How to plan, draft, write and finish a doctoral thesis or dissertation
How to plan, draft, write and finish a doctoral thesis or dissertation
How to plan, draft, write and finish a doctoral thesis or dissertation
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BECOMING AN AUTHOR ◆ 15<br />
thought. Each of these outcomes makes readers w<strong>or</strong>ry: perhaps<br />
the auth<strong>or</strong> does not know what she thinks, does not underst<strong>and</strong><br />
the <strong>to</strong>pic she has set out <strong>to</strong> tackle? The implication soon<br />
follows: perhaps this book <strong>or</strong> article is not w<strong>or</strong>th my time <strong>or</strong><br />
attention? F<strong>or</strong> <strong>thesis</strong> examiners <strong>or</strong> a <strong>dissertation</strong> committee this<br />
feeling may very easily spill over in<strong>to</strong>: maybe this <strong>thesis</strong> does<br />
not meet the st<strong>and</strong>ard that a doc<strong>to</strong>rate should? Hence f<strong>or</strong><br />
PhD students, m<strong>or</strong>e than f<strong>or</strong> most auth<strong>or</strong>s, these are dangerous<br />
thoughts <strong>to</strong> engender.<br />
Auth<strong>or</strong>s can often create readers’ expectations inadvertently,<br />
without intending <strong>to</strong> do so. Doc<strong>to</strong>ral theses <strong>and</strong> academic<br />
research papers commonly start with some level of literature<br />
review. It is quite common f<strong>or</strong> beginning students <strong>to</strong> wax lyrical<br />
in these sections about the limits <strong>or</strong> inadequacies of previous<br />
research in their field. Most people <strong>write</strong> literature reviews<br />
early on, often bef<strong>or</strong>e fully appreciating the difficulties of grappling<br />
with research materials <strong>and</strong> extracting useful <strong>or</strong> interesting<br />
inf<strong>or</strong>mation from them. Hence it is easy <strong>to</strong> get carried away<br />
by a conviction that using different methods <strong>or</strong> a new the<strong>or</strong>etical<br />
approach will generate much m<strong>or</strong>e illuminating results. But<br />
if you make some strong criticisms of earlier w<strong>or</strong>k, what impact<br />
does this have on readers? It tends <strong>to</strong> generate an expectation<br />
that your own research will be much better than what has gone<br />
bef<strong>or</strong>e. After you have searchingly exposed what was wrong in<br />
previous studies, readers must believe that you are confident of<br />
being able <strong>to</strong> transcend those limitations. Hence every criticism<br />
you make can build a difficult threshold f<strong>or</strong> your own research<br />
<strong>to</strong> surmount. Cumulatively the effects of overenthusiastic critique<br />
can be disabling.<br />
Similarly, academic readers will pick up dozens of small<br />
pointers from the way that you <strong>write</strong> text, which will engender<br />
expectations about what you are trying <strong>to</strong> do. F<strong>or</strong> instance, how<br />
you label schools of thought in your discipline, <strong>and</strong> how you<br />
then describe your own w<strong>or</strong>k, will cue readers <strong>to</strong> where you<br />
st<strong>and</strong> in the subject’s intellectual currents, who you are aligned<br />
with <strong>and</strong> who you are opposed <strong>to</strong>. Many commenta<strong>to</strong>rs have<br />
detected tribalist tendencies amongst academics, such that they<br />
must cluster in<strong>to</strong> schools of thought <strong>and</strong> create possibly fake<br />
factional conflicts amongst themselves. Others lament a proprie<strong>to</strong>rial<br />
instinct that leads <strong>to</strong> a constant differentiation of