How to select a M.Tech. Thesis Topic?

The search for a potential and approachable M.Tech. thesis topic is an annoying task. It is difficult for most of the students because they do not understand the expectation of the university and their guides.

At master’s level, no one expect the students to do wonders and come up with a Ph.D. level research in just 5 to 6 months. The expectation is to train the students to understand the contributions of other researchers. It is only then they may find opportunity, directions and gaps to work further after their M.Tech. is over.

 The students at master’s level are expected to make a noteworthy and decent contribution to the research. The simplest approaches that I have found for the same are

Ø  Expansion of previous work in the field,

Ø  Suggesting improvement in the available algorithms or work,

Ø  Confirmation of the results available in the literature and implementation of the same to new problems,

Ø  Comparison of the results for two or more available techniques in the field, and

Ø  Discovering the areas where the already proposed techniques perform good and where they fail. The reason for their failure is even a potential topic of discussion.

In short, the M.Tech students are expected to be equipped with the ability to analyze the literature, implement the existing or new theories and write in a formal manner after the completion of their thesis.

For a good choice of the thesis topic, the following considerations are necessary,

1.    Research Area: Decide the field of your interest with consent of your guide.

Do an extensive literature survey in that field. It will increase the limits of innovation and give you an idea about the strengths and weakness of the chosen field. Also, the impact of the thesis will increase with a good amount of background material studied for it.

My Experience: The best and helpful literature that must be referred is available in the journals of the leading publishing houses, namely,

Ø IEEE (https://www.ieee.org/ publications_standards/ publications/periodicals/ journals_magazines.html)

Ø  Emerald (http://www.emeraldinsight.com/),

Ø  Wiley (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/browse/publications?type=journal),

Ø  Springer (http://www.springeropen.com/journals),

Ø  Taylor and Francis (http://www.tandfonline.com/),

Ø  Elsevier (http://www.elsevier.com/journals/title/a).

Avoid referring to the non-indexed journals. The papers in these journals may be sub-standard in acceptance to your guide/ institute; may contain errors and you may not be able to confirm the results available in it. So, your effort may get wasted.

2. Technical Skill: The technical knowledge and resources required to carry out a research play a significant role in its accomplishment. So, if the expertise and resources are available for a particular topic, the chance of successfully completing the project rises.

The technical requirements and potential of the chosen field can be estimated by carrying out simple experiments or mini-analysis. This background work will clarify if you have sufficient access to equipment, experts and knowledge required for the work in the chosen field. Also, it will give you confidence to work and explore the potential areas in the chosen field.

3.  Problem Definition: It is obviously very difficult to find a completely new topic. At initial stage of finding a topic, it is better to consider several ideas instead of one perfect idea. To find a novel topic of research, consider multiple variations on that topic, viz. ideas to improve existing theories or propose new theories or suggest a solution to new problem with existing theories.

The basic idea is that the problem or the topic of thesis is original, i.e. it has not been worked, the results to be obtained do not already exist in the literature and the results will help the other researchers in further study of the topic.

My Experience: If you are able to understand the theory and obtain the results available in a good (indexed) journal paper, 75 to 80% of the work expected of you as a master’s level student is accomplished. The uniqueness or novelty can be added to your topic just by improving with a new theory or comparing the obtained results with that of a new system.

I hope the above information is useful for you all.

Best Wishes,

Nidhika