Dr FWELEY DIANGITUKWA

 HOW TO WRITE

A DISSERTATION OR A BACHELOR

THESIS?WHAT YOU SHOULD

KNOW ANDWHAT YOU SHOULD

NEVER FORGET

Who am I ?• With PhD in economics and social science (department:

political science), Fweley Diangitukwa has taught at the University of Geneva. He was Associate Professor at Schiller International University/American College of Switzerland, Leysin (Switzerland) and has worked with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) in Geneva. A former journalist in Switzerland and in the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) and President General Director of the National Tourist Office (ONT). He is the author of many books published by Editions L'Harmattan, including: What is power?, 2004; Geopolitics, Regional Integration and Globalization, 2006; Election Fraud - How One Re-Colonizes the DRC, 2007; International Migration, Co-development and Decentralized Cooperation, 2008; The Powerful Countries and African oil, 2009; The Theory of Conspiracy against Africa - Why Africa Does not Develop, 2010, Governance, Public action and Participative Democracy.

Plan

• - Introduction• - Candidates for Bachelor's degree• - How to choose a good topic• - How to formulate the initial question• - How to gather a solid documentation• - Documentation based on empirical

facts versus theoretical work

• - How to choose the scientific method (theory) that can best treat the topic

• - The stages of research• - Writing the introduction• - The problématique is central to the thinking• - How to choose a methodology• - How to conceive a good plan of writing• - How to write the conclusion• - Presentation of the final manuscript to the supervisor• - Preparing the Bibliography• - Acknowledgements and dedication• - How to prepare the defense

Introduction 5• Students who choose to continue their university studies after

secondary school have different reasons for doing so. • A. Some of them want just to obtain a university degree which

gives them the opportunity to find a job that guarantees a good salary. Throughout their university studies, these students think constantly about their future work.

• B. There are others who continue their studies because they do not know what to do, or simply because they want to emulate their elders, or their parents require that they attend university because undertaking university studies has become fashionable.

• C. Then, there are students who enter university with clear and specific ideas in their head: they are interested in the intellectual work, through research, because they want to contribute to the field.

• In this course, you will find throughout the pages some practical advice and suggestions that will be very useful for you.

• It will guide and help you in choosing the topic of your enquiry, in formulating the initial question, and planning your work. It aims to explain the techniques of social science research in order to support any candidate who must write a dissertation for bachelor’s degree, master’s degree or a doctoral thesis, as the basic approach for these two types of exercise is the same. This is only a guide written for students involved in writing a research paper and who do not know how to go straight to their goal. The advice in this course gives ideas to students to do well, so they are not blocked, especially at the beginning of their work but also it helps the student to refine the area of specialization.

• You will find everything you need to know before you embark on the adventure and the pitfalls to avoid in order not to be discouraged or to abandon the project after investing time and energy in it. To write a dissertation, and especially a thesis, is an arduous, time-consuming task and it should not be taken lightly.

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• There are always more students who start writing a thesis than who finish it. It is necessary to go beyond that, to know how to use or to implement all the concepts learned in order to meaningfully help the advancement of human knowledge.

• Can the subject to be investigated, be born in the head of the researcher or is it the result of hard work, work that must be done in order to clarify what we want to undertake and the goal we intend to reach? Experience demonstrates that nothing can be done or won without work.

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• Those who have clear ideas from the beginning of their studies have an advantage over the others because, they gather the documentation little by little as they progress in through their studies. They observe the instructors and form an opinion of those who may be approached in the future to supervise their thesis if they succeed in their initial studies. It is among these students that the length of time writing their thesis is shorter. During their studies, they choose courses and their reading according to the final goal. They start very early to note the references of books that will interest them later in their studies. In short, these students tend to anticipate and, as we know, anticipation has never been a bad approach in life.

• You can start thinking about the choice of research if you have not yet done so. When you decide to write a dissertation or thesis and from the time you make this decision, start collecting references and planning your studies and time accordingly.

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• Ideally, it is better to choose a dissertation that will you continue to study in the master's degree. This dissertation should be seen as a preparation for the doctoral thesis that might follow.

• Even if at the beginning of the process, a student vaguely knows the subject they would like to study, writing a dissertation or thesis is a long, difficult and daunting task. This is because the student does not know in detail how to approach the subject and how to effectively lead their research. Despite this, it is necessary to engage in research so that the writing ceases to seem exhausting. Gradually, as the student advances in the manuscript, they find pleasure in discovering and developing new ideas and realises that the task at hand is not as difficult as initially feared. As Senèque said: “This is not because things are difficult that we dare not, but because we do not dare they are difficult”.

