By Zhen Han

At 10:00, on July 20, Sun Yinghui, a professor from the School of Foreign Languages and Literature of Beijing Normal University, was invited by the SFL to give a lecture on how to write an MA thesis proposal. With her years of experience, Professor Sun gave a specific and detailed explanation of the do’s and dont’s in writing an MA thesis proposal.

Professor Sun firstly explained the requirements of MA thesis writing in relevant documents issued by Beijing Normal University, and then fully explained how to choose a topic. She pointed out that topic-choosing was one of the most important steps for thesis writing, which could determine the quality of a thesis. She expounded on the topic-choosing standards, factors and procedures, and also gave some suggested topics of language studies. Next, by taking an MA student’s thesis proposal as an example, Professor Sun touched upon the formats and some possible problems in proposal writing. She also explained how to write the abstract. At the end of the lecture, Professor Sun emphasized that MA students should use academic and formal language in thesis writing and pay attention to the tense.

After the lecture, the MA students asked a mummer of questions, and Professor Sun gave them some guidance for their topic choosing.