caution thesis writing in progress

Writers Workshop

Staying on Track with Theses and Dissertations

On this page:, what is a thesis or dissertation.

• Staying on Track With: Research, Organization, & Prewriting
• Staying on Track With: Drafting, Feedback, & Revision

Managing long-term projects like theses and dissertations can feel daunting, particularly as graduate students are often working to complete these culminating projects while also juggling teaching, research, and applying for jobs. Consequently, for many grad students, staying on track with long-term writing can pose challenges, including making time in their schedules to write, as well as figuring out how to get started, how to organize their ideas, and how to translate their ideas effectively in writing. Feel free to read on for a myriad of strategies to help you stay on track with these long-term projects or watch the video below to hear our Director, Carolyn Wisniewski, discuss how to stay on track with theses and dissertations.

When you begin to write a thesis or a dissertation, you might find yourself wondering: What is a dissertation? What does it look like? How do I organize it? Where do I start? The answer to these questions might look very different depending on your field. To help you envision what your final product might look like, it can be helpful to:

• Talk with your advisor about the overall structure of your thesis / dissertation
• Use other scholarship as models to help you contextualize and situate your work
• Find and read others’ theses / dissertations written in your department / field

Staying on Track With: Research and Organization

Our research and writing processes are interconnected, so set yourself up for success by developing effective habits for managing your sources and data, such as:

• Start using citation managers early in your process to keep track of your sources as you conduct research. You can also attend a “Savvy Researcher” workshop on campus to learn more about how to use these resources.
• Take careful notes as you read, keeping track of key ideas, key quotes, and relevant page numbers.

Staying on Track With: Prewriting

Early on in your process—and at multiple times throughout your project—you might find prewriting useful to help you generate ideas and begin to consider how you’ll organize ideas in your project. As you begin to prewrite, ask yourself: What can I do with what I have at this point in the process? What strategies work best for me to brainstorm ideas?

Additionally, your strategies for prewriting and planning might vary depending on the kind of writing project you’re working on. For instance, if you’re getting started on a project, you’ll likely begin by thinking through big picture ideas, especially the overall structure of your project. In contrast, if you’re preparing for a two-hour long writing session, you might begin by focusing on a specific section or with a smaller, concrete goal in mind.

Prewriting For a Writing Project

• Create a concept map
• Brainstorm ideas
• Outline your ideas
• Talk with others
• Review and organize your research notes

Prewriting For a Writing Session

• Review your notes, previous drafts, and / or feedback
• Freewrite without stopping for a certain amount of time
• Write down the key points you’d like to make in the section you’re working on
• Outline or reverse outline your ideas
• Set a goal for your writing session

Staying on Track With: Drafting, Feedback, and Revision

Frequent writing sessions keep the project fresh in your mind so that you don’t have to spend valuable time reacquainting yourself with your project. These sessions also help you by breaking up your long-term project into smaller, short-term goals that are concrete and manageable. Remember that making progress on your draft might not involve putting words on a page—rather, it might mean looking back at your data or sources, annotating an article, rereading what you’ve written, reviewing feedback on your draft, and anything else that helps you move forward on your project. During this process, you might find it helpful to:

• Assess your writing habits and establish a writing routine
• Schedule your writing time and protect that time
• Create or participate in writing groups
• Write frequently for shorter periods of time
• Seek out feedback from multiple individuals (your advisor, committee members, the Writers Workshop, colleagues)

Keeping a Writing Log

Related Links:

• Writing Groups and Writing Retreats
• Writing and Well-Being
• Grad College Thesis Office

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How To Write A Dissertation Or Thesis

8 straightforward steps to craft an a-grade dissertation.

By: Derek Jansen (MBA) Expert Reviewed By: Dr Eunice Rautenbach | June 2020

Writing a dissertation or thesis is not a simple task. It takes time, energy and a lot of will power to get you across the finish line. It’s not easy – but it doesn’t necessarily need to be a painful process. If you understand the big-picture process of how to write a dissertation or thesis, your research journey will be a lot smoother.  

In this post, I’m going to outline the big-picture process of how to write a high-quality dissertation or thesis, without losing your mind along the way. If you’re just starting your research, this post is perfect for you. Alternatively, if you’ve already submitted your proposal, this article which covers how to structure a dissertation might be more helpful.

How To Write A Dissertation: 8 Steps

• Clearly understand what a dissertation (or thesis) is
• Find a unique and valuable research topic
• Craft a convincing research proposal
• Write up a strong introduction chapter
• Review the existing literature and compile a literature review
• Design a rigorous research strategy and undertake your own research
• Present the findings of your research
• Draw a conclusion and discuss the implications

Step 1: Understand exactly what a dissertation is

This probably sounds like a no-brainer, but all too often, students come to us for help with their research and the underlying issue is that they don’t fully understand what a dissertation (or thesis) actually is.

So, what is a dissertation?

At its simplest, a dissertation or thesis is a formal piece of research , reflecting the standard research process . But what is the standard research process, you ask? The research process involves 4 key steps:

• Ask a very specific, well-articulated question (s) (your research topic)
• See what other researchers have said about it (if they’ve already answered it)
• If they haven’t answered it adequately, undertake your own data collection and analysis in a scientifically rigorous fashion
• Answer your original question(s), based on your analysis findings

In short, the research process is simply about asking and answering questions in a systematic fashion . This probably sounds pretty obvious, but people often think they’ve done “research”, when in fact what they have done is:

• Started with a vague, poorly articulated question
• Not taken the time to see what research has already been done regarding the question
• Collected data and opinions that support their gut and undertaken a flimsy analysis
• Drawn a shaky conclusion, based on that analysis

If you want to see the perfect example of this in action, look out for the next Facebook post where someone claims they’ve done “research”… All too often, people consider reading a few blog posts to constitute research. Its no surprise then that what they end up with is an opinion piece, not research. Okay, okay – I’ll climb off my soapbox now.

The key takeaway here is that a dissertation (or thesis) is a formal piece of research, reflecting the research process. It’s not an opinion piece , nor a place to push your agenda or try to convince someone of your position. Writing a good dissertation involves asking a question and taking a systematic, rigorous approach to answering it.

If you understand this and are comfortable leaving your opinions or preconceived ideas at the door, you’re already off to a good start!

Step 2: Find a unique, valuable research topic

As we saw, the first step of the research process is to ask a specific, well-articulated question. In other words, you need to find a research topic that asks a specific question or set of questions (these are called research questions ). Sounds easy enough, right? All you’ve got to do is identify a question or two and you’ve got a winning research topic. Well, not quite…

A good dissertation or thesis topic has a few important attributes. Specifically, a solid research topic should be:

Let’s take a closer look at these:

Attribute #1: Clear

Your research topic needs to be crystal clear about what you’re planning to research, what you want to know, and within what context. There shouldn’t be any ambiguity or vagueness about what you’ll research.

Here’s an example of a clearly articulated research topic:

An analysis of consumer-based factors influencing organisational trust in British low-cost online equity brokerage firms.

As you can see in the example, its crystal clear what will be analysed (factors impacting organisational trust), amongst who (consumers) and in what context (British low-cost equity brokerage firms, based online).

Need a helping hand?

Attribute #2:   Unique

Your research should be asking a question(s) that hasn’t been asked before, or that hasn’t been asked in a specific context (for example, in a specific country or industry).

For example, sticking organisational trust topic above, it’s quite likely that organisational trust factors in the UK have been investigated before, but the context (online low-cost equity brokerages) could make this research unique. Therefore, the context makes this research original.

