Find out this year's students' advice about:
and results of a questionnaire on:
"You have to choose your topic carefully. Topic is the most important thing in a long report. I tried to find the best topic for me for four months, but I didn't find the best one. If you don't get the best topic, you will spoil your pastime, money and your thesis. It's better to choose what you are interested in of course, and more, ease of writing or ease of finding books are very important. Good luck!!"
"I wrote about the life of Lafcadio Hearn, his Japanese name is Yakumo Koizumi. Actually he had stayed at Matsue in Shimane prefecture which is my hometown, so I did know about him from childhood. He was so famous. Then I noticed he was half-Irish and half-Greek, I decided to write about his life." Mariko
"I also think that deciding a topic is the most important part. If you choose something that does not actually interest you or that has few sources, it will be difficult for you to start writing. I chose 'Chinese-Americans in the USA' because it has something that relates to myself since I am half Chinese." Masako
"I selected 'English Squares' as the material of the graduation thesis. At first I was interested in the relation between Britain and other countries, but it was impossible to write, because any teachers were not expart about it. So I suggest you that you have interests in various thing, because you will sometimes need the advises of professors." Hiroaki
"You should limit your topic if your study includes large quantities of material." Masashi
"You should finish before the winter vacation and get books earlier, because in the winter vacation you cannot borrow books from other universities. Enough information helps writing very much. If I give you a piece of advice, I want to say that you should make a plan of writing a thesis and accomplish it steadily." Miyuki
"You have to decide about what you are going to write as soon as possible. I thought that writing it would be easy, so I started to write in September. It was too late. When you decide the topic, you can start searching for the materials for your topic." Yuka
My subject is 'heraldry', the kind of symbols representing a lot of things about the bearer. There are many specific words, so I spent much time on reading those references. I suggest you would be better to read books earlier. Time is limited. I think you will be busy in this year, but you have to begin to write even little by little. Keep on trying!" Yuko
"I often went to the International Center in Nagoya. And Aichi Prefectural Library is also useful. In my case, I went to Canada because I had not known anything about my topic 'Immigration to Canada'. If you have time and money, visit and see by yourself." Yuka
"My topic is 'Image and Meaning of Color', and I compared between English and Japanese. So I told my teacher and he recommended some books and information. I also read a past student's graduation thesis because it was about a similar topic. It was useful for me." Hitomi