In this article, I would like to introduce a simple set of writing rules that can serve as a checklist for your thesis. If you implement them, the final manuscript will be easy to read and follow. In addition, it will be possible to navigate the various subsections in a coherent manner, for example, jumping directly to the part that is relevant for your reader.
1: Outline and indexes
The structure of your document plays an important role and is often the first thing that your reader checks. Therefore, it is your chance to make a good impression. Consider the first level index and the second level index separately.
- First level index: make sure that it follows a variation of the IMRaD structure and consider making an outline of the whole manuscript in the first chapter. Take all the space that you need, in particular if you are not bounded by word limits. Make a dedicated section in Chapter 1 with a bullet list, one for each chapter, appendix included. In addition, describe the content in 1-3 sentences.
- Second level index: look at the title of each chapter and each section and imagine that they are the only thing that will be read of your thesis. How easy is it to follow the story that they are telling? Is the story and the logic easy to grasp or is something missing? Should you merge together or divide one or more sections?
Simple writing rules that can improve the quality of your thesis2: Table and pictures
Tables and pictures are also part of this writing rules checklist. As matter of fact, after the index, they are the second thing that will be noticed by your reader and are as important as your outline. Each table and picture should have a text description. No exception. In addition, when describing these items consider the following “3 layers” of comments:
- Layer 1: present the obvious. Imagine describing a table to a blind person: What is in the x? What is in the y? What is the meaning of each column of the table?
- Layer 2: present what is objective. In other words, present the facts. Can we observe a correlation between X and Y? Is A greater than B?
- Layer 3: present what is logical. In other words, present your interpretation of the facts. What can we conclude from the fact that A is greater than B? What are the implications of X and Y being correlated? Here you can be moderately speculative and give your best, educated guess.
Whenever possible, make your own pictures (the same applies to tables) instead of reusing the pictures that you find in other papers. This does not imply that you have to “regenerate” the same pictures. Re-elaborate them and make sure that they represent your own original thinking. If you end up using a picture or table that has been published in another paper or book, give credit correctly.
In addition, assuming that you already did the work mentioned at the first point of this article, look at the table and the title in conjunction with the subsection where they are presented. Do they match well? Do they complement each other?
3: Bullet Lists
Bullet lists are very important in your scientific report. You can use them to simplify and structure the text that you are writing. Using bullet lists will make sections become more logically coherent. At the same time, you should resist the urge to create sections that contain only bullet lists. They should always be surrounded by “plain text” that describes why that particular list/categorization is important. If you find yourself in some sort of “writer’s block”, start by introducing the bullet list and then provide its point.
4: Appendixes
The thesis should contain all the material that is necessary for documenting your scientific claims. At the same time, there is always some preparatory work or test work that you performed for initial validation of your ideas or to clarify to yourself the intermediate steps. Appendixes are perfect places for this: Carefully assess all the material that you have produced to your thesis and try to see how it could be packaged in an appendix. In other words, if you have done the work and it is some how related to the main claims of your thesis, why not show it? At the same time, you should consider an appendix like any other chapter and not a place where to park pictures and tables. Consequently, all the previous remarks of this article apply to them as well. In addition, every appendix must be refereed in one or more chapter of your thesis for further explanation.
5: No empty section allowed
This point is relatively simple and clear: no empty sections in your thesis. In other words: (for example) do not start a chapter with “section 2.1” but use the section “2.0” for describing what the chapter is about. Maybe you can give an outline of the follow-up sections here?
6: Consider a grammar check, style check and plagiarism check
A plagiarism check is the process of locating instances of plagiarism or copyright infringement within a work or document. There are several resources freely available in the internet: Use one or two. Make sure that the content of the chapters and the appendixes is not flagged. However, you should not worry about references and/or portions of code.
In addition, you can easily find tools in the internet that check style and grammar, and some may also be available at your library. I would suggest you to spend a few hours with them and try to reflect on the changes that they recommend. Consider their output as an opinion and an opportunity to reflect on how you wrote certain aspects of your work. Not all the suggestions are good, but some may be worth incorporating.
A Final comment on writing rules and next steps
Reflecting on the writing rules presented in this article will help you in structuring your work and making it more accessible to your reader. I would encourage to implement all of them and take a 24h break from writing. Then, you can revisit these points one more time and see if you still would like to make some changes. After a couple of iterations I would suggest to perform a “navigability test” as described in this article.
Simple #writing rules that can improve the quality of your #Thesis or scientific #paper. #writingtips
Click To Tweet
This article (Simple Writing Rules that can improve the quality of your thesis) is part of the miniseries on how to do a good thesis, you can see the full list of post at the following links:
How to Do a Good Thesis: the Miniseries
If you like what you read, consider sharing it!
