With a Little Help From My... Books!

Apart from being worried about the topic of my dissertation, I am also worried about developing my study and writing skills. I never had to write a dissertation before and now I have to do it in English, which is not my first language.

In order to try to do well I've acquired some books to help me not only go through this course but also to give me skills for life. I first became interested in trying to improve my memory, as I realised that I forgot everything that I read very easily and did not retain enough information. Then I learned that a good way of summarising everything that I read was to make Mind Maps. Of course that since I wanted to read so many books I desperately needed to find a way to read faster, so I bought a book about speed reading. Then I realised I needed to improve my critical thinking, since I never had to do any critical thinking during my study life in Brazil. And Finally, a book about research methods. Here is a list of my reading list together with their link to Amazon.co.uk in case anyone else wants to learn more about them:

• Your Memory: How it Works and How to Improve It


• How to Develop a Brilliant Memory


• Use Your Head


• The Mind Map Book


• Breakthrough Rapid Reading


• The Study Skills Handbook


• Critical Thinking Skills


• How to Write Better Essays


• Research Design

Technically, the list above should make my life easier... except that it also means it will take a lot of the time that I should be spending reading about tourism! But the truth is I love books, and any excuse to buy one is good enough for me! Now, if it will bring any real improvement to my dissertation, only time will tell.

Is it a Good Choice?

Problems, problems, problems already! Having chosen the aspect of tourism that I would like to write about, I realised that my topic is very wide. Entire books could be written about influence and I have to narrow it down in order to make it less than 15.000 words for my dissertation.

I also fear that perhaps it is not a very good topic at all and that I should concentrate on another aspect of tourism rather than marketing, especially since it is a course that I have not even started and don't know much about.

My wish to write about influence comes from my background of having studied one year of a Publicity and Advertising course in Brazil. I've always been very interested in how we can create a product that will be irresistible to the eyes of our customers. Also, considering that tourism is an industry that survives on making people's dreams come true, it would be very interesting to study the ways how people can be influenced in their choices.

I really hope I can put both things together as I intend to have a career in tourism marketing, identifying customers needs and developing products to match them. All that I know is that a lot of study and research needs to be done so that I can get a clearer idea of this topic and decide if it's the right one for me.

Dissertation Topic

Hello all! I'm starting this blog where I'll be posting my ideas related to my dissertation topic at the MA International Tourism Management at the University of Greenwich.

For now my intention is to write about the different ways that we can be influenced or persuaded to choose certain tourism products as opposed to others.

I hope that you can learn from it and that you also find it interesting and fun!
Enjoy it!