One caveat when using context as the basis for originality – you need to have a good reason to suspect that your findings in this context might be different from the existing research – otherwise, there’s no reason to warrant researching it.

Attribute #3: Important

Simply asking a unique or original question is not enough – the question needs to create value. In other words, successfully answering your research questions should provide some value to the field of research or the industry. You can’t research something just to satisfy your curiosity. It needs to make some form of contribution either to research or industry.

For example, researching the factors influencing consumer trust would create value by enabling businesses to tailor their operations and marketing to leverage factors that promote trust. In other words, it would have a clear benefit to industry.

So, how do you go about finding a unique and valuable research topic? We explain that in detail in this video post – How To Find A Research Topic . Yeah, we’ve got you covered 😊

Step 3: Write a convincing research proposal

Once you’ve pinned down a high-quality research topic, the next step is to convince your university to let you research it. No matter how awesome you think your topic is, it still needs to get the rubber stamp before you can move forward with your research. The research proposal is the tool you’ll use for this job.

So, what’s in a research proposal?

The main “job” of a research proposal is to convince your university, advisor or committee that your research topic is worthy of approval. But convince them of what? Well, this varies from university to university, but generally, they want to see that:

• You have a clearly articulated, unique and important topic (this might sound familiar…)
• You’ve done some initial reading of the existing literature relevant to your topic (i.e. a literature review)
• You have a provisional plan in terms of how you will collect data and analyse it (i.e. a methodology)

At the proposal stage, it’s (generally) not expected that you’ve extensively reviewed the existing literature , but you will need to show that you’ve done enough reading to identify a clear gap for original (unique) research. Similarly, they generally don’t expect that you have a rock-solid research methodology mapped out, but you should have an idea of whether you’ll be undertaking qualitative or quantitative analysis , and how you’ll collect your data (we’ll discuss this in more detail later).

Long story short – don’t stress about having every detail of your research meticulously thought out at the proposal stage – this will develop as you progress through your research. However, you do need to show that you’ve “done your homework” and that your research is worthy of approval .

So, how do you go about crafting a high-quality, convincing proposal? We cover that in detail in this video post – How To Write A Top-Class Research Proposal . We’ve also got a video walkthrough of two proposal examples here .

Step 4: Craft a strong introduction chapter

Once your proposal’s been approved, its time to get writing your actual dissertation or thesis! The good news is that if you put the time into crafting a high-quality proposal, you’ve already got a head start on your first three chapters – introduction, literature review and methodology – as you can use your proposal as the basis for these.

Handy sidenote – our free dissertation & thesis template is a great way to speed up your dissertation writing journey.

What’s the introduction chapter all about?

The purpose of the introduction chapter is to set the scene for your research (dare I say, to introduce it…) so that the reader understands what you’ll be researching and why it’s important. In other words, it covers the same ground as the research proposal in that it justifies your research topic.

What goes into the introduction chapter?

This can vary slightly between universities and degrees, but generally, the introduction chapter will include the following:

• A brief background to the study, explaining the overall area of research
• A problem statement , explaining what the problem is with the current state of research (in other words, where the knowledge gap exists)
• Your research questions – in other words, the specific questions your study will seek to answer (based on the knowledge gap)
• The significance of your study – in other words, why it’s important and how its findings will be useful in the world

As you can see, this all about explaining the “what” and the “why” of your research (as opposed to the “how”). So, your introduction chapter is basically the salesman of your study, “selling” your research to the first-time reader and (hopefully) getting them interested to read more.

How do I write the introduction chapter, you ask? We cover that in detail in this post .

Step 5: Undertake an in-depth literature review

As I mentioned earlier, you’ll need to do some initial review of the literature in Steps 2 and 3 to find your research gap and craft a convincing research proposal – but that’s just scratching the surface. Once you reach the literature review stage of your dissertation or thesis, you need to dig a lot deeper into the existing research and write up a comprehensive literature review chapter.

What’s the literature review all about?

There are two main stages in the literature review process:

Literature Review Step 1: Reading up

The first stage is for you to deep dive into the existing literature (journal articles, textbook chapters, industry reports, etc) to gain an in-depth understanding of the current state of research regarding your topic. While you don’t need to read every single article, you do need to ensure that you cover all literature that is related to your core research questions, and create a comprehensive catalogue of that literature , which you’ll use in the next step.

Reading and digesting all the relevant literature is a time consuming and intellectually demanding process. Many students underestimate just how much work goes into this step, so make sure that you allocate a good amount of time for this when planning out your research. Thankfully, there are ways to fast track the process – be sure to check out this article covering how to read journal articles quickly .

Literature Review Step 2: Writing up

Once you’ve worked through the literature and digested it all, you’ll need to write up your literature review chapter. Many students make the mistake of thinking that the literature review chapter is simply a summary of what other researchers have said. While this is partly true, a literature review is much more than just a summary. To pull off a good literature review chapter, you’ll need to achieve at least 3 things:

• You need to synthesise the existing research , not just summarise it. In other words, you need to show how different pieces of theory fit together, what’s agreed on by researchers, what’s not.
• You need to highlight a research gap that your research is going to fill. In other words, you’ve got to outline the problem so that your research topic can provide a solution.
• You need to use the existing research to inform your methodology and approach to your own research design. For example, you might use questions or Likert scales from previous studies in your your own survey design .

As you can see, a good literature review is more than just a summary of the published research. It’s the foundation on which your own research is built, so it deserves a lot of love and attention. Take the time to craft a comprehensive literature review with a suitable structure .

But, how do I actually write the literature review chapter, you ask? We cover that in detail in this video post .

Step 6: Carry out your own research

Once you’ve completed your literature review and have a sound understanding of the existing research, its time to develop your own research (finally!). You’ll design this research specifically so that you can find the answers to your unique research question.

There are two steps here – designing your research strategy and executing on it:

1 – Design your research strategy

The first step is to design your research strategy and craft a methodology chapter . I won’t get into the technicalities of the methodology chapter here, but in simple terms, this chapter is about explaining the “how” of your research. If you recall, the introduction and literature review chapters discussed the “what” and the “why”, so it makes sense that the next point to cover is the “how” –that’s what the methodology chapter is all about.

In this section, you’ll need to make firm decisions about your research design. This includes things like:

• Your research philosophy (e.g. positivism or interpretivism )
• Your overall methodology (e.g. qualitative , quantitative or mixed methods)
• Your data collection strategy (e.g. interviews , focus groups, surveys)
• Your data analysis strategy (e.g. content analysis , correlation analysis, regression)

If these words have got your head spinning, don’t worry! We’ll explain these in plain language in other posts. It’s not essential that you understand the intricacies of research design (yet!). The key takeaway here is that you’ll need to make decisions about how you’ll design your own research, and you’ll need to describe (and justify) your decisions in your methodology chapter.

2 – Execute: Collect and analyse your data

Once you’ve worked out your research design, you’ll put it into action and start collecting your data. This might mean undertaking interviews, hosting an online survey or any other data collection method. Data collection can take quite a bit of time (especially if you host in-person interviews), so be sure to factor sufficient time into your project plan for this. Oftentimes, things don’t go 100% to plan (for example, you don’t get as many survey responses as you hoped for), so bake a little extra time into your budget here.

Once you’ve collected your data, you’ll need to do some data preparation before you can sink your teeth into the analysis. For example:

• If you carry out interviews or focus groups, you’ll need to transcribe your audio data to text (i.e. a Word document).
• If you collect quantitative survey data, you’ll need to clean up your data and get it into the right format for whichever analysis software you use (for example, SPSS, R or STATA).

