Writing the Thesis

Presented in English, this does not mean that all of thinking and writing must be done in English. Especially when at the beginning and especially when you are dealing with concepts and abstractions, it is often easier to write in your first language. You can then translate this, maybe with help from another student in your department who is both English speaking and understands your materials.

Much of the intellectual frustration and feeling of incompetence that overseas students have comes from problems of thinking in a second language. They know the statements they can make in English are so much more simplified and naive than their thinking in their own language.

E find a system for writing that suits your own working There is no single best way to write a thesis. People will offer you dogmatic advice based on their personal experience, as ­though h their methods must work for everyone else. Here ­how one Science supervisor advises his students:

Write the thesis as a whole , not chapter by chapter. Shuffle ­topics to chapters as you write them, but have a full outline from the beginning. Write when all the work has been done, and work for short period – don't drag it out over a year or two.

When writing my thesis I worked 5 weeks straight. Then took ­four weeks vacation, far away from the university. On my return I worked 7 days a week for 4 more weeks, after which the ­thesis was submitted. Every word was changed in the last weeks, and the result was a great improvement. The break away from it all allowed me to treat my draft as someone else's and write a fresh version, yet still benefitting from all exertions of the mind.

Yet clearly, this 'pressure-cooker' system would not work for all students; and it might be very unsuitable for writing a thesis in the Humanities where ideas often need to be mapped out again and again, to be refined by being written over and over until the concept finds its perfect wording. Seek the advice of others, therefore, but use it critically in the light of your knowledge about how you work best.

On a related matter: try to keep separate in your mind the ­ functions of the first and later drafts of your chapter. The function of the first drafting is to clarify for yourself what you think; the act of writing is in itself an act of function of later drafting is to find more effective ways of pre-