Writing the Thesis

Motivation. Listen to what a Science student has to say about this last point:

It can be useful to point out that the nature of thesis work is great.. different to undergraduate work. Most importantly, there are (often) no distinct short-term goals. Such goals can help a student's morale by giving him/her a sense of achievement and a feeling of `getting some where'.

They are also helpful in assessing one's progress. Compared with undergraduate years where one has regular goals - distinct towards that ultimate goal - in the form of exams and passing a year, a PhD may last 3 or 4 years without any such distinct stages or feelings of achievement. Progress may often be in such small, gradual steps that the student does not have a feeling of overall accomplish­ ment. He does not see what he has done- only what he has left to -do

Of course the problems do vary with individuals and with the nature of the thesis. In scientific and technical research, for example finding a satisfactory research problem, design and experimental technique is often the really creative act. Writing up the material as a thesis, though important, is more a matter of hard work and self discipline. The format and organization of scientific these are well established.

In Arts and Social Science disciplines, however, the writing itself may constitute the creative act ; the thesis may embody both the substance and the form of all your research, since there is no external body of data or experimentation which can h~: to as evidence of your years of work.

While the general problems of thesis writing may be clear enough, the strategies far dealing with them are less obvious. This is partly because writing is so individual, and partly because the structures and styles of theses vary so much between disciplines. Most Biochemistry theses look like other Biochemistry these, but they are very different from theses in English or Economic or Law. There are, however, some general strategies for thesis writing that do appear to be useful:

A consult a number of theses which have been written by former postgraduate students in your department (one copy of each successful thesis is normally kept in the department library and another in the university library).

Though you must be cautious of taking such theses as exact models for your own work, they are useful guides. They will give you, from the outset, some notion of the standard for which you must aim and some familiarity with the more common styles of presentation. Take note too of such details as the average length of these theses and the sections into which they are commonly divided.