Draw up a time-line. Make on a calendarwhen you will have the first draft of the introduction for your supervisor to review. Jot in projected dates for the various chapters and the conclusion. Pick a "best-before" date for you thesis, mark it in red on a calendar and hang it in a prominent place.
Find an issue or a problem that you want to study in depth. Find something that you are passionate about because you are going to be eating, drinking and sleeping the topic. Discuss the idea with your supervisor and check to make sure there is enough related literate available.
Narrow your original idea until it is a manageable size. Too often students pick a topic that -- like the "Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire" -- can't be handled properly within the acceptable length of an M.Ed thesis.
Do your reading and take copious notes. When you record a quote -- either in a journal or on the computer -- record all the citation information. This handy trick will save you a weekend of re-reading to find the perfect quote you need for chapter three.
Write your introduction. For a thesis, an introduction should be about four to six pages. Here you state the topic problem of your thesis and sketch in the chapters you are going to write to support your initial idea. This is the more critical part -- the cornerstone -- of your M.Ed thesis, so keep fine-tuning it until you get it right.
Review the literature and write it up. In this section you discuss the other studies related to your topic, identity the major theorists and point out any theoretical weaknesses or areas that require further work. This section should be about six to 10 pages.
Organize your methodology section. In about 10 pages, discuss the sort of methodology you used in your study and defend why it was the right choice for your particular topic.
Gather your data and present it in the results chapter. This is the longest section of your thesis -- 10 to 50 pages -- and may be broken down into two or more chapters, depending on your topic and how you want to handle it.
Reflect on your study in the conclusion chapter, and in no more than 10 pages report the results of your study. Summarize the significance of your research and indicate what needs to be done to further improve and deepen the general understanding of the topic you studied.
Write -- or re-write -- your abstract so that it is a tight presentation of the topic of your study. This pithy piece has to tell the reader exactly what to expect in a few sentences.
Finish off your M.Ed thesis with the first few pages: title page, copyright page, abstract, dedication, autobiography and acknowledgments (optional) and table of contents and list of tables and figures, if applicable.