On May 13, 2022, the China-EU School of Law (CESL) Lecture Series on “Supervising and Writing of Master's Thesis” was successfully held online. Professor LIU Fei, Chinese Co-Dean of CESL, gave the speech, and all CESL double masters students from the 2021 intake participated in the lecture.
At the beginning, Prof. LIU reminded that students should not forget to prepare their Chinese law thesis even when they are occupied with their studies in Europe. Then he briefly introduced some reviewers’ feedback of the theses written by students from the year 2019. He expressed his concerns that students may have less chances to talk with their tutors about their topic selection and the writing process of their thesis, due to the new second year study taking place in Europe. Thus, students ought to arrange their schedules well and set reasonable goals for their writing process.
After, Prof. LIU continued his lecture from six aspects, including the overall arrangement of writing, the selection of a good topic, the collection of literature, the structure of the thesis, tips for the thesis defense, and tips for employment.
Initially, Prof. LIU emphasized that students should cultivate a sense of self-discipline, which means students should plan for the thesis in advance and pay attention to training their writing skills. Besides, students are asked to have more academic communication automatically with their tutors by email or WeChat on the issues of topic selection, thesis statements, structure, and correct expressions.
Secondly, taking the topic selection of constitutional and administrative law as an example, Prof. LIU suggested that topics which are too big to write, or mainly focus on pure theories, or with too much administrative nature, should not be taken into consideration. To select a good topic, students are advised to pay more attention to their course studies, reading materials and communications with tutors.
Thirdly, Prof. LIU stressed that the thesis should indicate consciousness of a problem. The question-structure is strongly recommended to students, i.e. putting forward the question at the beginning, analyzing it in the text, and finally proposing a solution or conclusion to the question. Such a structure will help the thesis keep coherence from the beginning and keep logical relationships between chapters. In addition, Prof. LIU gave some tips on thesis defense and employment.
Finally, Prof. LIU expressed his best wishes and ardent expectations for the students. He hopes that this lecture could help students to arrange for their academic work well and to present their academic achievements and ideas in writing of their thesis.
Written by: WANG Yingqi, CESL double master from 2021 intake
Photographed by: YU Zhen, CESL double master from 2021 intake
Translated by: WANG Bijia, CESL double master from 2021 intake
