Is it clearly stated? Have you explained why this is a good question / an important or interesting aim?
Other relevant research
How well did you relate what you are doing to what others have done? Have you consulted the most relevant sources?
Length
The main reasons for excessive length seem to be: • Topic too wide • Irrelevance • Repetition • Banalities
Organization
Organization may be unclear, or illogical. Whether the work lacks an overall awareness of what the point of the whole thing is; How the various sections fit together into a coherent whole.
Hypothesis
Are you starting or concluding with a specific hypothesis? Did you make this clear? What kind of hypothesis is it? Why is it interesting / important? Is it well justified?
Justification of topic, interest, relevance; Definition of problem, basic hypothesis, aims; Awareness and critical presentation of other relevant research; Choice and justification of theoretical framework; Presentation and justification of methodology; Presentation and justification of data;
Lack of a critical attitude
11.1 Self-assessment
Here is a checklist of the kinds of purely methodological issues you might want to assess in your own work:
Research question / aim
Reliability
Is the analysis reliable? Is it explicit enough to be replicable? Are the calculations accurate? Are the classifications consistent? Are the statistics appropriate?
Theoretical model
Have you explained why you chose a particular theoretical model or approach / a particular variant of that model? What about other possibilities? Did you explain why you rejected those? Have you adapted the model at all? Why?
Relation between variables
What kind of relation are you looking for? Do you think you have found any relation? Between what variables is the relation you have found? Is this clear to the reader?
Review of the literature
The writer neglects some major relevant sources; The writer is uncritical of the sources used; He/she relies very heavily on one or two sources only, giving a biased picture of what others have done.
11.4 Typical Weaknesses
The following are the kinds of things that referees draw attention to when recommending, or in fact not recommending, that something be published:
Follow-up
Now what? Have you made some suggestions?
Implications
So what? Have you considered these, in the conclusion?
11.2 Internal Assessment
The key question is: are the readers convinced by what you are telling them? Behind this question there lie various assumptions. Readers are more likely to feel impressed if:
A version of the internal assessment
To illustrate how these assumptions appear in assessment criteria, here is a version of the assessment when reading and grading MA theses. As teachers read, they usually take notes under each of these headings:
Analysis and discussion of results, use of evidence, logic; Validity of conclusions, self-critical awareness of the work’s strengths and weaknesses; Overall structure, stylistic aspects, academic conventions, clarity; Originality, wider implications, significance.
General concepts and categories
Are they adequately defined? Are they justified against alternative concepts, categories and definitions? What kind of categories? What kind of classification? Have you been explicit enough in presenting these?
Material
Have you presented your empirical material clearly? Have you explained why you chose it? How relevant is it to your research question? Have you explained how you collected it? How representative is it?
Validity
Are the conclusions valid? Are the hypotheses supported or not? Is there adequate evidence? Is the argument logical? Is the evidence relevant to the original research problem? Do the conclusions line up with the introduction and the stated aim?
Methodology
Lack of explicitness
The topic question (the aim) is too vague; Crucial terms are not explicitly defined; Necessary information about the material or method of analysis is missing.
Lack ofΒιβλιοθήκη evidenceClaims are made with no evidence to back them up, so that they appear to be purely subjective. Conclusions are not justified by the analysis. There is simply not enough data to support the generalizations that are proposed.
Counter-evidence
Have you considered any counter-evidence? Have you dealt with borderline cases adequately? Are there any counter-arguments? Are there any alternative explanations?