How to Write a PhD Thesis
Getting Started
When you are about to begin, writing a thesis seems a long, difficult task. That is because it is a long, difficult task. Fortunately, it will seem less daunting once you have a couple of chapters done. Towards the end, you will even find yourself enjoying it---an enjoyment based on satisfaction in the achievement, pleasure in the improvement in your technical writing, and of course the approaching end. Like many tasks, thesis writing usually seems worst before you begin, so let us look at how you should make a start.
An outline
First make up a thesis outline: several pages containing chapter headings, sub-headings, some figure titles (to indicate which results go where) and perhaps some other notes and comments. There is a section on chapter order and thesis structure at the end of this text. Once you have a list of chapters and, under each chapter heading, a reasonably complete list of things to be reported or explained, you have struck a great blow against writer's block.
How do you make an outline of a chapter?
Assemble all the figures that you will use in it and put them in the order that you would use if you were going to explain to someone what they all meant. You might as well rehearse explaining it to someone else---after all you will probably give several talks based on your thesis work. Once you have found the most logical order, note down the key words of your explanation. These key words provide a skeleton for much of your chapter outline.
Organisation
It is encouraging and helpful to start a filing system. Open a word- processor file for each chapter and one for the references. You can put notes in these files, as well as text. While doing something for Chapter n, you will think "Oh I must refer back to/discuss this in Chapter m" and so you put a note to do so in the file for Chapter m. Or you may think of something interesting or relevant for that chapter. When you come to work on
Chapter m, the more such notes you have accumulated, the easier it will be to write.
another purpose beyond security: usually the lab book stays in the lab, but you may want a copy for your own future use. Further, scientific ethics require you to keep lab books and original data for at least ten years, and a copy is more likely to be found if two copies exist.
If you haven't already done so, you should archive your electronic data, in an appropriate format. Spreadsheet and word processor files are not suitable for long term storage. Archiving data by Joseph Slater is a good guide.
While you are getting organised, you should deal with any university paperwork. Examiners have to be nominated and they have to agree to serve. Various forms are required by your department and by the university administration. Make sure that the rate limiting step is your production of the thesis, and not some minor bureaucratic problem.
A timetable
It is strongly recommended sitting down with the adviser and making up a timetable for writing it: a list of dates for when you will give the first and second drafts of each chapter to your adviser(s). This structures your time and provides intermediate targets. If you merely aim "to have the whole thing done by [some distant date]", you can deceive yourself and procrastinate more easily. If you have told your adviser that you will deliver a first draft of chapter 3 on Wednesday, it focuses your attention.
Iterative solution
Whenever you sit down to write, it is very important to write something. So write something, even if it is just a set of notes or a few paragraphs of text that you would never show to anyone else.
What is a thesis? For whom is it written? How should it be written?
Your thesis is a research report. The report concerns a problem or series of problems in your area of research and it should describe what was known about it previously, what you did towards solving it, what you think your results mean, and where or how further progress in the field can be made. Do not carry over your ideas from undergraduate assessment: a thesis is
not an answer to an assignment question. One important difference is this: the reader of an assignment is usually the one who has set it. S/he already knows the answer (or one of the answers), not to mention the background, the literature, the assumptions and theories and the strengths and weaknesses of them. The readers of a thesis do not know what the "answer" is. If the thesis is for a PhD, the university requires that it make
an original contribution to human knowledge: your research must discover something hitherto unknown.
How much detail?
The short answer is: rather more than for a scientific paper. Once your thesis has been assessed and your friends have read the first three pages, the only further readers are likely to be people who are seriously doing
research in just that area. Make it clear what is yours,If you use a result, observation or generalisation that is not your own, you must usually state where in the scientific literature that result is reported.
Style
The text must be clear. Good grammar and thoughtful writing will make the thesis easier to read. Scientific writing has to be a little formal---more formal than this text. Native English speakers should remember that scientific English is an international language. Slang and informal writing will be harder for a non-native speaker to understand.
Presentation
There is no need for a thesis to be a masterpiece of desk-top publishing. Your time can be more productively spent improving the content than the appearance.
Approaching the end
A deadline is very useful in some ways. You must hand in the thesis, even if you think that you need one more draft of that chapter, or someone else's comments on this section, or some other refinement. If you do not have a deadline, or if you are thinking about postponing it, please take note of
this: A thesis is a very large work. It cannot be made perfect in a finite time.
How many copies?
Talk to your adviser about this. As well as those for the examiners, the university libraries and yourself, you should make some distribution
copies.
Personal
In the ideal situation, you will be able to spend a large part---perhaps a majority---of your time writing your thesis. This may be bad for your physical and mental health.
Typing
Set up your chair and computer properly. The Health Service, professional keyboard users or perhaps even the school safety officer will be able to supply charts showing recommended relative heights,
healthy postures and also exercises that you should do if you spend a lot of time at the keyboard.
Exercise
Do not give up exercise for the interim. Lack of exercise makes you feel bad, and you do not need anything else making you feel bad
while writing a thesis.
