Re LZ
here you go,
Writing Your Thesis: Advice and Tips
A thesis is a daunting thing: so massive and complex that it’s often
difficult to know even where to start. Herein MESA shares some strategies,
advice and handy tips for getting your thesis under control. And we invite
you to send in your suggestions too.
1. Start Early
The most important step, by far, is to simply start. Even if it’s just the
title page, or the acknowledgements, or some references – start. Starting
early means years ahead, so that if you plan to finish your PhD in 3 years,
you should start writing something by year 2 (or earlier, as the next
section explains).
There’s a number of reasons for this. Firstly, a thesis is time-consuming
and shouldn’t be rushed. Being able to write a chapter, leave it for a few
months, and come back with fresh eyes and perspectives for improvement is a
huge advantage. Secondly, you’ll have a full plate in your final PhD year
– in addition to finishing experiments, you’ll probably be attending
conferences, applying for jobs and/or postdocs, along with a whole host of
associated issues (e.g., immigration, visas, interviews), on top of your
thesis writing. Plan ahead so that the collective pressure doesn’t build up!
The final and most important reason for starting early is this: writing is
part of the scientific process itself. That’s because science is a lot more
chaotic and iterative than typically portrayed: it’s not as simple as
sitting down to design experiments in your 1st year, then getting
measurements in your 2nd year, then writing up the thesis in your 3rd year.
No, instead after an idea goes to the experimental stage and it gets written
up, that process of writing and analysis unearths issues and potential
improvements – this then sends you back to the drawing board and to do more
experiments. Thus, writing is not the final step after all the experiments
are done – it’s part of the process. So start early (today!), and keep it
up.
2. Write Papers: They’re Actually Thesis Chapters
The easiest (and most useful) way to write your thesis is to avoid it
altogether – write papers instead. If by your third year you’ve got 4-6
papers – whether that’s published, submitted or in manuscript form – then
you’re already set: the writing is mostly done, and, better yet, it’s
already been read and commented-on not only by your thesis advisers, but
also by anonymous peer-reviewers. This ensures your work passes the
scientific bar and will make your thesis writing and defense far, far easier.
Of course, writing papers (especially 4-6) requires hard work, self-
discipline, and a bit of luck. It’s completely worth the effort though,
because in addition to easing thesis writing and completion, it keeps you on
track by breaking down the thesis writing into individual sections/chapters
. Finally, all those papers will boost your CV and post-PhD prospects
immensely!
3. Make Use of Scientific ‘Downtime’
It happens to all PhD students: scientific downtime where you can’t do the
work you had planned to do. For example, a needed piece of equipment might
be down for repairs, or heavily booked up by others. Or maybe a chemical has
been ordered but has not yet arrived. In these cases, all of a sudden work
time appears to become free time, and whole days or even weeks can be
passed over coffee breaks, internet surfing and the like. Tempting, but do
yourself a favor: use downtime to chip away at thesis work. Even if it’s as
little as 1-2 hours spent writing or preparing figures or getting familiar
with your bibliography, it adds up!
4. Know Your References / Bibliography
An intimate knowledge of your field is key, for a number of reasons. First
and foremost, you don’t want to be that one PhD student who spends 4 years
on a project, only to find out when writing the thesis that someone did the
exact same work 20 years ago (and that they got better results too), thus
invalidating the novelty of your contribution. Good referencing also signals
to your fellow researchers – and, more to the point, to your thesis
evaluators – that you are aware of what’s going on in your field, and that
you understand the science. And finally, since it really is hard work
finding and reading all of the appropriate scientific literature, you don’t
want to leave it to the last few months.
5. Choose Your Typesetting
Microsoft Word is, one has to admit, fantastic for many things: it is easy
to use, makes collaboration and tracking changes trivial, and it is
ubiquitous. However, it is problematic for something as large and complex as
a thesis: you’ll be fighting constantly with formatting, figures,
referencing, cross-linking and other issues, rather than focusing on what
actually matters: writing about your science. To top it all off, the final
result looks amateurish – theses written up in Microsoft Word never look as
professional as, say, a journal article or a book.
