There are so many papers, how can there be so many innovations?

文 | 阮思余（华南师范大学副教授）

There is an opinion that the fact that so many graduate students (master's and doctoral students) graduate every year means that a large number of graduate theses are produced every year. It seems impossible to make every student's thesis innovative. Especially for a master's thesis, it is almost impossible to have anything innovative. There is even a kind of mentality of swinging: anyway, my thesis is like this, and in the end, the teacher will let me pass it no matter what, it doesn't matter if I innovate or not.

"There are so many papers, how can there be so many innovations?" It is estimated that many tutors have heard this sentence, and have even been directly scolded by students. The question is, is that really the case? Do graduate theses really not need to be innovative?

The graduation season is also the defense season every year. One of the most common things that the tutors said was: What is the innovation of your thesis? When the tutors are reviewing the paper or participating in the defense, the first thing they should consider is whether the paper is innovative? If there is no innovation, why write this article? Why should the article without any new ideas pass the external review or defense? Perhaps this is the common encounter, common problem and common voice of many teachers who participate in the review or defense!

Therefore, we need to discuss the following questions: What is graduation thesis innovation? Why should graduation thesis innovation be carried out? How to carry out graduation thesis topic selection innovation? For the sake of convenience, thesis innovation is sometimes used to replace graduation thesis innovation in writing, and the author of the graduation thesis is called a researcher.

One

What is dissertation innovation?

Regarding the innovation of graduate dissertations, it refers to the fact that the dissertation is different from the previous research in terms of research questions, research materials, theoretical framework, research methods, research conclusions, research findings, etc., and can develop and advance on the basis of the previous research, and can present some new ideas and new ideas of the researcher.

Of course, it is not possible to require researchers to innovate in all areas, as long as they can innovate in one or several aspects, it is fine. Be sure to let readers, especially the judges, discover the novelty of your paper and be able to read some of the bright spots of your article. These are often where the article is innovative.

Innovation in graduate theses is an important criterion for evaluating graduate theses. For those papers that have no innovation and no author's personal ideas, they are often "dangerous" in external review, formal defense, and dissertation sampling after graduation.

Therefore, when an experienced teacher instructs a student's thesis, he or she will ask the student to make some innovative topics. However, students often choose the topics that are not new, and the result is that the whole thesis is difficult to innovate. Those topics that have nothing new at all have a high probability of being regarded as unqualified papers in the external review, formal defense, and sampling inspection after the defense.

Two

Why Dissertation Innovation?

It should be a basic consensus that graduate theses should be innovative, especially academic dissertations. However, in the eyes of some, including teachers and students, it seems that there is no need to emphasize so much innovation in graduate school papers. This is what the so-called "so many papers, how can there be so many innovations". However, such an assertion does not stand up to scrutiny.

Graduation thesis innovation, which is the need of academic research. All academic research needs to be innovative, otherwise, it is simply repetition, and it is not research. Simply repeating someone else's point of view is suspected of plagiarism. All academic research must have some new discoveries, new creative ideas, new growth, and new breakthroughs on the basis of previous research, otherwise it cannot be called research.

Therefore, academic research is not something that ordinary people can do, nor is it something that can be done casually. It must be associated with "innovation". The innovation here can be theoretical innovation or practical innovation. Theoretical research articles naturally focus on theoretical innovation.

Graduation thesis innovation, which is the need to cultivate graduate students in the new era. To train graduate students, it is necessary to cultivate their sense of innovation, including practical innovation and academic innovation. Academic paper writing is the embodiment of academic innovation. Graduate students in the new era must have a sense of theoretical innovation. This is a huge difference between graduate and undergraduate students. As high-level talents cultivated by the state, graduate students must have their own observations and thoughts on the research issues, and put forward academic views and perspectives that are different from those of non-researchers and must be based on their majors. Otherwise, it will be difficult to reflect the research standards of graduate students.

Innovation of graduation thesis is the need to cultivate high-quality professional research talents. It is no exaggeration to say that all jobs today require a certain level of research ability. This kind of research ability does not necessarily mean writing theoretical articles like a master's thesis or a doctoral dissertation. Even so, you should have insight and analysis of relevant issues, and if necessary, write relevant articles or make PPTs to introduce to others. This requires at least a basic research capacity on a number of issues, including the development of the industry, the position of the Organization in the industry, its strengths and weaknesses, future developments, and so on.

In particular, many students may not be engaged in scientific research in the future, or the work they are engaged in may not be completely related to their majors, how can you achieve rapid development and personal growth in new industries and new fields, and achieve development expectations. This requires a high level of research ability. Those who are good at crossing borders are often people with strong research ability. In short, professionals are important to evaluate talents today. However, if they are able to interdisciplinarily and have strong research skills, and can achieve outstanding achievements, such talents will definitely be more valued.

Three

How to innovate the topic of graduation thesis?

How to innovate papers and how to write innovative papers are issues that all researchers are very concerned about. From the perspective of my supervising graduate theses over the years, one of my feelings is that the first thing to do is to choose a topic for innovation. Topic selection innovation is the most basic requirement for thesis innovation.

Paper innovation is often the result of researchers' conscious innovation consciousness. When writing, we must have this kind of awareness: what is the difference between my article and other people's articles? How can I be innovative? Can I find new materials? Can I put forward new ideas? Can I use new theories to analyze the problem I want to study? Can I be innovative in the logic and thinking of argumentation?

In the process of writing, you need to constantly ask yourself in this way, and the more you ask, the more innovation can be formed. As long as there is innovation in any of the above-mentioned aspects, it is worthy of recognition and praise! Researchers must have a high degree of research consciousness, and in particular, they must have this consciousness of innovation.

Thesis innovation is often the embodiment of graduate students' learning outcomes. Graduate teaching is different from undergraduate students in that there is often a lot of discussion and exchange. These discussions and exchanges are often the place where sparks of ideas are generated, and they are also an important source of topic selection for graduation thesis. Therefore, when I am in class, I usually say a lot that this question can be used as a topic for my graduation thesis.

Paper innovation is often an extension and expansion after field research. Since I am a political science major, I often ask students to choose two aspects of their graduation thesis. One is to choose the topic from the practice of our research, and the other is to choose the topic from the basic theoretical research.

Every year I take my students on fieldwork. The paper of the 2020 class of Lu that I brought is the issue of regionalized party building that we went to Heshan City, Guangdong Province (Jiangmen City) to investigate. At that time, I said that this topic can be used as a graduation thesis topic, and any of you who is interested can consider it. The other students in the same class did not have this awareness, but Lu remembered it. Later, when we were talking about it, she said that she wanted to do it. So then I asked her to do the question. Judging from the actual completion, it is still good. This question is a problem that we have come from field research, and it is the result of the latest local innovation, which is worthy of in-depth study, and of course, it also has a certain novelty.

In short, the key to innovation in graduate theses is to choose a good topic. In this regard, students may be able to find a new topic on their own, but it is mainly up to the tutor to check it. Choosing a topic is a matter for the student, and it is also a matter for the tutor to care about. Every class, every research, every group meeting, every seminar, may give birth to a new topic. Students should be attentive and remember the topics that can be used as graduation thesis topics reminded by their supervisors, because those topics often have a certain amount of novelty.

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