Many students of higher institutions of learning find it difficult writing their undergraduate or postgraduate theses/dissertations/academic project. Some students already have the belief that they can't write their academic project by themselves leading to engagement of 'contractors' to help them out. Several factors are responsible for this unfortunate reality. These factors range from laziness on the part of the students to unqualified/frustrating lecturers. For the postgraduate students, time constraint and poor background in research at the undergraduate level are usually the main culprits.
The unwillingness and inability to do justice to academic research have created a parallel highly profitable business for many people (including myself) but the effect on personal productivity of the students and the national economy leave much to be desired.
This realisation led to the creation of this thread to enlighten our undergraduate and postgraduate students who really want to carry out their research by themselves but think it is something difficult or insurmountable within a limited time. This thread is to help you do your own project by yourself putting in minimal effort and resources while getting a better result.
Please note: I am not interested in working for anyone here. This is to help solve the problem that I have personally benefitted from but which is inimical to national and personal development.

This issue has now become a national crisis. This is because the would-be lecturers and even current lecturers now involve 'contractors' in writing their PhD theses and research/conference papers to be published respectively. Can you imagine the future of higher institution students in Nigeria? This thread is not to crucify anybody but to provide 5 Easy Steps to writing an outstanding thesis within a record time. I'll be doing this here free of charge.
If you have any question before we begin, you may ask.

1. The first step to writing an outstanding thesis is to COLLECT relevant scholarly materials on the topic given.
Quality scholarly materials are very important towards writing a good thesis. That sounds straightforward and simple. Yes, it is. However, there are some preliminary activities that you need to do. Once you have the topic (general or specific topic), you don't just besiege the Google Search engine to begin the search! No, take some chill pill and relax. Ask yourself some general logical questions about the topic.

Theoretical advice is easier to give but as a practical man, let's do some practicals. Let us have a topic and follow it up. This means that we will be writing a thesis on this thread following the proposed 5 Easy steps. Fasten your seat belt as we are on a ride to creating a good thesis if not an outstanding thesis. Pay more attention to the process and follow actively as we do the thesis together. Don't just read but be a partaker by doing. I'll be right back.

Let us pick a general topic that will appeal to a large number of people. This becomes necessary because thesis writing is very diverse; so also are the topics that we can write on. Let us, however, look at a current situation that is of concern to many people in Nigeria; issue that has implications on national development and peaceful coexistence of the country. Let us consider this topic: "Farmers and Pastoralists' Conflicts: Cause, Effect and Solution".

"Farmers and Pastoralists' Conflicts: Cause, Effect and Solution".
Yes, that is the proposed research topic! Now, let's begin.

Like I said, the first step to writing an good thesis is to COLLECT quality research materials (particularly scholarly materials) from credible sources. Already sounding too academic for your liking? What the bleep is scholarly materials?! Calm down, I will explain. The Yorubas used to say "eni so geesi nile ana lo n tumo e", loosely translated to 'a suitor who speaks big grammar to his in-law must be prepared to interpret/translate it'.
Besides, I advise that before you begin the collection of the materials, you need to ask yourself some preliminary questions.
Food for thought:
What are scholarly materials?;
Where can I find them?; and
What are the likely questions to ask given our research topic?
Well, relax and watch out for the next post. Gracias!

OP why did you stop this thread?

Scholarly materials defined.
I am not going to give technical definition of what scholarly material is. I am just going to tell you in a layman's language that 'it is any material produced by experts or individual or people adjudged to be experts in certain field of study or on certain issue, event or phenomenon. It can also refer to materials produced by authorities'. For instance, materials produced by Professor Wole Soyinka on poetry and materials produced on the economy by the National Bureau of Statistics, Trading Economics, World Bank etc are usually quality materials for use in your study. It can also be materials produced by anybody, but which has gone through vetting by experrs or peer review process. To avoid becoming James Bond or Yusuf Magaji Bichi (Director of SSS) because you are carrying out investigation to determine the materials that are scholarly and those that are not, just use materials from journals that are recognised in certain discipline or use reputable search engine for scholarly articles! No time to check time!

Where can I find them?
There are many places to get scholarly materials online and offline. I don't need to tell you that you can find them in school libraries offline and online. There are also many journals online that specialise in making scholarly articles available to researchers. Some of these journals require subscription while others don't. As a student, you may even have access to priced materials with your institution's studentship details (you may contact your school library for this).
Alternatively, you may just use special search engine with links to many of the specialised journals (particularly if you are not conducting systematic literature review). I am particularly addicted to this because ' I cannot come and kill myself trying to remember so many journals'. I use google scholar. You can also use it for free!

What are the likely questions to ask given our research topic?
Hey! We need to remember our research topic here. It's been a while but thank God that internet never forgets. A little scrow up the thread reveals our topic.
Farmers and Pastoralists' Conflicts: Cause, Effect and Solution".

To know the questions to ask, you need to look at the topic among other things. A cursory look at our topic suggests that we need to ask the following questions:
- What is the current state of the pastoralists and farmers' conflicts? This assumes that you know what conflict means..
- What are the causes of the conflicts?
- What are the conflicts' effects?
- What solutions are proposed towards resolving the conflicts?

There are many questions that a researcher can ask but considering our topic, the foregoing questions are fundamental.

At this point, we need to really look at the research questions one more time and think about the flow (sequence). Are they in logical sequence? Do they follow natural order of things? If not in natural order, any justification for that? For instance, we need to really understand what is currently happening on the issue (current state), what effect do the happenings have and what are plausible recommendations from studies towards addressing the problem?

To really do this, we need to download or access research materials on:
- Causes of the pastoralists-farmers' conficts
- Effects or consequences of the conflicts
- Solutions to the conflicts (from experience, you will most likely get the solutions from the materials that you already have on the causes and effect).

If you want to be like me, you can now besiege scholar.google.com to begin your material search. Why not! You already have your area of focus having identified key terms in your topic. Hurray!

How to search for quality research materials on scholar.google.com

There is no sense in re-inventing the wheel. I already made a YouTube video on this. You can watch it and let me know if it helps. There you go:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3K6PBgurjE&t=36s