; conducting research; and ways to overcome the hardships they face while researching, writing and preparing their dissertation for submission. 

Thesis writing is an essential skill that medical and other postgraduates are expected to learn during their academic career as a mandatory partial requirement in order to receive the Masters degree. However, at the majority of medical schools, writing a thesis is largely based on self-learning, which adds to the burden on students due to the tremendous amount of time spent learning the writing skills in addition to their exhausting clinical and academic work.  Due to the difficulties faced during the early grooming years and lack of adequate guidance, acquiring writing skills continues to be a daunting task for most students.

This book addresses these difficulties and deficiencies and provides comprehensive guidance, from selecting the research title to publishing in a scientific journal.

 

Subhash Chandra Parija is the Former Director and Senior Professor, Department of Microbiology of the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education& Research (JIPMER), Pondicherry, India, and has nearly three and a half decades of teaching and research experience in Medical Microbiology. Prof. Parija is a Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) expert, and has been consulted to draft guidelines on food safety for parasites. Prof. Parija was on the Board of MD Examination at Colombo University, Sri Lanka, Sultan Quaboos University, Oman, University of Malaya, Malaysia. He was conferred a D.Sc. for his contributions in the field of Medical Parasitology by Madras University. The author of ten books including the Text Book of Medical Parasitology, he has published more than 300 papers in prominent national and international journals.

Prof. Parija has been honored with more than 25 awards including the MedicalCouncil of Indias Dr. BC Roy National Award and the National Academy of Medical Sciences Dr. PN Chuttani Oration Award. Prof. Parija founded the Indian Academy of Tropical Parasitology (IATP), the only professional organization of Medical Parasitologists in India, and initiated the journalTropical Parasitology. Professor Parija in collaboration with Prof. Vikram Kate edited a book onWriting and Publishing a Scientific Paper, which was published by Springer Nature in 2017.

Vikram Kate is currently the Senior Professor and Head of the Department of the Surgery and Senior Consultant General and Gastrointestinal Surgeon at Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education& Research (JIPMER), Puducherry. He has contributed more than 25 chapters in prominent surgical gastroenterology and surgery textbooks, and has more than 140 papers to his credit. He is a Past President of the Indian Association of Surgical Gastroenterology. He was awarded the Membership Diploma of the Faculty of Surgical Trainers by the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh. Further, he currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of The International Journal of Advanced Medical and Health Research, the official journal of JIPMER.

Professor Kate is an Examiner for the M.S./M.Ch./DNB and Ph.D. program for Surgery, Surgical Gastroenterology and Intercollegiate Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, Edinburgh and Glasgow (FRCS, FRCS Ed., FRCS Glasg.), and of the American College of Surgeons (FACS) and the American College of Gastroenterology (FACG). He has been honored with many awards, including the Dr. Mathias Oration (2010) and Prof. N. Rangabashyam Oration (2015) by the Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry Chapter of the Association of Surgeons of India, and the Dr. S.K. Bhansali Memorial Oration (2017) of the Association of Surgeons of India.

Thesis, Dissertation and Project.- Objectives of writing thesis.- Choosing a suitable research area/ supervisor.- Assessing for availability of facilities, infrastructure and resources.- Obtaining support and grants for research.- Writing the protocol.- Approval of the Institute Review Board/ Ethics Committee/ Registering with clinical trial registry.- Plan and Conduct of research- Observational/ interventional/ study designs.- Data collection tools (data collection proforma/ RED CAP).- Preparing and decoding the Master Chart.- Statistical Analysis (choosing the right form of data presentation/ statistical tests/ open-epi).- Preparing a Content list, Title Page and Abstract.- Methods and Materials.- Writing the Review of Literature (Open Access/ PubMed search/ Google Scholar).- Drawing Observations from data and Making Conclusions.- Preparing Figures and Tables.- Presenting citations and references, citation index, H Index.- Editing for language/ content and avoiding ambiguity in data presentation.- Plagiarism and copyright, acknowledgements, disclosure and conflicts of interest.- Preparing manuscript from thesis material and selecting journals for submission.- Presenting thesis in conferences- oral presentation/ Poster presentation.- Writing Thesis for Speciality Courses MD/MS/DNB .- Writing Thesis for Sub-Speciality Courses DM/ MCh/DNB.- Dissertation writing for M.Sc. Courses.- Writing thesis for Doctoral of Philosophy (Ph.D.).- Statistics software.- English Language and other software used.- Plagiarism software