{"id":7117,"date":"2019-03-07T10:02:42","date_gmt":"2019-03-06T21:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/?p=7117"},"modified":"2019-03-07T10:05:00","modified_gmt":"2019-03-06T21:05:00","slug":"throwback-thursday-who-are-you-writing-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/?p=7117","title":{"rendered":"Throwback Thursday: Who are you Writing For?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post by Dr Anaise Irvine first appeared on Thesislink in September 2015. <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How many people will read your thesis?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the impossible question. A few examiners, at least. Your supervisors. Is that all?<\/p>\n

Maybe a devoted spouse or family member?<\/p>\n

Possibly one or two fellow scholars in your field?<\/p>\n

Maybe, but not for sure. Sometimes it can feel as though the audience for a thesis is imaginary \u2013 just a theoretical group, a set of ghosts or academic phantasms. I often wonder: will anyone read this sentence with as much care as I put into writing it? And the answer I come to is: probably not.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But what if your thesis does<\/em> have readers? Say, a lot<\/em> of readers? What if something happens in the future that makes your work suddenly incredibly important?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s happened before. When 21-year-old Claude Shannon wrote his Masters thesis on relay and switching circuits in 1937, he couldn\u2019t possibly have known that his use of Boolean algebra in electrical applications would lay the groundwork for digital circuit design and therefore all computers everywhere<\/em>. His Masters thesis has been cited in over 1000 scholarly works, and it\u2019s still a popular read almost 80 years after its publication.<\/p>\n

A young Jane Goodall started her PhD thesis at Cambridge University without even having an undergraduate degree. She had gotten to know her chimpanzee research subjects through 18 months\u2019 observation, but her thesis supervisor thought she was unprofessional to write of them as \u201che\u201d and \u201cshe\u201d rather than \u201cit\u201d. Now her thesis has been cited over 1300 times, and the complex sociability of chimpanzees has been widely acknowledged in the scientific community.<\/p>\n

Ever heard of Ludwig Wittgenstein, the famous philosopher? His legacy is almost entirely down to his minimalist 75-page PhD thesis. It was the only major work he published in his lifetime. When it was published, he was working as a teacher in a rural primary school. Philosophers quickly realised its importance in sketching out the limits of language, and thus the limits of thought. The thesis became one of the most important texts in 20th century philosophy, with a current citation count of over 18,000.<\/p>\n

Sure, most theses will garner less attention. But we all have readers. Real, flesh-and-blood, discerning readers. So what if they are a small group?<\/p>\n

Even if my thesis is only read by my supervisors and examiners, my husband (a few chapters) and my parents (introductory paragraph), they are all incredibly significant people who have a large bearing on my life and my future.<\/p>\n

More importantly, a thesis isn\u2019t about the readers. It\u2019s about the writer. Ultimately, it\u2019s a training exercise; it\u2019s preparation for a life as a thinker, scholar, and researcher. The more effort I put into perfecting my thesis, the better I\u2019ll be prepared.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s reason enough to keep improving it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post by Dr Anaise Irvine first appeared on Thesislink in September 2015.   How many people will read your thesis? It’s the impossible question. A few examiners, at least. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6725,"featured_media":4463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[67,52,78],"class_list":["post-7117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-category-5","tag-influence","tag-reading","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/Ghost-reader.jpg?fit=3872%2C2592&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p83npQ-1QN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6725"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7117"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7119,"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7117\/revisions\/7119"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}