The alternative is LaTeX, a typesetting solution that can be thought of as a
mix between a word processor and a programming language. There is
admittedly a learning curve for the installation and syntax, but if you’ve
ever done any light programming, it’ll be easy to pick up; it’s also very
well documented online, with many helpful, easy examples. (And really, if
you’re doing a PhD, you can figure out LaTeX. It’s not that intellectually
strenuous.) The advantages to LaTeX are these: beautiful formatting is
built-in, equations and symbols are handled very well, referencing and cross
-linking is painless and seamless, and issues like figure placement and
alignment are automatically taken care of. The final document typically
comes out in PDF format, and looks professional and well-designed, with
minimal effort.
Downsides to LaTeX: aside from the aforementioned learning curve, the other
issue is collaboration and tracking changes. Your supervisors will not be
able to comment or revise your text as easily as they can in Microsoft Word.
Which to choose? Depends on your field and aptitude. If you’re in anything
involving physics, mathematics, computer science, and so on, then go for
LaTeX. Chemists, biologists and their ilk still tend to stick with Microsoft
Word for theses; they shouldn’t.
6. Brevity is Beautiful
Resist the temptation to write a long thesis. Excellent science can and
should stand by itself, without verbose padding. Some of the best theses,
from students with multiple first-author papers in Science and Nature, are
wafer-thin in length, i.e., in the 100-150 page range. You should definitely
aim to keep your thesis under 200 pages in length: anything longer will
likely put your thesis’ external reviewers in a foul mood, delay your
thesis’ evaluation, and signal that you may be trying to compensate for a
lack of quality with a deluge of quantity. (There’s many books dedicated to
good writing: we suggest "The Elements of Style" by Strunk & White, and "
Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace" by J. Williams.)
7. Put Yourself in Your Examiner’s Shoes
Your examiners are busy people, so try to not piss them off. Here’s what’s
probably going on through their mind when they open up your work: "oh no,
not another thesis to read", tempered with a faint optimism of "it might
help me keep up to date with this area of research" and "it might teach me
something or inspire me". They’ll probably read your baby on trains, planes
and in the back row of departmental seminars and meetings. They’ll love a
good abstract, proper citing of the right papers, clear arguments, complete
contents, and any papers you’ve published will help put them on your side.
And some will think that they haven’t done their job unless they find
corrections to give back to you; don’t let that faze you.
8. Backup, Backup, Backup
It pays to be paranoid about your thesis’ safety, and in this age of all-
permeating connectivity, there’s no excuse to be slack about backups. Put
your thesis on multiple computers, put in on USB sticks, put in on external
hard drives, and put in on a cloud-storage solution such as Dropbox.com.
9. Attend Workshops, Look Up Examples, and External Resources
Many universities make their students’ PhD theses available online – look
up examples, particularly from your university and your subject area. This
is the best way to get an idea about issues like formatting, length and
expectations. (Of course, also look up your university’s official thesis
guidelines.) But also look further abroad, and get inspiration from theses
from the world’s top universities, or from theses of those that have now
become famous scientists. There’s also a multitude of websites and blog
posts about thesis writing, so keep searching online if you feel the need
for more advice and tips. Your university is also likely to offer thesis-
writing workshops at least a few times a year – attend them, they’ll save
you time in the long run.
Send Us Your Writing Tips!
We’d like to open this up to other MacDiarmid students and postdocs, so
please send us with your thesis writing advice and tips – we’ll be happy
to put them online here.
link:
//mesa.ac.nz/?page_id=1863
or
How to prepare for– and survive – your Ph. D defense? Tips from your
former McGill fellows!
link:
//biology.mcgill.ca/grad/BGSA/defense_survival.pdf
or
Writing guides for Doctoral students
Guide to essay writing (235 KB PDF)
Guide for the preparation of theses and dissertations (173 KB PDF)
both are at link:
//www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/home/about/departments-and-schools/department-
of-anthropology/helpandadvice-6
or
//www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/home/about/departments-and-schools/department-
of-anthropology
bottom
Help and advice (icon click here)
Where to get help and advice in the Department of ABC
including Writing Guides for essays and theses/dissertations.
