The mobilization meeting of the 2022 mid-term assessment of master of laws of Law School was successfully held online on the evening of September 18, 2021. The mobilization meeting for the mid-term assessment was hosted by the Master of Laws Education Center of Beijing Normal University Law School (hereinafter referred to as "Law Master Center"), and attended by Ms. Zhang Xiaoting, Director of Law Master Center, Mr. Yuan Zhijie, Associate Dean of Law School, and Mr. Sun Xinkuan, Deputy Director of Law Master Center. In addition, Professor Liu Peifeng from the Law School was invited to share with the 2022 Master of Law students about the opening of graduation thesis and how to write the opening report. The mobilization meeting was presided over by Ms. Zhang Xiaoting, Director of Law Master Center of Law School, and all the 2022 law master students participated in this lecture.
At the beginning of the meeting, Ms. Zhang Xiaoting introduced the specific process of the meeting to the students. The meeting is mainly divided into two parts. In the first part, the leaders and teachers of the Law Master Center mobilized the commencement of the graduation thesis of the 2022 Master of Law. In the second part, Professor Liu Peifeng shared with the students the specific methods and suggestions for opening the graduation thesis.
First of all, Ms. Zhang Xiaoting explained to the students that the upcoming mid-term assessment is the key point in the postgraduate study career of the 2022 law master students, and it is the test and assessment of the students' learning achievements in the past two years. Therefore, students should pay attention to the upcoming graduation thesis and corresponding examination procedures, especially to academic norms and academic integrity.
Next, Professor Yuan Zhijie once again emphasized the importance of graduation thesis from the perspective of college management. Professor Yuan Zhijie emphasized that graduation thesis writing is the last step for law master students to complete their academic credits, and shoulders the dual tasks of "training" and "assessment". The essence of setting graduation thesis assessment is to cultivate and improve students' writing ability in this process. Professor Yuan Zhijie believes that thought needs to be expressed through the structure of language. Besides writing skills, research ability is another important aspect of graduation thesis assessment. Especially for legal persons, the changes of the times are changing with each passing day, and the challenges that students will face in the future are also numerous. Therefore, research ability is a powerful tool for future legal persons to explore the truth in ambiguity and defend justice in chaos. In practical terms, writing is also a necessary skill for students in the workplace in the future. First of all, we should correct our mentality of writing graduation thesis, and strive to lay a solid foundation in writing graduation thesis. Accepting strict and standardized academic writing training will be of great benefit to all students when they go to work. Secondly, Professor Yuan Zhijie reminds students to keep in mind at all times—On the construction of personality. Especially in the era of open information, we should strictly abide by academic norms and adhere to academic integrity.
At the end of the mobilization meeting, Sun Xinkuan, the deputy director of Law Master Center, explained to the students other matters needing attention in thesis writing in a simple way, combining with his study experience in Germany. Teacher Sun Xinkuan shared that during his study in Germany, he had to submit a seminar report. At that time, the students around me not only attached great importance to the content of the article, but also attached great importance to the format of the report. The printing shop on campus also provided excellent services accordingly. Whether the report cover is even small or binding, it can be called "exquisite". This little thing made Sun Xinkuan realize the importance of "formalism" again, and found that "internal pragmatism" and "external form" did not conflict, both of which were rigorous and serious. In this way, Mr. Sun Xinkuan also reminded the students that they must pay attention to proofreading in thesis writing, avoid primary mistakes such as typos and punctuation misuse, and never let their thoughts and opinions be influenced by forms.
The second part of the conference is the first lecture of a series of lectures on thesis writing and instruction. Thesis and Guidance Lecture is a series of lectures specially set up by Law Master Center to improve graduates' thesis writing ability, with a total of three lectures. Each lecture will invite experts to provide methodological guidance for students aiming at the difficult problems in thesis writing. In the first lecture, Professor Liu Peifeng combined his thesis writing experience and the problems that appeared in guiding students' writing in the past, and made an in-depth discussion with the students of the 2022 Master of Law on the topic selection of the thesis and how to write the opening report.
First of all, from the teacher's standpoint, Professor Liu Peifeng expressed his understanding that students can't write legal papers, and encouraged students to write bravely. Professor Liu Peifeng believes that the best way to finish a paper is to start writing, and the form of construction is the necessary prerequisite for the output content. Before writing a paper, we must first make clear the goal to be achieved in the paper. It is necessary to express one's own thoughts clearly in the article, lay out the structure of the article reasonably, and make proper trade-offs for the content and information. Secondly, in view of the topic selection of graduation thesis, Professor Liu Peifeng thinks that we should take interest as the guide, fully combine the advantages of the complex background of the master of law, and select specific and minor topics on the basis of full communication with the thesis instructor. The topic selection of the thesis can not only be a practical problem to be solved urgently in the society, but also be a frontier problem that is compatible with students' future career development. However, we should always remember that the topic selection of the thesis should not be too ambitious, and we should choose a topic that matches the current research ability of master students, so as to avoid the imbalance of practical significance in the research results of the thesis. Finally, Professor Liu Peifeng once again stressed that both the present graduation thesis writing and the future career research should strive to show a broad vision in small problems. We should not only pay attention to finding the breakthrough point of problems in facts and norms, but also pay attention to the particularity of the discipline of law, listen to the voice of problems of the times, and strive for the balance between norms and reality.