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• This course is just a guide. It will never replace the work that the researcher has to do in order to contribute to the advancement of universal knowledge. It does not include only references of texts written by authors who have written on the same theme but more; I have gathered the best ideas so that a new researcher has everything with him and so that writing up his research becomes, in part, facilitated.

• I use dissertation and thesis inter-changeably to refer to a major piece of written work required in post-graduate studies. However, generally “dissertation” refers to the work required in bachelor and master program, and “thesis” the doctoral program. This course essentially provides ideas and advice to complete either work. The writing of a dissertation or thesis begins with the choice of a subject on which discussions will be held.

• At the beginning, everything is hypothetical..

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11 Intellectual and psychological preparation

• Intellectual and psychological preparation is necessary in order to choose a subject and to complete the research very well. This implies the need to make good choice of readings during the first year but especially after the second academic year. From the beginning, students who would like to spend their life in doing research, must pay attention to a wise choice of the intellectual trajectory that they intend to follow; the choice of interests (disciplines), methodology, depth of knowledge (pure theoretical or applied field survey), for example.– It is not enough to have a subject of a thesis and a

supervisor, moreover the proposal thesis must be accepted by an academic committee which decides on the various topics presented by the students. This requirement obliges the candidates to write an essay of some twenty to thirty pages in which each student presents their subject and defend its originality. He explains what he purportedto be new in the field of knowledge. He also adds, in advance, a provisional bibliography, and the name of the supervisor (or supervisors) he has approached.

• Do not forget that to write a dissertation or thesis is a long journey, sometimes exhausting and discouraging. The student must have a strong will to go through it.

• If you consult original, relevant and serious documents, there is a strong chance that the supervisor will help you to finish your dissertation.

• So it is very important to advise the student who chooses to spend a part of his life in research to know how to write dissertation. The earlier one is told, the better one prepares to avoid the potential pitfalls in the future, among which are the control of a suitable methodology and the subject but and also the theoretical knowledge, and the scientific approach. Students, who do not master the question of the knowledge of the field in which they will write their thesis and methodology adapted to the subject, find very difficult to proceed with the conceptualization, with the plan of work and with the thesis itself, and finally in the validation of the hypothesis he held.

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• There is no theoretical argument without knowledge and without methodology. It is always very important to choose the most appropriate scientific approach related to the research and to use the most appropriate methodology that can easily handle the subject.

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14 Candidates for Master's

• As life is an endless learning, no research has been written in one day. Research work is built progressively: daily, weekly, monthly and annually.

• Do you intend to write a dissertation for your bachelor or your master’s degree? Have you fulfilled the requirements and received permission from the department and your supervisor? Before you begin the research, take the time to read two good dissertations

• By “good”, I mean read the most important documents concerning the same subject as yours in order to widen your thinking. If you do not, your approach may be criticised for not being scientific, and later one member of the jury (if not all members) will may make the same criticism. There is nothing worse than learning to late that there was an essential document that you did not read. Your supervisor may give you some titles if he was already supervised the research work of earlier students.

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• Think seriously and deeply before you begin the research. If you do it early enough, your ideas will continue to mature in your head as you progress through the research. Write down ideas that sometimes came intuitively. An initial question, a hypothesis, write it all down. No dissertation or thesis has been written in a few days or a few weeks. All research work gradually takes shape.

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• For example, the initial question may be: Does the dependence of Zimbabwe on powerful countries, explain the under-development of this country?

• This initial question will be the main axis of thought on which will be added a problématique called too “a set of questions” and working hypotheses. The student must be able to work from this and be able to provide some answers. In their approach, they should not deviate from the initial question. This initial question must be formulated clearly and precisely. Its meaning must not give any confusion and every reader must have the same understanding of the question.

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• When the student formulates the initial question, they must consider the time and resources (financial and logistical) that they will have and that will enable them to provide valid answers within the time limit. Do not hold a subject which can have multiple interpretation or with a moral connotation because “the confusion between analysis and value judgments is quite common and not always easy to detect”. Moral questions are very controversial and it is unlikely that all readers will have the same opinion. Its demonstration is often subjective. Student must also avoid a question with which it is possible to answer by yes or no, for example: do the dictators abuse their compatriots?

