How-to-Write-a-Better-Thesis

102 8 Outcomes and Results
them in his thesis? If so, where—in this chapter, or relegated to an appendix? By
now, you should be able to answer these questions. My response would be to include
enough of the data (probably in an appendix) for the reader to see how it was
collected, what form it took, and how it was treated in the process of condensing
it for analysis. It would makes sense in this case to include in the appendix the
transcript of one focused interview; the others would be kept on file for reference.
Note by the way that many disciplines, and most institutions, have research
guidelines that concern how data is managed and described. Make sure you are
familiar with these guidelines as you work through your data presentation.
Another example is the work of Geoff. In his study of the ignition of brown
coal particles, he had tested 96 combinations of experimental conditions, with 10
particles tested at each combination, giving results for 960 particles in all. First he
averaged the ignition times of the group of 10 particles, and gave the standard deviation
to indicate the variability, thus cutting down the entries in the table from 960
to 96. He presented all the results for 1000 micron particles first, then 500 microns,
and so on. He then arranged the results for each particle size in groups for each of
the other variables. The reader could then examine the results with the hypotheses
in mind, and develop mental pictures of the effects of the different variables. Geoff
could have gone on to plot some of these effects as graphs, but he preferred to wait
until the next chapter to do this, because he wished to plot the results against what
he would have expected from a theoretical model he had developed earlier in the
thesis.
Somewhere you may want to discuss the data you didn’t gather, but would have
liked to, and other issues of that kind. My advice is that this is a good thing to do.
No piece of research is really complete, and the reader will appreciate your views
on where the work could be extended. For the examiner, such discussion shows that
you are thoughtful enough to be aware of the shortcomings of your study. Remember
that the examiner may well notice these shortcomings without your help—and
acknowledgment of shortcomings is not a sign of weakness. Look again at the criteria
for examination of PhD theses, and note that ‘an awareness of limitations’ is
expected.
Being blind to shortcomings is not a characteristic of an effective researcher. An
example is my student Kirk, who was always keen to move on to the next experiment
before the current one was complete, and—as he knew, but would not openly
admit—he was not as capable in the laboratory as other students. However, he was
good at presenting his work, glossing over flaws and limitations. While his work
was never precisely fraudulent, his write-ups (for his thesis and for research papers)
would avoid the weaknesses and emphasize the strengths; a problem that eventually
brought on a crisis, when he had to repeat some work and no longer observed
the effect he had originally claimed. 3 It was a straightforward case of carelessness,
3
Almost certainly because of one of the classic fallacies of science. If you repeat an experiment
with small variations until it succeeds, and then stop, it may seem as though the desired outcome
is achieved; if there is any kind of uncertainty in the experiment, it is just as likely that the positive
outcome occurred by chance. If this success is all that is reported, the reader gets a highly distorted
view of the true results. This is known as confirmation bias.