Original title: Undergraduate thesis should "write as much as possible"
At present, it is the defense season of the senior undergraduate thesis. For a long time, the call of "canceling undergraduate graduation thesis" has been heard everywhere. Some students have not been well trained in writing papers, which is very difficult and unsatisfactory. For teachers, such as "one session is worse than another" and "the graduation thesis has killed the teacher", it has also become an emotional vent for instructors to complain about students' writing level and research ability. Undergraduate thesis has become the "common pain" of some teachers and students.
There are macro climate and micro climate behind any problem. In terms of the general climate, the reason why graduation thesis writing has become a problem is probably a microcosm of the decline in the writing level of the whole society, especially the young generation. As we all know, the reason for the decline in writing level is that this generation of college students grew up playing electronic products and watching short videos. For the vast majority of people, reading has been far away from their growth. I'm afraid that many people only read textbooks, even textbooks, because of the so-called "liveliness", there is also a trend of fragmentation. Without reading, there would be no writing. The most important foundation for writing graduation thesis or any other text has been shaken. If you can't write it or write it well, it is inevitable.
Another big background, not in recent years, is that students generally lack the ability of logical thinking. This shows that in primary and secondary education, logical training is lacking. It is a bit late for universities to make up lessons. The writing of graduation thesis is not lyric, but rational analysis, synthesis, thinking and output of the research object. Each link needs the support of logical thinking ability. The lack of logical thinking ability is also an important reason for poor graduation thesis writing.
After talking about the macro climate, let's talk about the micro climate, which is the defect of undergraduate education. In fact, an undergraduate has written some course papers before writing his graduation thesis. For some majors, there are even many course papers. So why is the paper still not good? As some journalists have analyzed, "during college, some courses will also arrange course papers, but in many cases, these papers do not meet the strict specifications of academic papers, and teachers will not put forward higher requirements or specifically explain academic writing skills. Undergraduate students did not receive systematic training before writing their graduation theses, and academic writing is highly practical, without strict training, and students' awareness of academic norms is not strong, resulting in the final graduation thesis "full of holes".
Almost every university will advertise how it attaches importance to the cultivation of students' ability, but why is writing such an important ability easily ignored in daily education? This shows that from schools to teachers to students, this has not attracted enough attention. This is a sad thing after all.
Under such a background, should I write my undergraduate thesis or not? My opinion is "write as much as you can". From my personal experience and the experience of tutoring students for many years, writing a graduation thesis conscientiously (including daily course papers, of course) is not only for writing ability, but also for all-round training and improvement of students' quality and ability, such as the ability to collect and sort out materials, the ability to learn and apply theories, and the ability to conduct social surveys, Ability of logical thinking, etc. It can be said that this is a very important means of university education, but also a very important link. To write a graduation thesis successfully, students' gains can be said to be endless.
Of course, "write as much as you can" does not mean to apply a one size fits all approach. Some majors can take the form of graduation projects and graduation works. However, at the minimum, all students majoring in humanities and social sciences must insist on writing their graduation theses, and teachers should reasonably ask students to write them well, instead of accommodating students and clamouring for "cancellation" of their graduation theses. To put it bluntly, a liberal arts student can't even write a graduation thesis. What have you done in your four years of college?
（ Zhou Yun, The author is a professor of South China University of Technology)
