Most academics will admit to themselves and their students that most theses and books are written in a 6 month block (the rest of the work is focused on the PhD process, but it’s easy to apply to writing. books). I’m talking about the WRITING process here – not searching, solving the problem, organizing chapters, etc. (No wizard can do it in 6 months – at least not this wizard). But once you have done your research (in the field), read, thought about the chapters, taken notes, etc., it should only take you 6 months to complete the job. For PhD students, the construction of the thesis phase marks the end of trial and error/hesitation/reading Gawker and People.com/Daily/Existence Crisis and the beginning of “time to swallow, close the office door”. ‘, turn off the email and just write the step f#$@king.
Know what questions you are asking
You should always know what your hypothesis or what questions your thesis is asking.
It may seem obvious, but so many PhD students fail to define their entire hypothesis before starting their thesis.
Getting Started
This is not a complete guide, but to write a good enough thesis, you need an outline first.
- Create a list of digits. This should be every character you can think of. You can delete the ones you don’t need later if they are irrelevant or insignificant.
- Plan the narrative. Most of the time, there is more than one way to put the numbers together for a thesis. Prepare for that to change when you start writing! Sometimes the writing process reveals ways in which the story needs to be rearranged.
- How many chapters on results? Start with the idea that you will have one. Should it be shared? If so, what are the titles of the two chapters? If you have trouble titling them, you may need to divide them into thirds.
Step 2:
On a sheet of lined paper, write the time slots in the left column. Then, fill in the blanks for each time slot with a task you will complete that day. Think of it as a little checklist. They do one thing from 9:00 to 10:00. Take a 15 minute break. Then do the following task from 10:15 to 11:00. If you can work six hours a day, enter details of what you will achieve in each of those time slots.
Set a start date for a two-month project. Write the date on your calendar and pin a giant note somewhere you can’t miss to remind you of your start date. Know in your heart and mind that this is an exciting date and you are looking forward to it.
Both chapters easy written
It was easy to complete the Geological Conditions and Data and Methodology chapters because I was using this information for presentations and posters during my PhD program. Writing these chapters gave me confidence – most of my thesis was done, or so I thought at the time.
Based on the bibliographic research I had already done, I started writing my introduction, perhaps the most difficult chapter of my work. I had too much information and it was poorly structured. But after a lot of rewriting and editing, I managed to create a draft chapter.