Unnecessary rant, read if you dare (posted in code tags to reduce the length of my post and so that you don't have to read it):
Code:
Oh for the love of god. Before I lose my cool lets back up a minute here and take a look at what has happened so far so you can follow my train of thought:
Page 1 (of this thread): You state that you are working on a thesis paper and that you need a topic and have no idea what to write about. I start asking what your you might like to write about and after you tell me that you have no idea I start spamming lots of random subjects to write about.
Page 2: Off-topic stuff that can be ignored
Page 3: I show you some interesting sources of information. You tell me that you need to write a summary and that you need to know what program to use. You do not tell us what subject you chose to write about but suggest cpu-z anyways for no apparent reason.
Page 4: I, being thoroughly confused at this point state the following:
That I really need to know what you're writing about before I can help you further:
[quote]Well it would help if we knew what you were going to write for the other 5, at least a summary.[/quote]
That choosing cpu-z as your program when you don't know what you're going to be writing about yet makes no sense:
[quote]The program you use will obviously have to be related to the specific study that you are doing. I can certainly think of a few studies that you could do, but most of the ones that come to mind would be more appropriate for a masters or doctorate degree and would take at least a few months at the bare minimum (to complete the study, not the paper). For example you could use a cache simulator to study the effects of various trade offs in cache design on a modern microarchitecture.[/quote]
And that I have no idea what an appropriate topic would be because you still haven't given me the details that I need:
[quote]
The reason I probably can't think of any appropriate topics for a bachelor's thesis is because I didn't even know that you're supposed to write a thesis for a bachelor's degree. I had always been under the impression that that was only for post-graduate degrees.[/quote]
[quote]It's just one of many random ideas to pop into my head. I still can't really provide much help unless I have some clue what you're trying to accomplish and what the established rules (rubric) are.
None of this seems particularly normal for a bachelor's degree in cs, at least not to me. [/quote]
Then you post this:
[quote]You're right about that. Most of my classmates are just designing an information system of some kind and their program just involves how that information system actually works. I will continue research online for anything else i can use and waiting for any idea somebody has but for now i guess i'm using the cpu-z program. [/quote]
And I'm thinking to myself: "ok......odd......this is absolutely nothing like what he was describing earlier. It seems like his class mates are designing a mockup system and explaining how it works. So is that what the assignment is about? Because that's totally different than writing an essay about microprocessors in general. No wonder your professor said no." At this point I am more confused than ever.
You then say this:
[quote]I intend to have one of my aims and objectives as the components of a processor and how the processor actually processes data so a cpu-z like program to actually list a few properties of the processor dosent sound like a bad idea......right?[/quote]
If this is your idea than cpu-z is totally unrelated.
I then ask you again for a summary so that I have some clue what you want from me:
[quote]Please write that summary of your proposal so that we have some idea what you're trying to do here. [/quote]
Then I ask again, this time trying to hint at the lack of a proper subject or info.:
[quote]I still don't have a clue what you're trying to do here since "I'm writing a paper about processor architectures" doesn't tell me very much. But I think that at this point I can safely say that whatever you write your paper about has to be fairly simple and involve research/data that has already been done. This is just a final term paper for a bachelor's degree, you're not out to contribute anything major to the world, not yet anyways. [/quote]
And yet again:
[quote]JUST WRITE THE DAMN SUMMARY![/quote]
Finally I get the summary. Finally some answers! But nope. There is nothing there. It's extremely incomplete and indecisive.
At this point I still don't know (ignore this section and take a look at the questions section I made at the bottom of the post):
-what you're doing (what the assignment is about?)
-why you're doing it (what is the point of this assignment?)
-what the requirements of the assignment are (rubric please?)
-what the requirements of the topic are (if any)
-how the topic is supposed to be presented (is this is a research paper? I still have no idea. It seems more like you're trying to write a general lecture/expository essay from what you've told me so far.)
