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Thesis Writing Guide/Chapter 2: Background

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Anything that could be interesting for this thesis guide. Even if it might not end up being used, it should be here.

Background

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Lessons Learned: Introduction

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Dear reader, this is your time to shine!

Contribute your own lessons learned, add helpful hints and mistakes made so that others may learn from it.
Just click "edit" and add your own subsection!

Do not stray far

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To write a good thesis, you need to read a lot of articles going in the same direction. Above all - do not stray far from your topic! You will soon find out how deep the rabbit hole goes, and your topic is specifically chosen to be manageable. Keep looking at what you have to do, not what you could do - each work has a "Future Work" section for a reason, write all your ideas down there and don't spend the time while you haven't finished your actual tasks.

If you're done and still have time, you can still work on anything from your future work list :)

Patience

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Investing time in understanding the tools pays off in the long run. At the same time, don't overinvest from the get-go, maybe you read and write 5 pages about a method or tool which you are actually never going to use, because your supervisor has a better idea that you could just ask them for. As always, iterative steps are the key:

  1. Read, write down and structure as much as you can.
  2. Review with your supervisor.
  3. Refine your approach concept.
  4. Happy? Time ran out? Proceed! - If neither - back to step 1 :)