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• An initial question must be a real issue, one which raises a debate in which the positions are difficult to take in the beginning because many answers are possible and the certainty is difficult without a prior demonstration. A good initial question is one that deserves an explanation before agreeing an answer. It must fulfil three requirements: clarity, feasibility and relevance.

• “A good initial question should be a 'real issue' or an 'open' question, that is to say that many different answers must be considered a priori and that one is not conditioned by the certainty of a ready-made answer”  

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• A dissertation or thesis begins with an intention followed by a choice of topic or theme that will keep you busy throughout your research and during the period of writing. First of all, we must clearly identify the subject, which means to understand very well the subject when and where the problem occurred and to who, in combination with an understanding and awareness of what has already been written and said about the subject.

• If no one else has worked on this subject, ask yourself why and what new ideas will contribute to advance the knowledge on this particular subject, what will be your personal contribution in this field.

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• If you are sure that your topic has never been treated and that you will bring new ideas, approach the individual you think could supervise your dissertation or thesis. When going to see them, you must show a real interest about the subject and an understanding of the theme. Take care to prepare a few pages before this visit: on the first page, you must write the provisional title and in the other pages a summary of the topic on which you plan to work, highlighting the provisional objective you intend to achieve by working on this specific problem.

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• If a potential professor advises you to change the subject and offers you one of his own, follow his advice, but ask yourself if you are passionated about the topic. Some professors use students to advance their own research and they pick ideas up in the theses of the students that they supervise. Pay attention to that.

• If you have chosen a subject that you are excited about, but you can not gather the necessary documentation, talk to your supervisor and propose to interviewing subjects, for example, research in the field if possible. Otherwise, you must abandon this risky project. It must be said that some graduate students can not complete their thesis because of a lack of documentation. And lack of documents comes from a bad search of information.

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• The best way to reduce hours of working is to get started sooner, if possible, to start thinking during your bachelor’s degree and begin in your seminar papers, for example in writing such a dissertation for the master research that will find its continuation in the thesis by bringing together gradually documentation you may need if you manage to find a supervisor and to admit the subject. It is important that some of your work in bachelor’s degree are part of a personal strategy, anticipating the future. “A thesis is part of a strategy. Since your bachelor you have to think about the orientation of your master’s degree, and when you have your master, you must think of your PhD”.

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• The dissertation or thesis is a three-step process. The first corresponds to the initial situation which raises the initial question which pushes us to conduct serious reflection.

• To write a dissertation is a way to find an explanation or even a solution to the question we have asked. The second step is the masterly demonstration that enable us to reach the third step which is the submission of the dissertation or the defense of the thesis from the hypotheses we have chosen. To achieve this work, we need a methodology adapted to the topic.

• Methodology : you can choose : documentary research, field survey and so on.

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25 How to choose a good topic• You must choose a topic that will interest you

as you will be identified in relation to this subject, which can stick to your skin, for the rest of your life. You will become an expert (a reference) in this area. For example, one who decided to work on ‘political power’ may spend the rest of their life on this theme, exploring the different aspects of political life. The choice of subject must be made according to its own interests or according to a societal problem that needs to be thought about or gone deeper into with a view to finding a response. But to choose a good topic, you must have previously acquired good general knowledge.

• “Research is by definition something we are looking for. It is a way towards a better knowledge and must be accepted as such, with all that it involves, including hesitation, mistakes and uncertainty. Many live this reality as a paralyzing anxiety: while others recognize it as normal and, in a word, challenging”.

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• Your topic will fit when:• - there are things to say,• - it creates a real interest or a real debate,• - it is a subject on which it is possible to work

for a few years and provide new insights,• - it is not a subject on which anyone has worked

too much (unless there are new ideas that deserve to be brought to the attention of academia),

• - documentation is available (without documentation, it is quickly a deadlock),

• - it creates a new area/field and time is need to be devoted to studying it.

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• Supervisor will not accept a vague title, or a subject that is too broad such as this: “The economic crisis in the oil-producing countries”. But a subject such as: “The causes of the economic crisis in the oil-producing countries between 2009-2011” can arouse real interest if understanding of these causes can prevent future crises. “Also to avoid ‘funnel titles’ where one speaks of a broad theme and within the title narrows it, such as ‘The Problem of Underdevelopment. The Case of Africa. Copper in the Bamba’”.

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• The importance of history in scientific knowledge

•  • The reference to history is imperative in all

scientific research because science is not innate, it has an evolution. “Every economic, legal, social and political phenomenon is the result of history. It is therefore necessary to provide the elements to put a question in historical context in order to understand and facilitate the analysis of its origins and its development”.

