Stream of Consciousness

So many students who are about to begin their thesis don’t get enough information on the process itself of thesis writing.  Here are the tips I’ve learned along the way of both writing my own and helping others in the Library.

1.  Start with Chapter 2 (Literature Review) so you know what is out there on your topic area.  Then you can fill in Chapter 1 (Introduction) and figure out specifically what question you want to research.

2.  Learn what your word processor can do for you automatically.  Did you know that the Table of Contents can be done automatically?  That you can sort the references automatically?  Do you know how to set it automatically to display roman numerals on the first few pages and Arabic numbers on the rest?

3.  For each article that you read, create a 3×5 card (or a 4×6 card) with the last name of the first author, the year, and BRIEF notes about how the article relates to your topic.  Then, when you’re ready to organize your literature review, you can shuffle the cards and not the banker’s box of journal articles that you have collected (yes, you will probably have that many!).

4.  Decide on a logical set of divisions for your Chapter 2 (Literature review).  Does this topic fit into past/present/future?  Would it make more sense to divide it by three major concepts within the discipline?  Should it be divided geographically into regions (US, Europe, Asia, etc.)?

5.  Have at least one person you can truly count on to read over your paper and look for grammar, spelling, or logic errors.  This person should be someone OTHER than your professor, so you don’t wear them out with re-readings. 

6.  Pick a topic you love because by the end of the process you’ll be sick of it.

7.  Know that when you ‘finish’ writing it, and give it to your prof., they’re going to give it back to you with corrections to make.  Don’t cry - just know that it’s like a boomerang and will keep coming back to you for a while, even when you think it’s all finished.

8.  I didn’t listen (hindsight) to my wonderful friend who very correctly said that human subjects make it take MUCH longer than if you avoid trying to do it with original human subject research.  Sigh.  (Don’t get me wrong - I like doing original research - but it has taken me a year to finish this one thing rather than one semester as I had hoped for.)  Why does it take longer?  Approvals and permission slips, and ‘recruiting’ participants is much more difficult than it sounds.

9.  Thesis grades are pass/fail, but some of us get wrapped up in wanting to ‘publish’ our findings.  Here’s a thought:  you’re writing the thesis for the professor & committee.  Get them what they need, get your grade, graduate, and then you can spend more time fluffing up your work to your liking, if you’re more of a perfectionist than is needed to ‘pass’ the thesis.

10.  Do the abstract LAST - it’s a summary of everything, including your findings, so there’s no way you can write a good abstract first even though it will be one of the first pages in your document.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 2nd, 2007 at 8:50 pm and is filed under Libraries - Academic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.