Once you’ve completed your data prep, you’ll undertake your analysis, using the techniques that you described in your methodology. Depending on what you find in your analysis, you might also do some additional forms of analysis that you hadn’t planned for. For example, you might see something in the data that raises new questions or that requires clarification with further analysis.

The type(s) of analysis that you’ll use depend entirely on the nature of your research and your research questions. For example:

• If your research if exploratory in nature, you’ll often use qualitative analysis techniques .
• If your research is confirmatory in nature, you’ll often use quantitative analysis techniques
• If your research involves a mix of both, you might use a mixed methods approach

Again, if these words have got your head spinning, don’t worry! We’ll explain these concepts and techniques in other posts. The key takeaway is simply that there’s no “one size fits all” for research design and methodology – it all depends on your topic, your research questions and your data. So, don’t be surprised if your study colleagues take a completely different approach to yours.

Step 7: Present your findings

Once you’ve completed your analysis, it’s time to present your findings (finally!). In a dissertation or thesis, you’ll typically present your findings in two chapters – the results chapter and the discussion chapter .

What’s the difference between the results chapter and the discussion chapter?

While these two chapters are similar, the results chapter generally just presents the processed data neatly and clearly without interpretation, while the discussion chapter explains the story the data are telling  – in other words, it provides your interpretation of the results.

For example, if you were researching the factors that influence consumer trust, you might have used a quantitative approach to identify the relationship between potential factors (e.g. perceived integrity and competence of the organisation) and consumer trust. In this case:

• Your results chapter would just present the results of the statistical tests. For example, correlation results or differences between groups. In other words, the processed numbers.
• Your discussion chapter would explain what the numbers mean in relation to your research question(s). For example, Factor 1 has a weak relationship with consumer trust, while Factor 2 has a strong relationship.

Depending on the university and degree, these two chapters (results and discussion) are sometimes merged into one , so be sure to check with your institution what their preference is. Regardless of the chapter structure, this section is about presenting the findings of your research in a clear, easy to understand fashion.

Importantly, your discussion here needs to link back to your research questions (which you outlined in the introduction or literature review chapter). In other words, it needs to answer the key questions you asked (or at least attempt to answer them).

For example, if we look at the sample research topic:

In this case, the discussion section would clearly outline which factors seem to have a noteworthy influence on organisational trust. By doing so, they are answering the overarching question and fulfilling the purpose of the research .

For more information about the results chapter , check out this post for qualitative studies and this post for quantitative studies .

Step 8: The Final Step Draw a conclusion and discuss the implications

Last but not least, you’ll need to wrap up your research with the conclusion chapter . In this chapter, you’ll bring your research full circle by highlighting the key findings of your study and explaining what the implications of these findings are.

What exactly are key findings? The key findings are those findings which directly relate to your original research questions and overall research objectives (which you discussed in your introduction chapter). The implications, on the other hand, explain what your findings mean for industry, or for research in your area.

Sticking with the consumer trust topic example, the conclusion might look something like this:

Key findings

This study set out to identify which factors influence consumer-based trust in British low-cost online equity brokerage firms. The results suggest that the following factors have a large impact on consumer trust:

While the following factors have a very limited impact on consumer trust:

Notably, within the 25-30 age groups, Factors E had a noticeably larger impact, which may be explained by…

Implications

The findings having noteworthy implications for British low-cost online equity brokers. Specifically:

The large impact of Factors X and Y implies that brokers need to consider….

The limited impact of Factor E implies that brokers need to…

As you can see, the conclusion chapter is basically explaining the “what” (what your study found) and the “so what?” (what the findings mean for the industry or research). This brings the study full circle and closes off the document.

Let’s recap – how to write a dissertation or thesis

You’re still with me? Impressive! I know that this post was a long one, but hopefully you’ve learnt a thing or two about how to write a dissertation or thesis, and are now better equipped to start your own research.

To recap, the 8 steps to writing a quality dissertation (or thesis) are as follows:

• Understand what a dissertation (or thesis) is – a research project that follows the research process.
• Find a unique (original) and important research topic
• Craft a convincing dissertation or thesis research proposal
• Write a clear, compelling introduction chapter
• Undertake a thorough review of the existing research and write up a literature review
• Undertake your own research
• Present and interpret your findings

Once you’ve wrapped up the core chapters, all that’s typically left is the abstract , reference list and appendices. As always, be sure to check with your university if they have any additional requirements in terms of structure or content.  

Psst... there’s more!

This post was based on one of our popular Research Bootcamps . If you're working on a research project, you'll definitely want to check this out ...

20 Comments

thankfull >>>this is very useful

Thank you, it was really helpful

unquestionably, this amazing simplified way of teaching. Really , I couldn’t find in the literature words that fully explicit my great thanks to you. However, I could only say thanks a-lot.

Great to hear that – thanks for the feedback. Good luck writing your dissertation/thesis.

This is the most comprehensive explanation of how to write a dissertation. Many thanks for sharing it free of charge.

Very rich presentation. Thank you

Thanks Derek Jansen|GRADCOACH, I find it very useful guide to arrange my activities and proceed to research!

Thank you so much for such a marvelous teaching .I am so convinced that am going to write a comprehensive and a distinct masters dissertation

It is an amazing comprehensive explanation

This was straightforward. Thank you!

I can say that your explanations are simple and enlightening – understanding what you have done here is easy for me. Could you write more about the different types of research methods specific to the three methodologies: quan, qual and MM. I look forward to interacting with this website more in the future.

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions 🙂

Hello, your write ups is quite educative. However, l have challenges in going about my research questions which is below; *Building the enablers of organisational growth through effective governance and purposeful leadership.*

Very educating.

Just listening to the name of the dissertation makes the student nervous. As writing a top-quality dissertation is a difficult task as it is a lengthy topic, requires a lot of research and understanding and is usually around 10,000 to 15000 words. Sometimes due to studies, unbalanced workload or lack of research and writing skill students look for dissertation submission from professional writers.

Thank you 💕😊 very much. I was confused but your comprehensive explanation has cleared my doubts of ever presenting a good thesis. Thank you.

thank you so much, that was so useful

Hi. Where is the excel spread sheet ark?

could you please help me look at your thesis paper to enable me to do the portion that has to do with the specification

my topic is “the impact of domestic revenue mobilization.

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Princeton Correspondents on Undergraduate Research

How to Pull Yourself Out of a Thesis-Writing Slump

We’ve all been there. We all know what it feels like to take a break⁠—whether it’s on purpose or by accident⁠—from a lengthy paper; it can be overwhelming when you realize that you messed up your writing process timeline. Personally, I recently took a looooong break (think: three weeks, give or take) from writing my thesis. Part of it was by accident; due to COVID-19, all Princeton students were told to move out and head back home for the remainder of the semester. The stress of packing, saying goodbye to my friends and the campus, and moving out caused my thesis to take a backseat in terms of priorities. Once I arrived home, I purposefully decided to extend my break from writing my thesis in order to unpack, get settled, and get used to online classes. One day lead to the next, and suddenly, I had spent three weeks away from my thesis.

            It’s important to note that taking a break is different for everyone. In my case, I was already pretty advanced in my writing process and had close to a finished full draft. Because of that, the effects of taking a break weren’t too drastic for me. However, I recognize that different situations would merit different reactions; for example, if I had very little of my thesis written prior to taking my break, I probably would have been much more panicked and stressed out.

