Art of writing a thesis

On the approach that is required in writing a research thesis. 

GET IT RIGHT: Get a grounding of the writing basics before you start putting together your thesis.  

Write to be understood, speak to be heard, read to grow. Lawrence Clark Powell, American Writer

WHILE ENJOYING highly readable text, we are not aware of the pains the writer underwent in preparing it. The right choice of words is not an easy task. The richer one's vocabulary, the tougher the task is. None would appreciate you, if you delude yourself into believing that long words or complex construction would impress the readers. Never attempt grandiloquence in a thesis.

Clarity

Whether it is a simple note, a dissertation or a thesis, or any other writing for that matter, it fails in its function if the target readers do not get the message with clarity and ease. Confused thinking will lead to woolly writing. If you have not understood your point well and state it ambiguously, another person who reads it will never get the point. Your expression has to be precise. None would admire or even relish a bundle of vagueness, when looking for accurate information in a new area of knowledge. Clear and effective presentation of ideas is more important than anything else.

Since a thesis is a document to be checked and assessed by experts in the line, avoid expressions such as "In other words" and "To put it in a simpler way." Experts may not take kindly to such phrases, as they feel that they are competent to grasp even complex ideas couched in difficult idiom.

If you are writing in the active voice, do not go for the editorial `we' — this may give a false impression that you took help from others. You can restrict yourself to `I,' the first person singular. There is no reason why you should feel that there is arrogance in using `I' frequently.

Vital elements

How you say is important. What you say is certainly vital. The contents of your dissertation or thesis have to be meticulously planned and fixed. Some of the elements of the contents are indicated below:

Your approach

Methodology adopted

Genesis of the study

Purpose of the study

Relevant state of the art

Strategies you employed in garnering data

Sources searched

Patterns used in dealing with literature

Details of processing

Nature of investigation

Constraints faced

Risks encountered

Nature and significance of your core problem

Gradual resolution of the problem

Your findings

Your general and particular comments on the findings

Scope for further exploration in the area by other scholars consequent to the emergence of new problems you witnessed

Interpretation of possibilities

The state-of-the-art part should show the history of evolution in the area, and not a bare list of the authors who have worked in it along with their papers. A Ph.D. thesis should clearly reveal one's knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of the field.

The award of a Ph.D. is certainly not for the rich catalogue of your work or a related diary, but for your mastery of a given topic. Further, your mastery should be reflected in the thesis. You should through your arguments establish that there was indeed a gap in knowledge that you have been able to fill through the study.

There is no finality in the search for truth in any area of human knowledge, and hence there should be an indication of the potential for further study and the possible styles of addressing new problems.

Structure

As in any document offering information, the text should have parts such as introduction, the main body, and conclusion.

The introduction should reveal that you are handling a worthwhile question. It should offer a bird's eye view of its answer. A research paper is circular in argument. You start with the statement of the main objective, and you conclude by reminding the reader of the opening statement. But the conclusion may carry something more than a repetition of the findings indicated elsewhere. It may contain brief statements of your inferences listed as numbered short paragraphs in the order of importance.

All conclusions should be directly related to the research. Perhaps the conclusion could reveal a special insight of yours, throwing up a possibility of the findings being applied to a different situation or even different discipline.

Data that may interrupt the easy flow of your argument, but do not add up to a significant part of the core, may be carried to the appendix part of the write-up.

Presentation

The house style in terms of size of paper, fonts, title page, contents page, layout, margins, spacing, illustrations, abstract, appendices, binding, and number of copies have to be followed.

In these days of multimedia presentations, material in audio or video forms also may find a place as part of the thesis document. You may be asked to submit the thesis in the form of a CD that can include multimedia material as well. It should be remembered that you will have at some stage or another defend what you have incorporated into your document, before experts in the area of study. You should be able to amplify effectively any point you have mentioned in the thesis.

No false or fabulous claims can pass such a test.

You have to be credible and convincing in your statements. Your arguments should be coherent. 

B.S. WARRIER