Ten most common mistakes when writing the Master's ThesisIn this week's post, Kharla Segovia, Professor of Quality and Agri-Food at Bureau Veritas University Center , writes about the ten most common mistakes that students should avoid when doing their Master's Thesis.
The most important step in the Master's training period at Bureau Veritas University Center is the submission of the Master's Final Project (TFM). This project is the end of an academic year of effort, in which you, the students, must put all your effort into achieving perfection.
There are a number of very common mistakes that are made bc data when preparing the TFM document. In this post I summarize the ten most important mistakes that you should avoid when developing your Master's Final Projects:
1.- Copying content verbatim from bibliographic sources . Remember that all the contents of the TFM must be original. They must be presented using your own writing. Use the bibliographic material for reference purposes, but under no circumstances may you copy and paste textual content from other sources.
2.- Carry out a purely theoretical TFM. The fundamental objective of Bureau Veritas Centro Universitario for this TFM subject is for you to be able to apply the contents that you have studied in the Master. For this reason, remember that your work must always be focused on completely practical applications and very specific companies or situations.
3.- Writing objectives that are neither realistic nor attainable. Remember that the objectives of a TFM are its fundamental pillar. These must be stated in a reasoned manner and you must ensure that they will be achieved at the end of your work.
4.- Do not contextualize the work in a specific framework. As I have explained previously, at Bureau Veritas Centro Universitario we want your TFM to be purely practical and applied. The specific company or situation on which you focus must be explained in detail in the introduction, so that the reader can perfectly situate themselves in the context in which the work is carried out.
5.- Lack of analysis and discussion of results. All the results you present must be accompanied by an analysis and discussion. When presenting a table, graph or diagram of results, it is correct to accompany it with a reasoned discussion of the data you show.
6.- Not indicating the use of bibliography in the body of the work. Both in the introduction and in the subsequent discussion of the results, the use of bibliography is essential. In order to be able to draw conclusive conclusions, you need to rely on the bibliographical sources for consultation, which you must indicate within the body of the work. In this way, the reader will be able to locate the bibliography that has been used in each part of your TFM.
7.- Not following a guiding thread. A TFM must follow a thread of ideas from the first page to the last. Absolutely all the ideas expressed in it must make sense to the reader and follow a logical path. In the introduction, you must explain the reasons for carrying out the work and its context. This will lead you to set objectives, based on which you will work with the data to obtain and discuss appropriate results, with which you can draw logical conclusions.