How-to-Write-a-Better-Thesis

142 12 Beyond the Thesis
In a paper you are reporting the same material as in a part of your thesis, perhaps
part or all of one of your chapters, but to a broader and quite different readership. In
the thesis you are addressing the examiners, and your task is to convince them that
you know what you are talking about. In the paper you are addressing a far wider
range of people. They are reading it because they are interested in your field, and
they assume that you do know what you are talking about before they even start
reading. Indeed, your paper would not have been published had the reviewers not
been convinced of this. You are limited to a few thousand words, and you will have
to leave out a lot of material that you would include in a thesis.
The challenge then is to tell the story concisely. An introduction to a thesis
chapter has the task of telling the reader how the chapter fits into the overall plan,
whereas in the paper you are introducing the same material as being important in its
own right, so you will have to cover previous work done by others. In the thesis you
had written an extensive review of the literature in an earlier chapter. You will have
to cover this material in the introduction to the paper, but in perhaps as little as 500
words rather than 10,000. The readers will have to be satisfied with bald statements
about this earlier work and your interpretations of it, with deeper critical analysis
reserved for a few key points. You then have the challenge of presenting the work,
again in a more concise form, and it may be that some lines or argument are only
noted rather than explained in detail. The ultimate goal is to produce a piece of work
that is reasonably self-contained, with enough narrative and evidence to persuade
the reader of its value.
Some conferences publish unrefereed papers, but the principles are much the
same. If your work is to be made available to others, it should be cohesive and
complete.
Publishing involves choosing a venue, say a particular journal, then shaping your
paper to the journal’s ‘house style’. Most journals have online resources to assist in
preparing papers for submission. How to write a paper is beyond the scope of this
book, but I do encourage you to read about paper writing, in particular on the challenges
of communication within your particular discipline.
Joint Authorship
A challenge faced by research students is of writing papers in collaboration with
other people, in particular their supervisors. Writing joint papers is tricky because
two or more people are making the decisions. If your joint work is to be really fruitful,
you have to acknowledge these difficulties and deal with them. Students need to
appreciate that the bulk of the effort may be theirs, while the credit must be shared;
supervisors need to acknowledge that, even in the cases where they are largely
responsible for the aims and shape of the work, it is nonetheless a shared outcome.
Joint publication not only acknowledges the contribution made by your supervisor
to the development of your research (and to your development as a research
worker), but also commits him or her to a significant contribution to the paper.