            Regardless of the situation, pulling yourself out of that slump is important, and the process deserves to be highlighted. Of course, what works for me may not work with everybody, but here are some tips that helped me get back on track:

• Figure out your new timeline. I’m a very visual person, and I love planning things out on a small whiteboard or a piece of paper so I can easily see what my goals are. Decide how much progress you want to accomplish per day⁠—time spent writing per day, pages added per day, etc.⁠⁠—in order to meet your deadlines.
• Communicate with your adviser. Your adviser is there to⁠—you guessed it⁠—advise you! So, make sure you communicate your new plans to your adviser so that he or she can support you accordingly. When I was choosing my adviser (see this post for tips on finding a thesis adviser), I purposefully looked for one that would be very active and hands-on with my writing process. I wanted an adviser that would check in on me and hold me accountable for the goals and deadlines we had set together⁠—not because I wouldn’t meet those goals and deadlines otherwise, but instead, because I wanted to feel like my adviser is really involved and supportive throughout my writing process. So, for me, communicating my new plans and expectations for myself to my adviser after concluding my break allowed my adviser to better support me during that time. Moreover, especially with COVID-19, advisers are understanding to everyone’s circumstances, and they won’t hold it against students if you haven’t gotten much progress done recently. Don’t be scared to reach out!
• Hold yourself accountable. Make it as easy as possible to reach your goals. Maybe block out some time in your schedule each day to write. Perhaps you could even establish benchmarks and incentives for yourself as motivation (I like rewarding myself with Netflix). Whatever works for you! Independent work can be difficult, since everything depends on you and your own initiative. Make sure you hold yourself accountable to the timeline you’ve set for yourself!

            The first two tips can, of course, be switched around! Again: these tips may not be helpful for everybody, but they have definitely worked for me! It’s important to remember that independent work naturally comes with ups and downs, and the writing process is rarely perfect. Sometimes, outside factors that are out of your control put a temporary hold on your writing, and that’s natural! It’s crucial to keep a level head and make a clear-cut plan to get yourself back on track and pull yourself out of your thesis-writing slump. Good luck!

⎯ Andrea Reino, Social Sciences Correspondent

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Resources for Dissertation Writing

• Getting Started
• Proposals and Prospectuses
• Literature Reviews
• Humanities and the Arts Resources
• Social/Behavioural Sciences Resources
• Sciences Resources
• Business Resources
• Formatting and Submitting Your Dissertation
• Tips: Making Progress, Staying Well, and More!

Tips for Making Progress, Staying Well, and More!

There's no question that writing a thesis or dissertation is a long process, and it's often challenging and tiring in a variety of ways. It can be difficult to keep your spirits up and stay motivated to write, especially when it might seem like you'll never be finished. You're not alone: many, many dissertation writers before you have felt the same way. Below are some resources that can help you to stay on track.

Resources at UBC

Graduate Pathways to Success has a range of resources and workshops to help you with a range of graduate school concerns, including

• Graduate School Success: topics such as submitting your thesis, preparing for your doctoral exam, presentation skills, learning about statistics, building an effective relationship with your supervisor, and more;
• Professional Effectiveness: topics like communication and presentation skills, overcoming procrastination, teamwork, translating research into policy, networking, and beyond;
• Self Management: topics like resilience, conflict resolution, assertiveness, wellness, and more;
• and Career Building: topics like finding your strengths, exploring entrepreneurship, exploring non-academic career paths, improving career confidence, and beyond.

The Centre for Writing and Scholarly Communication offers writing consultations for graduate students. These are 50-minute consultations with graduate-level peer consultants who understand the specific concerns involved in graduate writing, including theses and dissertations. They also partner with other UBC units to offer a range of workshops , including Graduate Writing Communities and Dissertation Boot Camps, and have a number of online writing resources .

Dissertation writing can be hard on your physical and mental health. Student Health Service is an on-campus family medical clinic. Counselling Services has a variety of support personnel and resources. Both are open to all UBC students, including graduate students.

Motivating Yourself to Write

Sometimes, it's hard to get yourself into a chair in front of your computer to just start writing. But the only way your thesis or dissertation is going to get finished is if you write it. Here are some links that might help you to get started, get back at it, or get finished.

• Chronicle Vitae's "no-fail secret" to writing a dissertation (hint: it's writing)

Using Writing Groups to Help You

Sometime, what you really need to help you through the writing process is a support network of people who are also in that process. Many students find that writing groups can be a big help in keeping themselves motivated and on track.

The Research Commons has partnered with the Centre for Writing and Scholarly Communication to create two regular writing groups that will be meeting throughout the 2017-2018 school year. These groups are designed to provide a supportive writing environment, and to help students build a community of fellow writers to help get them through the difficult parts of writing. You can find out more about these workshops or sign up here .

You might decide that you'd like to start your own writing support group. The Graduate Student Resource Center at UCLA has collated a number of resources that can help you as you get started. Stanford University also has a "starter kit" that you might find useful.

If you're a Twitter user, you'll find that there are lots of people who talk about academic writing in general, and dissertation and thesis writing in particular. Check out the hashtags #acwri, #AcWriMo (Academic Writing Month, every November), #phdchat, #getyourmanuscriptout or #amwriting; or follow accounts like @Acwri, @academicswrite, or @WriteThatPhD.

Making Progress on your Thesis

Sometimes it's not motivation to write that's the challenge; there are lots of other things that can keep you from making progress on your writing. Here are some common problems, and resources that can help you with them.

Perfectionism

One of the things that can keep you from making progress on your thesis or dissertation is perfectionism - and it's very common in academia! Here are some resources that can help you to break out of the negative cycles this can create.

• Inside Higher Education series on Overcoming Academic Perfectionism
• Psychology Today on Grad Students and Perfectionism
• The Public Library of Science (PLoS) Early Career Researcher Blog on Anxiety and Perfectionism in Academia
• University Affairs' Career Advice column on Combating Perfectionism

Procrastination

Sometimes it's hard to focus on writing when there are so many other things you could be doing, or reading, or thinking about...but eventually, you will need to get to work and get your dissertation done!

• The American Psychological Association website has an essay on dissertation procrastination you should read (but not to avoid writing!).
• GradHacker has a recent post on cutting down on "monkey mind" (jumping around between many different tasks or thoughts).

Time Management

Even if you're not procrastinating, time management can often be a problem, especially when you're trying to balance writing and the rest of your life.

• The American Psychological Association website has tips from grad students and procrastination experts on better managing your time .
• GradHacker has a recent (Sept. 2017) post on re-thinking how much you commit yourself to doing during the dissertation-writing process.

Staying Well During the Writing Process

It can sometimes be hard to stay positive while you're writing your thesis or dissertation: it's a long process, it has many challenges, and it's very tiring. You'll want to make sure that you find techniques and support systems that will help you to stay mentally, physically and emotionally well while you're writing. Here are some resources we've found that might be useful for you.

Work-Life Balance: Don't Let Your Dissertation Define You (Carleton University)

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While Sandel argues that pursuing perfection through genetic engineering would decrease our sense of humility, he claims that the sense of solidarity we would lose is also important.

This thesis summarizes several points in Sandel’s argument, but it does not make a claim about how we should understand his argument. A reader who read Sandel’s argument would not also need to read an essay based on this descriptive thesis.  

Broad thesis (arguable, but difficult to support with evidence) 

Michael Sandel’s arguments about genetic engineering do not take into consideration all the relevant issues.

This is an arguable claim because it would be possible to argue against it by saying that Michael Sandel’s arguments do take all of the relevant issues into consideration. But the claim is too broad. Because the thesis does not specify which “issues” it is focused on—or why it matters if they are considered—readers won’t know what the rest of the essay will argue, and the writer won’t know what to focus on. If there is a particular issue that Sandel does not address, then a more specific version of the thesis would include that issue—hand an explanation of why it is important.  

