Writing the Thesis
Your principal adviser on all matters to do with writing your thesis is your supervisor. You should submit work to your supervisor at regular intervals according to an agreed timetable, not all at once in order to beat a deadline. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, most candidates make mistakes, both of a conceptual and stylistic nature, which can easily be put right in the first chapter and need not occur again. Secondly, a supervisor who is presented with several first drafts (many supervisors have more than one student to supervise) at or close to key submission dates cannot necessarily be expected to respond quickly.
You should begin by reading a few reference books on the conducting of research and writing for higher degrees. There are many available in libraries, but here are a few:
- Phillips, E. M. and Pugh, D. S. (1987; 2nd ed. 1993). How to Get a PhD, Milton Keynes: Open University Press. (This book is a must).
- Bell, J. (1987). Doing Your Research Project: A Guide for First-time Researchers in Education and Social Science , Milton Keynes: Open University Press (very basic).
- Evans, D. (1995). How to Write a Better Thesis or Report , Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
- Long, T. J., Convey, J. J. and Chwalek, A. R. (1986). Completing Dissertations in the Behavioural Sciences and Education , San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
- Mauch, J. E. and Birch, J. W. (1989). Guide to the Successful Thesis and Dissertation: Conception to Publication , New York: Marcel Dekker.
In one sense you can begin writing from the first day - that is, you should become accustomed to putting your ideas on paper, and to making bibliographical summaries and critical notes. Good writing takes practice. By writing from the start, you will save yourself time and mitigate anxiety about the final draft. No piece of writing is ever wasted. Some people find it helpful to work on several areas at any given time. If you encounter problems in one area, move on to another. Distancing yourself from a problem is often the first step to its solution. Others prefer to write in a strictly linear fashion.
Your writing must be clear, succinct, logical and grammatical. Your supervisor will make comments on these aspects of your work, but cannot be expected to translate your prose into readable English. Use technical terms (which you should define) where appropriate, but avoid using jargon and clichés. Avoid verbosity and padding - they detract from the issues at hand and provide easy targets for criticism by examiners. Woolly writing reflects woolly thinking. You may wish to find a few ïcritical friends' who are willing to read and comment on your work.
First drafts should be thought of as such; consider them more as an outline to be worked on rather than as a final product. Re-writing is an important part of the writing/thinking process. Do not interpret your supervisor's comments on your first efforts as a personal attack.
As you review your drafts, continually ask yourself whether you are maintaining the focus on your research questions, and whether the correct sequence is unfolding.
The bibliography is a comprehensive listing of every reference and citation used throughout the thesis. The majority of these will have occurred in your literature review, though there are many other places in the thesis where reference to, or quotation from, a particular source may be appropriate. Bibliographic detail must be accurate and consistent in every detail, down to every punctuation point, regardless of the style selected.
Begin constructing your bibliography as soon as you begin reading. Note carefully all details of your references and arrange the items alphabetically within categories on your computer. It can be extremely frustrating to have to backtrack through publications and libraries when your deadline for submission of the thesis is approaching. Once a style of citation has been selected, stick to it rigorously throughout your candidature. The process will soon become automatic. Remember that examiners will refer to your bibliography extensively, and will be highly critical if it is incomplete or sloppily presented.
Bibliographic entries may be presented as a general alphabetical listing, or you may choose to separate reports, government publications, minutes of meetings and the like, from books and journals. The structure of the bibliography flows from the kinds of sources used in the thesis. Consult your supervisor and study other people's bibliographies.
There are two main styles of referencing :
- The author-date or Harvard style is favoured in the biological and physical sciences and is becoming increasingly used in the social sciences. See the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association , 5th edition (APA, 2001) and The Chicago Manual of Style , 15th edition (University of Chicago Press, 2003).
- The footnote or endnote style is more common in the humanities such as history and literature. The footnote style is easier for a thesis examiner to read, while the endnote style is preferred by publishers. See the Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Printers , edition revised by Snooks & Co., Milton, Qld: Wiley 2003) and The Chicago Manual of Style .
Whichever style you use, construct all citations in full from the first draft. It is wise to use the style for citation and bibliography agreed with your supervisor from the outset so that it becomes second nature. It is time-consuming and frustrating for both supervisor and candidate if uniformity of style is only attempted in the final draft.
The same injunction to be perfect applies to uniformity of spelling, abbreviations, use of numbers etc. Choose your style and adhere to it. Do not rely on your memory; keep a list of decisions which you make along the way (program/programme, ise/ize, Principal/principal).
In the final stages of thesis writing, it is important to ensure that a number of elements have been addressed:
- issues raised at the beginning of the thesis have been adequately considered and, where appropriate, re-visited;
- there is a direct relationship between the various parts of the thesis; and
- anything which would detract from the scholarly nature of the thesis is eliminated.
Your final draft should be very carefully proof-read for errors of all sorts. Such proofreading is not only for spelling errors, but for quality and internal consistency in every detail.
The table of contents and separate lists of tables and figures must be accurate, with correct pagination. All references and citations must appear in the bibliography.
In reality, of course, the processes described above (literature review, theory, methodology etc.) are messy, and you can expect to be reflecting at several levels at the same time. Your thesis will be better for this. The structure of your thesis (introduction, chapters and conclusion) should emerge logically from these processes.