研究生的論文可說是研究生花費最多精力和時間所完成之研究成果，對研究生而言，撰寫論文是重要的研究歷程。本研究訪談10名傳播學領域研究生，並分析這些受訪者繪製之資訊視域圖以及論文計畫書參考書目，探討傳播學領域研究生在撰寫論文過程中的資訊尋求行為。研究結果發現，傳播學領域研究生在研究題目的選擇上有跨學科領域的特色，在研究歷程中，運用的管道主要為圖書館，而使用的資源類型是以學位論文、專書、期刊為主。除了正式的管道資源外，人脈資源在其資訊尋求行為中也是非常重要，這些非正式的管道對於研究歷程有相當程度的影響，甚至會改變在正式管道上的尋求行為。而研究生在研究歷程中所遭遇之困難有：缺乏對跨學科領域背景的瞭解、無法從檢索結果中找到相關文獻等問題。綜合而言，本研究發現研究生在研究歷程中的資訊尋求行為會隨著時間演進在不同的階段而有所改變。

Thesis is the research outcome that a graduate student spends most of his or her time and energies to achieve. Therefore, the research process of student’s thesis writing is an important topic to be investigated. The main purpose of this study is to explore graduate students’ information seeking behavior during the process of thesis writing. Ten graduate students in the field of communication were interviewed, and their information horizon maps as well as bibliographical references were
analyzed also. Results showed that the library, as a formal channel, is the primary source for graduate students. The documents that they used most often were theses and dissertations, monographs, and journals. In addition to the formal channels, social network also played as a very important role in students’ research process. The networks even changed their information seeking behaviors in formal channels. Students reported several problems encountered in the research process, such as lacking
of the background knowledge of the interdisciplinary, being unable to find out the core and relevant documents from the search results, etc. In conclusion, graduate students’ information seeking behavior changed at different stages in the research process.