• The initial question shows the direction and ensures consistency of the overall work. A good starting question is always based on a conceptual framework, that is to say, it is based on a theory.

• It is enriched by the documentation that one gathers or by interviews.

31 Interviews

• During interviews, avoid taking too many notes and record what the interviewee is saying so that you do not miss ideas. As Marc Catana said, it is necessary to ask questions, try to get a description of different aspects of the problem (sociological, psychological, economic, political, legal and institutional, for instance) and to take into account how the problem is experienced by the main protagonists: the population, the professional hierarchies, institutions, and so on.

• The main question is used to develop the problématique, to focus research and construct a coherent plan of work. It must be clear, concise, precise, serious, critical, realistic, and properly formulated. It is necessary to avoid a vague or unclear question because the initial question must be the key with which one opens all the doors of the house (a thesis in this case). It must enable the researcher to know where they are going, and to make it clear to readers (the supervisor and members of the jury).

• Hypotheses come from this question, also the questionings, a hierarchy of thinking, and the choice of theoretical framework on which the reasoning will be based. With the initial question, the researcher must ensure that the documentation he has will enable him to find valid answers to the questions that the work will raise. Remember, the more accumulated notes you have, the more the dissertation or thesis will be facilitated.

• In selecting the initial question, the student should never forget the fact that “the primary mission of the researcher in social sciences is to make intelligible the world around him”. And for this, he must be intellectually curious and develop this faculty.

• Advice: place the initial question on the screen of your computer so you never get away from this red thread that guides the rest of your work. If you work with a computer, write the initial question on one page in large letters and stict it up on your desktop.

How to find a good supervisor profile

The choice of supervisor is an essential and delicate stage, sometimes risky because it can be a source of motivation, encouragement or discouragement.

• Certainly the research is the responsibility of the student, the supervisor being just a guide and that will never work in place of the student. However, his advice and availability are essential. However, one can have a good supervisor and not write a good thesis, but when a good student, a hard working, someone who is motivated and inquisitive, works with a good supervisor, the result is generally encouraging.

• The teaching abilities of instructors can also contribute to choosing a theme and subject. It is rare that a student chooses a topic in a course that was very poorly presented and in which he had no motivation. However, the professor who is able to interest students in his course is more likely to be asked to supervise the research of bachelor, master’s dissertation and/or doctoral thesis. One who excites the curiosity of students, who creates a certain harmony between his course and intellectual questionings of the students will be very much more in demand than his colleagues.

• Make a good choice of supervisor who will be your “guide” throughout your research. Find out if they have already published books in the area you are going to work in, if the students they have supervised have been satisfied, if they take the time to read the work that students give him, how long he takes to respond to them and if he is open to discussion, and accepts contradiction. But remember that you are solely responsible for your thesis and it is you who will be judged. The supervisor will never write the thesis for you. Their role is to advise you, guide you, encourage you, but also criticize you and make suggestions in order to improve the quality of your research.

• The supervisor gradually discovers the depth of your research even if they have an initial idea about the subject. Convince them that you know the subject, and they can also learn from you.

• Remember, you have a thesis to defend and you are solely responsible for it. You have an overview and you know clearly the direction you are taking. The supervisor gradually discovers the depth of your research even if they (she or he) have an initial idea about the subject.

How to gather a solid documentation

• The quality of the work very much depends on the methodological and critical mind of the student and his investment in the understanding of the phenomenon studied, requiring a historical approach and the collection of all variety of data (qualitative and quantitative) helpful for putting in a conspicuous position of the relevance of the topic chosen, for himself and for the social context in which the facts are inserted

• The quality of the work very much depends on the methodological and critical mind of the student and his investment in the understanding of the phenomenon studied, requiring a historical approach and the collection of all variety of data (qualitative and quantitative) helpful for putting in a conspicuous position of the relevance of the topic chosen, for himself and for the social context in which the facts are inserted

• “The establishment of good documentation (information sources) is the starting point for any research that aims to serious and fruitful. Access to good sources - and thus relevant information - will enable to write a good scientific work that will be appreciated by the jury. This first collection of information through reference books effectively helps clarify the concepts involved in the subject: terms, synonyms, related concepts, etc. It will also show the names, events, geographic locations and concepts that will be 'keywords' (descriptors) for further research. The element that makes this mental gymnastics is information”.