-what topic have you chosen? (you can't pick a program until you know this)
Ignore the above section and take a look at the questions section I made at the bottom of the post.
What I'm guessing based on the extremely limited information I have so far:
1. That this is not a research paper. From what you've told me so far none of your classmates are doing a research paper.
2. That for some reason this is supposed to be formatted like a research paper even though you're not doing any actual research (thus the 6 point proposal).
3. That this is not designed to be a true thesis, just a final term paper. The kind that you might do for any upper level undegraduate course. Thus you are not expected to produce anything of real value and the expectations aren't very high.
4. Ummmm......uhhhh.....I guess that's it
Now let's take a look at the preliminary summary:
Zee530 Wrote:3. SIGNIFICANCE
*Okay, I’m working on this part, “Achieve a better understanding of processors” dosent sound very ideal to me.
No, it doesn't. That's why I specifically said earlier:
NaturalViolence Wrote:I still don't have a clue what you're trying to do here since "I'm writing a paper about processor architectures" doesn't tell me very much.
There has to be some actual goal to your paper if this is indeed a research paper (which I'm still not sure about since you haven't provided that info. yet, seriously what are you trying to do here?).
Zee530 Wrote:2. SCOPE OF THE STUDY
*All those subtopics you gave me on that thread as well as a couple more I discovered along the way*
Those were topics for you to pick from. You can't just pick all of them, if you do your essay has no direction whatsoever and is essentially just you talking about random microprocessor concepts from 50+ pages.
Zee530 Wrote:* Online questionnaire
Questionnaire? On what?
Zee530 Wrote:* To design a program that ……(That’s where you come in)
Zee530 Wrote:*I’ll leave this to you, we’re to also specify a programming language,
Oh so now you're writing a program instead of just picking a program to use for research!?!?!
You do realize that I need to know this before I can offer any suggestions right? This completely changes everything
Zee530 Wrote:since I’m writing for processors,
What does that even mean?
Zee530 Wrote:do I have to use something like visual basic?*
I.....what?
I'm not sure what the question is here. And visual basic is extremely high level language designed to be simplified as much as possible. Once again, what are you trying to do?
Since you "picked" cpu-z I was under the impression that you were picking a program to use as a source of data for your paper. But now you're saying that you have to write your own program. So then why did you even mention cpu-z in the first place?
What I really need to know:
1. What is the level of bullshit in this class? Whenever I take a class I can quickly gain an understanding of what is expected of me in that class. Is this the kind of class where he's going to give you a good grade if you just produce a long a essay that makes it sound like you know a lot about computers? Or does he expect more from you? Even if it's not for a class this question still applies.
2. Why is he having you do the project? More specifically what does he want from you? Does he just want to know that you understand computer science at least a little bit? Does he expect you to demonstrate specific knowledge learned in a class? Does he want you to produce a legitimately useful research paper? Does he care about the research aspect at all?
3. What class is this? What is it about? Or is this a general degree requirement that is not associated with any class (your original post suggests the latter, but I must be sure)?
4. What are your class mates doing (be more specific this time)?
5. Do you have a formal rubric? If so for the love of god post it here. (this is the most important question of all)
6. What on earth is that "5. System Model/ Program" section doing in there? Why is it there? What are the requirements for it?
7. What are the requirements of the topic (if any)?
8. How is the topic supposed to be presented? (is this is a research paper? I still have no idea. It seems more like you're trying to write a general lecture/expository essay from what you've told me so far.)
9. What topic would you like to choose and how would you present it?
10. Originally you said "required to write a project/paper/thesis on anything pertaining to their course of study", microprocessors are definitely related to computer science. But then later you implied that your supervisor assigned you an ICT topic and refused to let you write about microprocessors. And that you basically had to beg him/her to let you do it. So what changed?
If you had just provided a rubric or some general requirements when I originally asked you we wouldn't have needed to go through all of this. Now I've got to get some sleep.