Arguable thesis with analytical claim 

While Sandel argues persuasively that our instinct to “remake” (54) ourselves into something ever more perfect is a problem, his belief that we can always draw a line between what is medically necessary and what makes us simply “better than well” (51) is less convincing.

This is an arguable analytical claim. To argue for this claim, the essay writer will need to show how evidence from the article itself points to this interpretation. It’s also a reasonable scope for a thesis because it can be supported with evidence available in the text and is neither too broad nor too narrow.  

Arguable thesis with normative claim 

Given Sandel’s argument against genetic enhancement, we should not allow parents to decide on using Human Growth Hormone for their children.

This thesis tells us what we should do about a particular issue discussed in Sandel’s article, but it does not tell us how we should understand Sandel’s argument.  

Questions to ask about your thesis 

• Is the thesis truly arguable? Does it speak to a genuine dilemma in the source, or would most readers automatically agree with it?  
• Is the thesis too obvious? Again, would most or all readers agree with it without needing to see your argument?  
• Is the thesis complex enough to require a whole essay's worth of argument?  
• Is the thesis supportable with evidence from the text rather than with generalizations or outside research?  
• Would anyone want to read a paper in which this thesis was developed? That is, can you explain what this paper is adding to our understanding of a problem, question, or topic?
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11 quick fixes to get your thesis back on track

(Last updated: 21 December 2023)

Since 2006, Oxbridge Essays has been the UK’s leading paid essay-writing and dissertation service

We have helped 10,000s of undergraduate, Masters and PhD students to maximise their grades in essays, dissertations, model-exam answers, applications and other materials. If you would like a free chat about your project with one of our UK staff, then please just reach out on one of the methods below.

Struggles with a dissertation can begin at any phase in the process. From the earliest points in which you are just trying to generate a viable idea, to the end where there might be time-table or advisor issues.

If you feel like you're struggling, you are not alone.

For as much as the situation might feel unique to you, the truth of the matter is that it's not. You are one of hundreds of thousands of students who will have endured, and eventually triumphed, over a centuries-old process.

So, rest assured that any struggles or difficulties are completely and totally normal, and not likely to be insurmountable. Your goal to ace your thesis is certainly achievable.

There is one book that you should have on your shelf and should have read. Umberto Eco’s 'How to Write a Thesis' (MIT Press, 2015) , was originally published in the late 70’s for his Italian students, and most of his analysis and advice rings true today.

It is, in essence, a guide on how to be productive and produce a large body of research writing, and it contains lots of really sound and useful advice.

"Help! I've only just started my dissertation and already I'm stuck."

For as weighty and profound as the final product might appear to be, the essence of a dissertation is quite simple: it is an answer to a question.

Dissertation writers often stumble over the same block. They try to find an answer without first asking themselves what question they are actually answering.

One of the greatest advances in physics was a result of a question so simple, it is almost child-like: ‘what would light look like if I ran alongside it?’. For those of you interested, have a read about Einstein’s thought experiment on chasing a light beam .

For many, a problem arises with a dissertation because after becoming accustomed, over several years of earlier education, to ‘spitting back’ and regurgitating information, you suddenly and largely – if not entirely – feel expected to say something original.

Try flipping your thesis statement on its head and see it as a question; what is a thesis statement but a question that has been turned into a declaration?

So just to recap, the first step in the early stages of your dissertation really should be identifying a research question.

In fact, for some advisors this is the first thing they want to see. Not, ‘what do you want to talk about?’ or, ‘what is your thesis statement?’ but, ‘what is your research question? What are you trying to answer?’.

What to do if you don't know where to start

One of the easiest ways to get started is by simply reading .

A professor we know often recommended this as a simple way of getting ideas flowing. He would have his students read about a dozen of the most recent articles pertaining to a particular topic.

Not broad topics, mind you, like twelve recent articles on Shakespeare or globalisation, but more focused, like ‘Shakespeare and travel’ or ‘globalisation and education’.

What is particularly useful about reading in this way is that most articles are part of some thread of academic discussion, and so will mention and account for previous research in some way.

By reading such articles, you’ll gain an idea of what has been and is being discussed in your area of interest and what the critical issues are. Usually, after just a handful of articles, some rough ideas and focus start to emerge.

What to do if you don’t have anything to say

Maybe you have found a general idea, that ‘question’, but you are still left without something to talk about. At this point, you just don’t have the data, or the material, to work up a dissertation. The answer is quite simple: you need to do research .

Have you ever considered what research is? Why the ‘re-‘? Why isn’t it just called ‘search’? This step requires you to look over and over and over again, for patterns, themes, arguments… You are looking at other people’s work to see what they have wrong and right, which will allow for plenty of discussion.

Follow your instincts

Not to make the process sound overly mystical, but at this point in your academic career there should be a gut response to what you read.

A noteworthy idea or a passage should make your academic antennae sit up and pay attention, without you necessarily even knowing why. Perhaps you are simply struck by the notion that what you just read was interesting, for some reason. This ‘reason’ is what we mean by ‘instincts’.

In fact, studies have shown that you can be right up to 90% of the time when trusting your gut .

We know many, many academics and the process is very much the same for them – something for some reason or other just catches their attention. As you go through your research – your reading, reading, and reading – you should always note these things that draw your eye.

Write (don't type) everything down

Now seems like a great time to tell you that here at Oxbridge Essays HQ, we are HUGE fans of the index card.

We’re not joking when we say that a few books or printed articles and a half-stack of index cards for jotting down notes and ideas is all you need to get going.

Index cards are easier to sort and move around than a notebook, and easier to lay out than a computer screen. In fact, outside of research and materials-gathering for which internet access is vital, for the first stages of your dissertation writing the humble index card might be all you need. After you’ve created a good-sized stack of index cards, a pattern (though maybe not the pattern) should start to develop.

And for the sake of all that is holy and dear, write everything down ! Do not trust your memory with even the smallest detail because there is little worse than spending hours trying to remember where you saw something that could have been helpful, and never finding it.

"Argh! I'm mid-way through my dissertation and suddenly, I've run out of steam."

There is a famous phrase; you probably know it: ‘Never a day without a line’.

You should never go a day without writing something, or rewriting something.

If the notion of working every day on your dissertation fills you with dread, consider this: a dissertation, as we just suggested; is merely a form of work. In life, there are few good reasons to not go to work, and so should there be few that mean you do not work on your dissertation.

Try using methods like The Pomodoro Technique to help you work more productively.

Some days will always be better than others, and some days you will feel more or less enthusiastic. But don’t trick yourself into thinking that your ‘feeling’ towards your work on any particular day may make what you produce better or worse.

Ultimately, the quality of your work should stem from the good habits that you have cultivated. Make working on your dissertation every day one of your good habits.

What to do if you feel like you've reached a dead end

This may not be what you want to hear, but even if you are struggling, you should work every day including weekends.

And try not to book any holidays that will mean you’ll be away from your computer – or tempted to be – whilst you’re doing your dissertation. It’s likely there will be at least one time when you’ll be forced to take time off (illness, for example, or a family bereavement), so if you work every day, it’ll help you stay on track should anything like this come up.

And work begets work . It’s far easier to pick up where you last left off if you only left off yesterday. But trying to do so when you haven’t worked for a week, or even a few days, can be a hard task.

Some people do complain of writer’s block, but this just doesn’t fly with us. First, you aren’t writing Ulysses . Second, and more important, there is always something to do. Have you read everything in your field? Updated your bibliography? Read over your notes?

