Thesis Writing 2018
Thesis Writing 2018
Thesis Writing 2018
• It takes 6 months
• You do it at the end
• You can cut and paste from papers
• No one will read it
When do I start?
Where do I start?
Read theses
Do the groundwork
Ideas
message – title – abstract
Start with….
A focus statement….
• The essence of your research
• 1-4 sentences
• Get feedback on it
• Discuss with supervisor
Examples
Why do some graduates succeed and others
don’t? Is it due to the student, the department, or
both? Using mixed methods, I examine how
subject variables and departmental variables
influence the adjustment and success of first year
graduate students. The study uses data from
surveys and semi-structured interviews. (PhD in
Social Psychology)
Focus Statement Interview
Individually complete
5 mins
5 / Brown’s 8 Questions
1. Who are the intended readers? (name 3-5)
2. What did you do? (50 words)
3. Why did you do it? (50)
4. What happened? (50)
5. What do the results mean in theory? (50)
6. What do the results mean in practice? (50)
7. What is the key benefit for readers? (25)
8. What remains unresolved? (50)
(Brown 1994/95)
Planning
structure – thinking vs. writing – table of contents
Structure
• Outline
• Generic thesis structure
• Allocate word count for each
section
• Design sub-sections
• Table of contents
feature
• Write in layers
Outlining – Level 1
Background
Objectives
Method
Findings
Conclusions
Outlining – Level 2
Level 3
Rule of Three
• Within each chapter, repeat 3 times
– Intro. We will show ..
– Body. Show them ..
– Concl. We have shown ..
1. Book/journal
2. Warming Up
3. Write to prompts
4. Freewriting
5. Writing in Layers
Warming Up Exercise
What I want to write about today is….. (30 words)
This is important because…. (30 words)
Today, I will not write about…… (30 words)
Writing to prompts