A Short Guide to Successful PhD Thesis Writing
Here’s a short guide that gives practical and simple advice on how to a successfully write a PhD thesis. This can be widely used by students in diverse fields in the humanities and sciences.
- Outline
- Organization
- Style
- Presentation
- Editing
Assuming you’re done with all of your research and have drafted a thesis statement, you should be ready to develop an outline of all your main topics and evidence. An outline for a PhD thesis will likely be a few pages long with chapter headings, sub-headings, and with other notes and comments. But an outline of this type and length isn’t much different than the standard 5-paragraph outlines you should be familiar with.
Be sure to use a system to collect and retrieve information. Thesis writing will likely require lots of facts, figures, paraphrases and quotes, so you will want to keep things completely organized to use while you’re writing your first drafts and then again later when you cite your sources.
Your language must be clear and concise. Thoughtful writing and good grammar will make your thesis easier to read. Slang and informal writing should be eliminated. Stick to the point and try to make your point in as little words as possible. Remember that short, simple phrases and words are more often better than long ones. For instance, don’t use “at this point in time” when you could say “now”.
Your PhD thesis doesn’t have to be visual publishing masterpiece, but you should spend a little time to make sure format elements – chapter headings, subtitles, quotations, textual callouts, and more – are consistent throughout and aren’t a distraction to the reader. Don’t use any fancy colors or textual art elements. Make sure spaces that separate each section are equal and only choose a font type that is easy to read.
At last you’re ready to proofread and make final edits to your PhD thesis. You should devote plenty of time to this exercise, and approach it in at least two phases. The first phase is a global review and edit where you look towards the thesis in its entirety. The second phase is more precise and requires you to look at your thesis paragraph by paragraph, then sentence by sentence.
Look for grammar mistakes, punctuation, word usage, and consistency throughout. You may find it easier to set aside your thesis for few days before beginning your edits so that you will be more likely to catch errors.
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