Granted, sometimes you can get stuck. There may be times when paragraphs or sections just do not cooperate. This is not uncommon and it can take days or weeks to figure out what the problem is.

It can help, when you come to a dead-end in this way, to think about two things: is it necessary and, if so, is it right? If it’s neither necessary or right, it can and probably should be deleted.

You’ll have to get used to, particularly in the early stages of your dissertation, binning sections of work that just don’t fit or do your dissertation justice. Don’t be afraid to be ruthless; just quietly move the offending passage into a scraps file (do not delete it entirely) and move on. Maybe it will make more sense later.

If it helps, one academic who contributed to this blog post had, for their 100,000-word dissertation, a file of 40,000 useless scraps.

What to do if you are falling behind

Not to finger wag, but if you had planned well and worked every day, this statement should never be one you relate to.

But, sadly, sometimes it happens. Time can be remarkably fragile and unexpected life events can ruin what probably looked good and doable on paper. Setbacks do not mean you failed, nor do they mean you will fail. It might mean, however, that you have to take a different approach.

Any time you have a serious issue that jeopardises your ability to complete your thesis, the first place to go is your advisor to discuss options. There are also mentoring services on many campuses.

If you have fallen behind, you need to honestly assess how bad the situation is. Is this something that can be resolved by, say, putting in a few extra hours each day? Adding a half-day on the weekends? Neither of these situations are uncommon. Or will you perhaps require an extension? If the amount of time is serious enough to warrant taking it to an administrative level, be honest and frank with both yourself and the person you speak to.

"If you have fallen behind, you need to honestly assess how bad the situation is. Be honest and frank with both yourself and the person you speak to."

One of the most practical ways to avoid falling behind is not to let some of the smaller things get away from you. Reading, note-taking, data collection and bibliography building can all be tedious tasks left for another day.

But sitting down to read thousands of pages in one marathon go is unproductive. The best advice is still ‘read a little, write a little, every single day’.

The math favours you here. Reading a single article or a few chapters every day builds a nice familiarity with your field over the course of a year. And writing 500-1000 words every day yields enough content for two to three dissertations.

In fact, it has been shown that professional academics who write just that many words each day are more productive than colleagues who attempt marathon (and sometimes panicky and stressful) sessions.

"I'm so close to finishing my dissertation, but I'm having last-minute worries."

What to do if you think your idea is terrible.

If you work on something long enough, doubts are going to start creeping in. The further in you are, the less of an objective view you will be able to take on your work.

Some perspective can be helpful here.

There are two fairly common rules of thumb for dissertations and theses among academics. The first is that you are finished when your work is more right than wrong. The second is that it does not have to be perfect, but it does have to be finished.

You can waste time obsessing about how awful your idea is, or you can just finish the bloody thing. Examiners commonly disagree on the quality of your work, its merit and its value, and make suggestions for improvement. This will happen no matter how brilliant your idea might be.

It also helps to keep in mind that you are very unlikely to write anything with which examiners do not disagree.

What to do if your idea is no longer viable

This is the stuff of nightmares for dissertation writers. You spend oodles of time and effort coming up with a brilliant idea. Your advisor and/or committee are supportive and excited for you. You are certain that nothing of what you are talking about has been essayed by anyone else.

And yet, there is a lurking terror. A terror that you are going to be scooped and find research that is exactly like what you are doing. We speak from experience here, and we know people who have had this happen.

The scenario usually plays out in one of two ways.

More often than not you'll find that you and your new nemesis have taken two completely different approaches. This is actually great news for you. Now you have a discussion that you can incorporate into your work. You have something in which you can find and comment on positive aspects as well as shortcomings.

In the less likely event that you have, in fact, rewritten the work of another researcher then you will need to account for that work and perhaps try to develop another line of approach.

The most important point to bear in mind is that the vast majority of academic work exists in dialogue with other works. So it is often a good thing that someone else is researching the same problem you are. Indeed, you might even consider reaching out and contacting that person just to hone your ideas or solicit feedback. In general, if you do this politely and professionally, you will be warmly received.

What to do if you don’t have enough words

Everyone writes differently. Some people are amazingly concise writers. They can elegantly shoehorn into a single sentence what balloons into a paragraph for another. Most dissertation requirements have a set range.

Notably, some advisors can adjust that and add or subtract. The aforementioned academic who contributed to this blog post – his doctoral supervisor tacked on 20,000 words just because he felt it was necessary. The academic still disagrees with it to this day.

Our point is that the word limit is not arbitrarily set. It is generally agreed that this is the amount of words required to discuss a topic fully. Thus, if you're short of words then unfortunately you haven't discussed your topic as fully as you should have.

If this is the case, you need to look for where your gaps have settled in. The best way to do this will be to solicit outside readers – two or three, one of whom should be your supervisor .

But you don’t want to drop a stack of papers in front of someone and say, ‘can you read this and tell me what to do?’. The better approach will be to assemble a very thorough outline of 3-5 pages that shows the structure and ask if they will look this over. We can assure you, the response will be much more positive and their response time markedly shorter.

Another approach to increasing word count is to generate an indirectly related discussion and add it as an appendix.

What to do if you have too many words

Congratulations! You are probably in the minority, but cutting words is often much easier than finding them.

Still, the acceptable range rule stands for an excess of words just as it does for too few.

If you find yourself in this position, then quite likely you have academic bloat . It’s quite a common trap for dissertation writers as they develop what they perceive to be an academic style and tone in their writing.

But before you simply jettison whole sections of your thesis to bring the word count down, we would especially recommend, for later stage thesis and dissertation writing, a wonderful little book by Richard Lanham called 'Revising Prose' (Pearson, 2006).

When it was first introduced it was a welcome sensation. It’s a short and clear-cut guide to cutting the bloat and bull out of academic writing and making your prose more precise and refined at the sentence and paragraph level. This might sound overly simplistic but don’t sniff at the notion – the book is a potent little text and we wish it were read by every dissertation and thesis writer.

What to do if your supervisor isn’t helpful

This is a problem that can actually present itself at any stage of the dissertation or thesis writing process. It can be one of the most frustrating matters with which you might have to contend.

One thing that you must understand is that the university wants and needs to see you complete your project.

That is not to say that they’ll be pleased with shoddy work. But the more graduates, the more vital the department appears, and the more funding they can request and be allocated.

So there is a vested interest in your success, even if there are points at which it doesn’t feel this way. At some universities, one of the ways in which these conflicts are avoided is through a general contract of expectations. This is done at the outset and lays out the basics of the working relationship (when and how often you will meet, for instance). Hopefully you will have formally or informally handled this early and can identify where a fault might lay.

It can also help to arrange at the outset for a co-supervisor. This person can be invaluable. Often a co-supervisor will practically take over a project, especially if the co-supervisor is young and eager to build credibility and experience as a supervisor (the best sort, really).

Read more about how to make your relationship with your dissertation supervisor productive, rewarding, and enjoyable.

If you have an unproductive working relationship with your supervisor, consider seriously the nature and expectations of it from both sides.

Not to shift the fault to you, but sometimes supervisees can have unrealistic expectations of their supervisor. The truth is that very few supervisors have the time or inclination to pal around with their supervisees, drinking cognac into the wee hours and talking about high enlightened matters.

The reality is that the better and more capable students are often regarded to be the ones who come in, write their projects, and move on. Supervisors have other obligations (e.g. teaching, their own research, other students writing projects). They expect supervisees to be able to work independently and not need too much hand-holding.

