{"id":7835,"date":"2020-03-05T11:50:10","date_gmt":"2020-03-04T22:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/?p=7835"},"modified":"2021-03-25T15:00:57","modified_gmt":"2021-03-25T02:00:57","slug":"throwback-thursday-ideas-for-structuring-your-thesis-or-dissertation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/?p=7835","title":{"rendered":"Throwback Thursday: Ideas for Structuring Your Thesis or Dissertation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This post by University of Auckland staff member Dr Ian Brailsford first appeared on Thesislink in May 2019. Links and Postgraduate Handbook references have been updated. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My favourite Jorge Chan \u2018PhD Comic\u2019 is titled Writing your thesis outline<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
\u201cPiled Higher and Deeper\u201d by Jorge Cham
www.phdcomics.com <\/strong> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Structuring your research thesis or dissertation is an inexact science and there are different ways of breaking it down. This post complements a past Thesislink post<\/a> on visualising the through-thread. That post described the narrative \u2018master\u2019 thread required, not just through the whole work, but within each chapter or section too. I offer here three quasi-quantitative tools to help you structure your thesis or dissertation. But two caveats: your supervisors will have thoughts about structuring your work (especially in light of disciplinary norms) so discuss your ideas with them. Designing your structure is an ongoing process of moving from an overall concept or plan to shaping the final version. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Word limits (or, if writing articles, the journal\u2019s requirements) help focus the mind. AUT\u2019s 2021 Postgraduate Handbook<\/a> (pp.111) gives clear guidance on the word limits for each degree programme and\/or thesis format. As a simple example, if you are planning a traditional (Format One) doctoral thesis with seven chapters spanning 70,000 words then you are suddenly thinking of 10,000 word chapters. Each chapter, of course, doesn\u2019t have to be 10,000 words but if one is going to be significantly shorter than 10,000 words then presumably another chapter might have to be longer. The same principles apply for a dissertation or master\u2019s thesis. Word limits, as a dean of graduate studies used to phrase it, are a limit not a target. \u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My two other structuring tools relate to: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. How much of your reader\u2019s time does each section take to read; and <\/li>
  2. Where are the internal divides between beginning, middle and end? <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    It\u2019s that simple. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    As someone who has examined dissertations and theses it is reassuring getting to the researcher\u2019s own work within the first 30 to 40 minutes of reading time. When reviewing for academic journals it\u2019s the first five to ten minutes. On the one hand, you want the writer to explain the background to the research and what\u2019s already known about the topic to show they\u2019re familiar with the territory. But, on the other hand, you don\u2019t want to read pages and pages of text that\u2019s \u2018nice to know\u2019 but not \u2018need to know\u2019. You get bored and restless. As an analogy, the first of Sir Peter Jackson\u2019s three Hobbit<\/a><\/em> films had almost one hour of exposition and backstory before Bilbo Baggins finally left Hobbiton and started his unexpected journey. I, for one, was already getting restless. Jackson was trying my patience. But I\u2019d paid for my seat and still had some popcorn left. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    As an examiner, I\u2019m like the person who has bought the ticket to the show. I\u2019m committed to reading and reviewing the work so I can\u2019t leave early. However, your other readers may have less patience or sense of obligation. Think of when you read a good book or academic journal article. You know in the first few minutes that it\u2019s good: you want to continue. Trust me, a 10,000-word literature review section that\u2019s not really going anywhere is annoying as an examiner but as a general reader I\u2019d stop and skip ahead to the conclusion to see \u2018who done it\u2019. Obviously different readers read at different speeds and with different levels of engagement; as a rule, get to the thing (your research) as soon as humanly possible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Where are the junctures in your writing where you implicitly expect the reader to put your work down, grab a coffee or have a comfort break, and then pick up the thread? A meta-structuring device is to take your numbered table of contents page. Draw two horizontal lines: the first demarcating the transition from the beginning of your work (introduction, literature\/theory discussion etc.) to the middle core or body of the thesis or dissertation (your research and discussion) and a second line for the final, end section (conclusions, reflections and\/or recommendations). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    This is where it becomes inexact. For some research work, it might be an even three-way split in terms of words and\/or pages. For other projects, however, you might need the first half of the work to explain and justify the project before you move to the middle section. Alternatively, your opening up section might be brief as you have several case studies in the body of your work you want your readers to immerse themselves in. As ever, it depends: you get to decide as the designer. Drafting up an indicative table of contents as early as possible helps you to see the form of your work. As one examiner phrased it: “I look at the table of contents just to see whether it makes sense from that point of view. How much space is devoted to a certain section. You know roughly what should be there.” (Kiley & Mullins, 2004, p.130).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Going back to PhD Comics<\/a>, the middle panel has more home truths. \u201cStep 2, fill in the freebies: 1. Introduction, 2. Lit review, 3. Methodology, 4, 5 and 6 are blank and 7. Conclusions. You\u2019re halfway done!\u201d If you don\u2019t have to reinvent the structuring wheel, don\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Reference<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Kiley, M. & Mullins, G. (2004). Examining the examiners: How inexperienced examiners approach the assessment of research theses. International Journal of Educational Research<\/em>, 41<\/em>(2), 2004, 121-135.
    https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.ijer.2005.04.009<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This post by University of Auckland staff member Dr Ian Brailsford first appeared on Thesislink in May 2019. Links and Postgraduate Handbook references have been updated. My favourite Jorge Chan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25757,"featured_media":7257,"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":[29,1],"tags":[101,43,58,78],"class_list":["post-7835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-throwback-thursday","category-category-5","tag-argument-construction","tag-drafting","tag-organisation","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/PhD-Comics.gif?fit=600%2C260&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p83npQ-22n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7835","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\/25757"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7835"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8671,"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7835\/revisions\/8671"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}