• Made a systematic exploration of the literature available. If you work with a computer, type the keywords of your subject into a search engine like Google or Yahoo. You can even enter the full title of your dissertation or thesis. The search engine should tell you if someone in the world, has already dealt with the same or a similar subject. You could find some articles or books, which refer to your need. Then retain the documents that are useful and relevant. In the mass of documents on the Internet, only a few will be critical to your research and will help you identify very well the problem.

• Browse the documents to get an idea of the content and to assess the relevance of each document, because as one says: “to have a good document has already solved part of the problem”. Later, you will read the selecte documents that have direct relation to your topic more deeply. Be selective, do not forget that “the abundance of information poorly integrated ends up confusing the ideas”.

• Under certain conditions, you can ask a book from abroad. Do all you can to get the books that you consider essential for your research. It is better to read a few texts in-depth, that serious and directly relate to the subject, than get lost in some texts that are not really necessary. In any case, it is impossible to conduct a research without reading a minimum of reference works on the same theme.

• “The documentary methodology is, logically, the alpha and omega of the scientific work.

• In support of this argument, Jacques Delors says: “the control of documentary methodology has become the guarantee of academic and professional success”. If you do not do it early, you may find out later that the thesis (the main idea) that you have defended in your research has already been destroyed with solid arguments by another researcher.

• There is no thesis without extensive documentation. It is the foundation in any research. Gather the most important information concerning the subject on which you will work, seeking to know what has already been written, debated, argued, emphasized, “the theories or hypotheses proposed, the main theoretical constructs or interpretations. For that, the student must ‘go around’ the main existing publications: articles, studies or reports, theses and academic papers, books published”. Documentation must look like the set of materials that enable the construction of the house.

• Student should not repeat what has already been demonstrated, proved, shown, stated or destroyed. Start with a book or a recent article, look at the bibliography and use the “rise of networks” method to find other books and articles on the same theme. From the most recent to the oldest book, note all ideas that will be use, notably the references. Make a wise choice of reading.

• Part of your research could be conducted on the Internet. You may gradually build the bibliography from the footnotes page. But the Internet can be a source of a problem beyond being a solution in research. Be as demanding with respect to the competence of the authors of the articles you find, as to the quality of sources and reliability of the sites where the documents were found. Today everyone writes articles on the Internet. Retain only those signed by people whose expertise is recognized. As for new authors, try to discover and appreciate them by typing their names into a search engine.

• Beware of the temptation of plagiarism. This kind of theft is punished severely in academic and intellectual centers. If the case is severe, you may be fired and your dream of becoming a “boachelor" will be stopped because of a theft of ideas from others. In a dissertaton or thesis, citations serve only as support to the arguments presented by the student. And since we should not re-invent the wheel, our work must support, or be supported by the truth of the subject which has already been demonstrated by other seasoned researchers.

• “Knowledge is cumulative, the writing of the thesis is based on previously acquired knowledge and information made by the observation of reality. The citations and data come from work done in the past by one or more persons, who themselves have highlighted earlier work and so on. In the thesis, this work should be cited in a particular way so they can be easily identified”.

• Do not forget that the constitution of your own librairy is the first step towards the profession of researcher.

Documentation based on empirical facts versus

theoretical work • The concept is defined as a general and

abstract mental representation of an object.

• Research based on empirical evidence can take one of two directions: either the student seeks to achieve a pioneering work (which is much more rewarding), in order to give the point of view of a particular or precise question, or it is a work of synthesis (which is more common). In the second case, the student will have developed a kind of database to summarize the various documents on which he worked.

• The student can work on one concept, in which case, he must “show the origins of the concept and how it is used today. Did its use evolve over time? Was this concept very fashionable at a precise moment in the past and has it been forgotten? Or is it a concept in vogue at present and the curious student will seek to know the reasons?”.

• In reality, it is difficult to establish a line between empirical and theoretical research because the division between the two is artificial. Empirical work is developed from a theoretical knowledge that one has of the surrounding world or of objects that we observe. It is this knowledge that enables them to retain a theoretical hypotheses of work. Sometimes, it happens, in theoretical reflection, that the student supports his ideas with empirical examples taken from history or current events to better support the hypotheses. The student must not forget that the ultimate goal of the methodology is to get responses to questions and hypotheses.

• In the case of a work based on empirical facts, the field survey can take many forms: a case study (this may be a country, an institution, an administrative entity, a company or a poultry farm, for example), a survey on a representative sample or on an entire target population, a study of a specific problem (local governance, the state of the intercommunality, piracy, poverty in countries producing raw materials or countries that sell cocoa, and so on). In these cases, the working method should be appropriate and carefully chosen.