There is, nevertheless, tremendous anxiety that surrounds one’s relationship with their supervisor. This is largely due to the extremely imbalanced power relationship. Your supervisor is, after all, someone on whom you will depend for letters, vetting, and generally someone on whom you will rely professionally.

It is not a relationship you want to sour. But you should also consider that the relationship has to be professional and nothing should be taken personally. Think about what you need from your advisor, not what you want . If your professional needs are not being met than you should consider mediation, provided you have discussed these needs with your advisor and they remain unmet.

A final thought...

Throughout the months or years that you are preparing your dissertation or thesis you should keep in mind two helpful words: don’t panic.

It is extremely unlikely that anything you are experiencing hasn’t been experienced by someone else. Or that it presents an obstacle with which your supervisors or the university is unfamiliar.

There are few obstacles that are insurmountable, so try to remember this if you ever feel panic rising. Remember to keep your advisor in the loop and deal with any problems that arise promptly; don’t let them fester.

Also, the more prepared you are to begin with the easier it will be to deal with problems and frustrations down the road.

Advice for successfully writing a dissertation

How to write a dissertation literature review, dissertation findings and discussion sections.

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What is a thesis?

What is a dissertation, getting started, staying on track.

A thesis is a long-term project that you work on over the course of a semester or a year. Theses have a very wide variety of styles and content, so we encourage you to look at prior examples and work closely with faculty to develop yours. 

Before you begin, make sure that you are familiar with the dissertation genre—what it is for and what it looks like.

Generally speaking, a dissertation’s purpose is to prove that you have the expertise necessary to fulfill your doctoral-degree requirements by showing depth of knowledge and independent thinking.

The form of a dissertation may vary by discipline. Be sure to follow the specific guidelines of your department.

• PhD This site directs candidates to the GSAS website about dissertations , with links to checklists,  planning, formatting, acknowledgments, submission, and publishing options. There is also a link to guidelines for the prospectus . Consult with your committee chair about specific requirements and standards for your dissertation.
• DDES This document covers planning, patent filing, submission guidelines, publishing options, formatting guidelines, sample pages, citation guidelines, and a list of common errors to avoid. There is also a link to guidelines for the prospectus .
• Scholarly Pursuits (GSAS) This searchable booklet from Harvard GSAS is a comprehensive guide to writing dissertations, dissertation-fellowship applications, academic journal articles, and academic job documents.

Finding an original topic can be a daunting and overwhelming task. These key concepts can help you focus and save time.

Finding a topic for your thesis or dissertation should start with a research question that excites or at least interests you. A rigorous, engaging, and original project will require continuous curiosity about your topic, about your own thoughts on the topic, and about what other scholars have said on your topic. Avoid getting boxed in by thinking you know what you want to say from the beginning; let your research and your writing evolve as you explore and fine-tune your focus through constant questioning and exploration.

Get a sense of the broader picture before you narrow your focus and attempt to frame an argument. Read, skim, and otherwise familiarize yourself with what other scholars have done in areas related to your proposed topic. Briefly explore topics tangentially related to yours to broaden your perspective and increase your chance of finding a unique angle to pursue.

Critical Reading

Critical reading is the opposite of passive reading. Instead of merely reading for information to absorb, critical reading also involves careful, sustained thinking about what you are reading. This process may include analyzing the author’s motives and assumptions, asking what might be left out of the discussion, considering what you agree with or disagree with in the author’s statements and why you agree or disagree, and exploring connections or contradictions between scholarly arguments. Here is a resource to help hone your critical-reading skills:

http://writing.umn.edu/sws/assets/pdf/quicktips/criticalread.pdf

Conversation

Your thesis or dissertation will incorporate some ideas from other scholars whose work you researched. By reading critically and following your curiosity, you will develop your own ideas and claims, and these contributions are the core of your project. You will also acknowledge the work of scholars who came before you, and you must accurately and fairly attribute this work and define your place within the larger discussion. Make sure that you know how to quote, summarize, paraphrase ,  integrate , and cite secondary sources to avoid plagiarism and to show the depth and breadth of your knowledge.

A thesis is a long-term, large project that involves both research and writing; it is easy to lose focus, motivation, and momentum. Here are suggestions for achieving the result you want in the time you have.

The dissertation is probably the largest project you have undertaken, and a lot of the work is self-directed. The project can feel daunting or even overwhelming unless you break it down into manageable pieces and create a timeline for completing each smaller task. Be realistic but also challenge yourself, and be forgiving of yourself if you miss a self-imposed deadline here and there.

Your program will also have specific deadlines for different requirements, including establishing a committee, submitting a prospectus, completing the dissertation, defending the dissertation, and submitting your work. Consult your department’s website for these dates and incorporate them into the timeline for your work.

Accountability

Sometimes self-imposed deadlines do not feel urgent unless there is accountability to someone beyond yourself. To increase your motivation to complete tasks on schedule, set dates with your committee chair to submit pre-determined pieces of a chapter. You can also arrange with a fellow doctoral student to check on each other’s progress. Research and writing can be lonely, so it is also nice to share that journey with someone and support each other through the process.

Common Pitfalls

The most common challenges for students writing a dissertation are writer’s block, information-overload, and the compulsion to keep researching forever.

There are many strategies for avoiding writer’s block, such as freewriting, outlining, taking a walk, starting in the middle, and creating an ideal work environment for your particular learning style. Pay attention to what helps you and try different things until you find what works.

Efficient researching techniques are essential to avoiding information-overload. Here are a couple of resources about strategies for finding sources and quickly obtaining essential information from them.

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/writing_in_literature/writing_in_literature_detailed_discussion/reading_criticism.html

https://students.dartmouth.edu/academic-skills/learning-resources/learning-strategies/reading-techniques

Finally, remember that there is always more to learn and your dissertation cannot incorporate everything. Follow your curiosity but also set limits on the scope of your work. It helps to create a folder entitled “future projects” for topics and sources that interest you but that do not fit neatly into the dissertation. Also remember that future scholars will build off of your work, so leave something for them to do.

Browsing through theses and dissertations of the past can help to get a sense of your options and gain inspiration but be careful to use current guidelines and refer to your committee instead of relying on these examples for form or formatting.

DASH Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard.

HOLLIS Harvard Library’s catalog provides access to ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global .

MIT Architecture has a list of their graduates’ dissertations and theses.

Rhode Island School of Design has a list of their graduates’ dissertations and theses.

University of South Florida has a list of their graduates’ dissertations and theses.

Harvard GSD has a list of projects, including theses and professors’ research.

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Guide to writing your thesis/dissertation, definition of dissertation and thesis.

The dissertation or thesis is a scholarly treatise that substantiates a specific point of view as a result of original research that is conducted by students during their graduate study. At Cornell, the thesis is a requirement for the receipt of the M.A. and M.S. degrees and some professional master’s degrees. The dissertation is a requirement of the Ph.D. degree.

Formatting Requirement and Standards

The Graduate School sets the minimum format for your thesis or dissertation, while you, your special committee, and your advisor/chair decide upon the content and length. Grammar, punctuation, spelling, and other mechanical issues are your sole responsibility. Generally, the thesis and dissertation should conform to the standards of leading academic journals in your field. The Graduate School does not monitor the thesis or dissertation for mechanics, content, or style.

“Papers Option” Dissertation or Thesis

A “papers option” is available only to students in certain fields, which are listed on the Fields Permitting the Use of Papers Option page , or by approved petition. If you choose the papers option, your dissertation or thesis is organized as a series of relatively independent chapters or papers that you have submitted or will be submitting to journals in the field. You must be the only author or the first author of the papers to be used in the dissertation. The papers-option dissertation or thesis must meet all format and submission requirements, and a singular referencing convention must be used throughout.

