50 Things to Think About When Writing a Thesis: Paving Your Own Path to Submission

Description

Moving away from a traditional ‘one size fits all’ approach, this thesis guide encourages readers to find their own path to submission, demonstrating that the process of writing is as unique as the individual candidate. This book shows thesis writers how to embrace the individual nature of writing, bringing their own unique identities and skillsets to their thesis. Each idea is presented as one that has multiple solutions, depending on who the readers are and what they want to achieve. The book guides the reader on identifying their own ways of working, their own particular strengths, as well as their unique voice and how to use these as tools to navigate the process of writing and surviving the thesis. It also provides practical guidance on elements such as the literature review and methodology, considerations around language and how to deal with life after submission. Offering a unique perspective on the process and experience of completing a thesis, this book will be an essential companion for students completing a thesis at Honors, Master's or PhD level. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Acknowledgement to Country Table of Contents List of Figures Preface Acknowledgements Chapter 1: Preliminaries Overview Why this book? What each chapter in our book offers How to use this book References Chapter 2: Understanding yourself and preparing yourself for the journey ahead Overview 1. Understanding yourself: A pathway to success Understanding your ways of knowing Understanding your ways of being and doing Understanding your ways of communicating 2. Staying healthy Physical health Emotional health 3. Nurturing your personal relationships 4. Developing your academic support networks Notes References Chapter 3: Understanding your identities as a researcher, supervisee, and thesis writer Overview 5. Your emerging researcher identities 6. Planning for your professional self – post degree 7. Seeing yourself as a supervisee: your requirements for a supervisor 8. Seeing yourself as a supervisee: assessing your requirements for supervision sessions 9. Developing your thesis writer identities 10. Are you prepared for the writing journey? Your initial drafts 11. Are you prepared for the writing journey? Revisions 12. Are you prepared for the thesis writing journey? Patience 13. How useful is it to replicate your supervisor’s style? 14. Engaging further with imagined researcher and thesis writer identities Notes References Chapter 4: Organizing the larger pieces of your thesis Overview 15. Your front matter 16. Your introduction 17. What’s the big deal with definitions? 18. Creating your research question 19. Asserting yourself in your literature review 20. How you can write up your research methodology 21. Writing up your findings and discussion? 22. What’s your conclusion? 23. Which referencing style is for you? 24. Is a thesis by/with publication for you? Notes References Chapter 5: Writing yourself into your thesis in small but important ways Overview 25. Your headings 26. What about paragraph length? 27. What is so important about topic sentences? 28. Be wary of summary sentences 29. Footnotes and appendices to tuck away information 30. Tips on writing sentences for impact 31. Is your thesis reporting on the past or engaging in the present? 32. Your words matter! Nouns: the fewer, the better, but choose them wisely! 33. Verbs: Powerful friends, horrible enemies 34. Being an expert: using modal verbs for effect (words such as ‘can, may, might’) 35. Being cautious and being assertive: Adjectives and adverbs 36. Authorship: when to use a personal pronoun, ‘I/we’ 37. Gendered pronouns and the political self 38. Things that don’t ‘really’ matter (that much)! Words, spelling Grammar Punctuation Other language issues Notes References Chapter 6: What could possibly go wrong? Overview 39. Your personal life is a mess! 40. Supervision 41. Your timetable is out of sync! 42. You are struggling to see yourself as a researcher 43. Feedback! 44. It’s not the right time for your thesis Notes References Chapter 7: Finally done! Overview 45. Take a moment to celebrate your achievement 46. So what happens now? The postpartum void 47. Welcome to the next step on your professional journey 48. A heads up for writing in a different genre 49. Traps for the unwary 50. Getting your examination results Notes References Index