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I'm senior undergraduate student who has just received a thesis project from my professor to work on for a year. However, I don't know where and how to start. What would you suggest?

The project topic is related to telecommunications and electronics and inter-disciplinary. Because of this, I will be working with a friend on this project.

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    It's your professor's job to advise you how and where to start. Also, did your professor say you are supposed to work with your friend?
    – Nobody
    Commented Apr 29, 2016 at 7:04
  • Yes, I have to work with a friend as the project is inter-disciplinary and I have limited knowledge of certain parts of the project. My professor didn't guide me on which sites to read material and how to work on a research project.
    – Furkanicus
    Commented Apr 29, 2016 at 7:11

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Great suggestions above, here is the methodology I follow:

  1. First off, determine the general term for the area of your thesis, for example, "civil engineering" or "genetics".
  2. Create a word document (literature review) where you keep track of citations and books you have read in this topic.
  3. Perform a "Google Scholar" Search for your topic, add list of citations to your literature review as you save each article and print to keep in a notebook. In addition, add a 'review' of each journal article you read including Summary, Main Hypothesis, Strengths/Weaknesses and Date Reviewed.
  4. On Google Scholar, you can see what other articles have cited the article you are reading. This is a great way to gain further resources for your search.
  5. Do this every day for a few weeks and you will be sufficiently immersed to have a background in the previous work to understand your thesis topic and background.

Additional Tips: When performing research, it's important to begin focusing on what new insights, methods or understanding you can bring to this field of study. In many ways, academia is a 'competition' where the winners are rewarded for their efforts with additional funding, facilities, and prestige. By performing background research (aka Literature Review), you are able to learn from the hard work and progress of others, and expand on their insights in order to 'make a better mousetrap'.

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  • Thanks! I was actually looking for specifics like what you suggested.
    – Furkanicus
    Commented Apr 30, 2016 at 10:35
  • By the way, I'm new to Stack Exchange Academia, so I couldn't upvote your answer and I have no idea why someone would downvote this.
    – Furkanicus
    Commented May 1, 2016 at 21:15
  • Welcome, it's a great resource! Also, check out oatd.org, it stands for Open Access Theses and Dissertations, might be a bit advanced but has some great reading material in whatever is your field.
    – J. Roibal - BlockchainEng
    Commented May 1, 2016 at 21:22
  • Thank you! I haven't heard of this website at all, although I have been looking for resources for days.
    – Furkanicus
    Commented May 1, 2016 at 21:24

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