Crafting Your Thesis : Making Use of Qualitative Approaches

At the beginning of writing a thesis, many questions arise, for example:

• How do I know that I have formulated a relevant research problem?
• Have I chosen the right empirical method?
• Are interviews or observations appropriate?
• How should I structure my text to get my point across in the best way?
• What exactly is a theory?
• How can the quality of my work be assessed?

Crafting Your Thesis is a broad and accessible handbook in qualitative methods that gives you clear and concise answers to these questions – and many more. The book can be used both in introductory university courses, where you as a student encounter questions of method for perhaps the first time, and right up to Master’s thesis level, where it gives a quick overview of different available qualitative methods and highlights questions that must be dealt with when crafting the thesis.

Johan Alvehus is professor at the Department of Service Studies, Lund University.