Do not forget to eat, and make an effort to eat healthy food.
Drugs
Thesis writers have a long tradition of using coffee as a stimulant and alcohol or marijuana as relaxants. (Use of alcohol and coffee is legal, use of marijuana is not.) Used in moderation, they do not seem to
have ill effects on the quality of thesis produced. Excesses, however, are obviously counter-productive: several espressi and you will be buzzing too much to sit down and work; several drinks at night will slow you down next day.
Others
Other people will be sympathetic, but do not take them for granted. Spouses, lovers, family and friends should not be undervalued. Spend
some time with them and, when you do, have a good time. Do not
spend your time together complaining about your thesis: they
already resent the thesis because it is keeping you away from them. If you can find another student writing a thesis, then you may find it therapeutic to complain to each other about advisers and difficulties.
S/he need not be in the same discipline as you are.
Coda
Keep going---you're nearly there! Most PhDs will admit that there were times when we thought about reasons for not finishing. But it would be crazy to give up at the writing stage, after years of work on the research, and it would be something to regret for a long time.
the satisfaction you will feel afterwards is wonderful. On behalf of scholars everywhere, I wish you good luck!
A suggested thesis structure
The list of contents and chapter headings below is appropriate for some thesis. In some cases, one or two of them may be irrelevant.
Copyright waiver
Your institution may have a form for this (UNSW does). In any case, this standard page gives the university library the right to publish the work, possibly by microfilm or other medium. (At UNSW, the Postgraduate Student Office will give you a thesis pack with various guide-lines and rules about thesis format. Make sure that you consult
that for its formal requirements, as well as this rather informal guide.)
Declaration
Check the wording required by your institution, and whether there is a standard form.
Title page
This may vary among institutions, but as an example: Title/author/"A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Science/The University of New South Wales"/date.
Abstract
Of all your thesis, this part will be the most widely published and most read because it will be published in Dissertation Abstracts International. It is best written towards the end, but not at the very
last minute because you will probably need several drafts. It should be a distillation of the thesis: a concise description of the problem(s) addressed, your method of solving it/them, your results and conclusions. An abstract must be self-contained. Usually they do not contain references. When a reference is necessary, its details should be included in the text of the abstract. Check the word limit.
Remember: even though it appears at the beginning, an abstract is
not an introduction. It is a résumé of your thesis. Acknowledgments
Most thesis authors put in a page of thanks to those who have helped them in matters scientific, and also indirectly by providing such essentials as food, education, genes, money, help, advice, friendship etc. If any of your work is collaborative, you should make it quite clear
who did which sections.
Table of contents
The introduction starts on page 1, the earlier pages should have roman numerals. It helps to have the subheadings of each chapter, as well as the chapter titles. Remember that the thesis may be used as a reference in the lab, so it helps to be able to find things easily.
Introduction
What is the topic and why is it important? State the problem(s) as simply as you can. Remember that you have been working on this project for a few years, so you will be very close to it. Try to step back mentally and take a broader view of the problem. How does it fit into the broader world of your discipline?
Literature review
Where did the problem come from? What is already known about this problem? What other methods have been tried to solve it?
Ideally, you will already have much of the hard work done, if you have been keeping up with the literature as you vowed to do three years ago, and if you have made notes about important papers over the years. If you have summarised those papers, then you have some good starting points for the review.
Middle chapters
In some thesis, the middle chapters are the journal articles of which the student was major author. There are several disadvantages to this format.
Materials and Methods
This varies enormously from thesis to thesis, and may be absent in theoretical theses. It should be possible for a competent researcher to
reproduce exactly what you have done by following your description.
There is a good chance that this test will be applied: sometime after you have left, another researcher will want to do a similar
experiment either with your gear, or on a new set-up in a foreign country. Please write for the benefit of that researcher.
Theory
When you are reporting theoretical work that is not original, you will usually need to include sufficient material to allow the reader to
understand the arguments used and their physical bases. Sometimes you will be able to present the theory ab initio, but you should not reproduce two pages of algebra that the reader could find in a standard text. Do not include theory that you are not going to relate to the work you have done.
Results and discussion
The results and discussion are very often combined in thesis. This is sensible because of the length of a thesis: you may have several chapters of results and, if you wait till they are all presented before you begin discussion, the reader may have difficulty remembering what you are talking about. The division of Results and Discussion
material into chapters is usually best done according to subject matt
Final chapter, references and appendices
Conclusions and suggestions for further work
Your abstract should include your conclusions in very brief form, because it must also include some other material. A summary of conclusions is usually longer than the final section of the abstract,
and you have the space to be more explicit and more careful with qualifications. You might find it helpful to put your conclusions in point form.
References
It is tempting to omit the titles of the articles cited, and the university allows this, but think of all the times when you have seen a reference
in a paper and gone to look it up only to find that it was not helpful after all.
Appendices
If there is material that should be in the thesis but which would break up the flow or bore the reader unbearably, include it as an
appendix.