• The survey work is carried out using a questionnaire formulated according to the working hypotheses or by a guide of interview. It enables the construction of comings and goings between the categories of theoretical analysis and experience in the field (hypotheses towards the field and vice versa from the field to the hypotheses of theoretical analysis). If you plan to conduct an investigation, survey or an interview, it is very important to think of writing the questions and how the interviews will be conducted and recorded. Think of ways to collect the data and its reliability.

• For each question, one must ask if the information to collect will match the level of detail you need in the subsequent phase of research. The student has to ask how to measure the reliability of the information collected and how to connect that information with the rest of the work.

• Before trying to meet experts and those who are directly involved in your survey, it is necessary to investigate whether similar surveys have been conducted by other researchers. If they have, it is necessary to know the results of these surveys and whether it is worthwhile to initiate a new investigation.

• In the case of the field, the gain of the thesis lies in the analysis and explanation of the facts.

• For a case study, one must know the area which will be studied and if the work will be accepted or not and what are the possible difficulties to overcome. But they can also conduct research in statistical data from specialized agencies on a particular theme or work in a department of archives, in a municipality, in a company, an international organization or an NGO.

• You must have good knowledge of the problématique (see below) before going into the field, because if the work is sloppy, it will be difficult to have a second meeting, a second survey or a second interview. So the field work must be done either too early or too late, that is to say when the argument is ripe. Othewise it will be difficult to ask pertinent questions or to have a truly useful survey and get good information?

• Reading books directly related to the research will encourage you to think, to formulate questions, hypotheses, and perhaps to open debate and to raise some doubts, to fill areas of ignorance. After reading a few books related to the topic, you should be able to narrow your topic and “decide which areas you will focus your research on, the area you will focus your effort in, and the materials you will need for a deepr understanding”.

How to choose the scientific method (theory) that can best

treat the topic

• Demonstration in scientific research is generally based on inductivism. In this field, knowledge is derived from the facts through observation and experience. Personal opinion, speculation and imagination do not count.

• Induction is a process of reasoning by which a general conclusion is drawn from particular instances.

• Deduction is the fact or process of subtracting. It is a process of reasoning by which a conclusion necessarily follows from a set of general premises.

• In the scientific research, knowledge is derived from the facts through observation and experience. Personal opinion, speculation and imagination do not count. In the words of Alan F. Chalmers, “scientific knowledge is knowledge objectively proven”. This idea was defended by J. J. Davies, who wrote: “Science is a construction built on facts”. The results of observations or experimentation give general assertions known as universal terms.

• The generalization of these singular terms of observation is transformed into universal law. But to achieve this result, it is essential that the number of terms of observation that forms the basis of the generalization be high, that the observations be repeated in a variety of conditions, and finally that no term of observation accepted can conflict with the derived universal law. In this kind of approach, the absence of conflict is an essential point, because it is from that we move from the specific to the general and that we reach inductive reasoning.

• The induction is as follows: “If a large number of A were observed in very varied circumunstances, and if we observe that all A without exception possess the property B, then all A have property B”. “The construction starts from the observation. The indicator is empirical in nature. From this, we construct new concepts, new hypotheses and thus, the model that we will submit to test reality”. With the induction, reasoning comes from the facts established by observation to reach the rules and theories.

• Examples given by the professor.

• On the other hand, with deduction, we start from rules and theories to arrive at predictions and explanations. Hypothetico-deductive reasoning based on the observation enables the deduction in three stages. It starts from general to specific.

• Example of a syllogism: • 1. All men are mortal. • 2. Or Fweley is a man. • 2. Therefore Fweley is mortal. • There is no exception. One will not say “many

men are mortal” but “all men are mortal”.

• In the example above, the first two propositions are the premises and the third is the conclusion. If the premises are true, the conclusion is necessarily true. Similarly, if the premises are false, the conclusion is necessarily false. Thus, in front of a reality that one can not control, it is possible to misinterpret the world by establishing false premises that lead to false rules and theories.

• Deductive reasoning is limited to what was observed, and it does not go beyond that.

• It is generally accepted that experimentation which is possible in exact sciences, is difficult in social sciences.

• I advise the use of hypothetico-inductive method for researchers who are taking their first steps in the field and discoveries for the first time. In this logic, one starts from the observation and moves to the rules. However, the hypothetico-deductive method says exactly the opposite. We start from general and moves to the particular or from top to bottom. In reality, the two approaches are complementary and not opposed.