ProQuest Electronic Submissions

The dissertation and thesis become permanent records of your original research, and in the case of doctoral research, the Graduate School requires publication of the dissertation and abstract in its original form. All Cornell master’s theses and doctoral dissertations require an electronic submission through ProQuest, which fills orders for paper or digital copies of the thesis and dissertation and makes a digital version available online via their subscription database, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses . For master’s theses, only the abstract is available. ProQuest provides worldwide distribution of your work from the master copy. You retain control over your dissertation and are free to grant publishing rights as you see fit. The formatting requirements contained in this guide meet all ProQuest specifications.

Copies of Dissertation and Thesis

Copies of Ph.D. dissertations and master’s theses are also uploaded in PDF format to the Cornell Library Repository, eCommons . A print copy of each master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation is submitted to Cornell University Library by ProQuest.

Reference management. Clean and simple.

How to write an excellent thesis conclusion [with examples]

Restate the thesis

Review or reiterate key points of your work, explain why your work is relevant, a take-away for the reader, more resources on writing thesis conclusions, frequently asked questions about writing an excellent thesis conclusion, related articles.

At this point in your writing, you have most likely finished your introduction and the body of your thesis, dissertation, or research paper . While this is a reason to celebrate, you should not underestimate the importance of your conclusion. The conclusion is the last thing that your reader will see, so it should be memorable.

A good conclusion will review the key points of the thesis and explain to the reader why the information is relevant, applicable, or related to the world as a whole. Make sure to dedicate enough of your writing time to the conclusion and do not put it off until the very last minute.

This article provides an effective technique for writing a conclusion adapted from Erika Eby’s The College Student's Guide to Writing a Good Research Paper: 101 Easy Tips & Tricks to Make Your Work Stand Out .

While the thesis introduction starts out with broad statements about the topic, and then narrows it down to the thesis statement , a thesis conclusion does the same in the opposite order.

• Restate the thesis.
• Review or reiterate key points of your work.
• Explain why your work is relevant.
• Include a core take-away message for the reader.

Tip: Don’t just copy and paste your thesis into your conclusion. Restate it in different words.

The best way to start a conclusion is simply by restating the thesis statement. That does not mean just copying and pasting it from the introduction, but putting it into different words.

You will need to change the structure and wording of it to avoid sounding repetitive. Also, be firm in your conclusion just as you were in the introduction. Try to avoid sounding apologetic by using phrases like "This paper has tried to show..."

The conclusion should address all the same parts as the thesis while making it clear that the reader has reached the end. You are telling the reader that your research is finished and what your findings are.

I have argued throughout this work that the point of critical mass for biopolitical immunity occurred during the Romantic period because of that era's unique combination of post-revolutionary politics and innovations in smallpox prevention. In particular, I demonstrated that the French Revolution and the discovery of vaccination in the 1790s triggered a reconsideration of the relationship between bodies and the state.

Tip: Try to reiterate points from your introduction in your thesis conclusion.

The next step is to review the main points of the thesis as a whole. Look back at the body of of your project and make a note of the key ideas. You can reword these ideas the same way you reworded your thesis statement and then incorporate that into the conclusion.

You can also repeat striking quotations or statistics, but do not use more than two. As the conclusion represents your own closing thoughts on the topic , it should mainly consist of your own words.

In addition, conclusions can contain recommendations to the reader or relevant questions that further the thesis. You should ask yourself:

• What you would ideally like to see your readers do in reaction to your paper?
• Do you want them to take a certain action or investigate further?
• Is there a bigger issue that your paper wants to draw attention to?

Also, try to reference your introduction in your conclusion. You have already taken a first step by restating your thesis. Now, check whether there are other key words, phrases or ideas that are mentioned in your introduction that fit into your conclusion. Connecting the introduction to the conclusion in this way will help readers feel satisfied.

I explored how Mary Wollstonecraft, in both her fiction and political writings, envisions an ideal medico-political state, and how other writers like William Wordsworth and Mary Shelley increasingly imagined the body politic literally, as an incorporated political collective made up of bodies whose immunity to political and medical ills was essential to a healthy state.

Tip: Make sure to explain why your thesis is relevant to your field of research.

Although you can encourage readers to question their opinions and reflect on your topic, do not leave loose ends. You should provide a sense of resolution and make sure your conclusion wraps up your argument. Make sure you explain why your thesis is relevant to your field of research and how your research intervenes within, or substantially revises, existing scholarly debates.

This project challenged conventional ideas about the relationship among Romanticism, medicine, and politics by reading the unfolding of Romantic literature and biopolitical immunity as mutual, co-productive processes. In doing so, this thesis revises the ways in which biopolitics has been theorized by insisting on the inherent connections between Romantic literature and the forms of biopower that characterize early modernity.

Tip: If you began your thesis with an anecdote or historical example, you may want to return to that in your conclusion.

End your conclusion with something memorable, such as:

• a call to action
• a recommendation
• a gesture towards future research
• a brief explanation of how the problem or idea you covered remains relevant

Ultimately, you want readers to feel more informed, or ready to act, as they read your conclusion.

Yet, the Romantic period is only the beginning of modern thought on immunity and biopolitics. Victorian writers, doctors, and politicians upheld the Romantic idea that a "healthy state" was a literal condition that could be achieved by combining politics and medicine, but augmented that idea through legislation and widespread public health measures. While many nineteenth-century efforts to improve citizens' health were successful, the fight against disease ultimately changed course in the twentieth century as global immunological threats such as SARS occupied public consciousness. Indeed, as subsequent public health events make apparent, biopolitical immunity persists as a viable concept for thinking about the relationship between medicine and politics in modernity.

Need more advice? Read our 5 additional tips on how to write a good thesis conclusion.

The conclusion is the last thing that your reader will see, so it should be memorable. To write a great thesis conclusion you should:

The basic content of a conclusion is to review the main points from the paper. This part represents your own closing thoughts on the topic. It should mainly consist of the outcome of the research in your own words.

The length of the conclusion will depend on the length of the whole thesis. Usually, a conclusion should be around 5-7% of the overall word count.

End your conclusion with something memorable, such as a question, warning, or call to action. Depending on the topic, you can also end with a recommendation.

In Open Access: Theses and Dissertations you can find thousands of completed works. Take a look at any of the theses or dissertations for real-life examples of conclusions that were already approved.

Rice University is now accepting applications for graduate study for 2025 admission. Click here to apply .

Applications for GCURS 2024 close Sept. 29! Visit gcursapply.rice.edu to begin your application.

Apr. 12, 2021

Writing your thesis: tips for successful, self-directed progress, by emily elia: words of wisdom about how to stay productive when your work schedule is self-directed..

For many Ph.D. students, the first few years of grad school look quite different from the last few years. In the beginning, grad classes take up a lot of time and structure much of the work and research. But Ph.D. students are not in classes throughout their entire degree. Eventually, you'll complete classes and focus solely on research. This change from more structured to less structured time can be difficult for many students. You know you are supposed to be working on your dissertation over the next few years, but how? When?

Without the more structured schedule of classes, managing time and staying organized can be difficult. However, this challenge is one that most (if not all) Ph.D. students have faced! There's a lot of advice out there about how to stay on top of your research and writing. Below, I outline some words of wisdom about how to stay productive when your work schedule is entirely up to you and undoubtedly daunting.

Some say to write every day.

No matter what field you are in, all Ph.D. students dedicate time to writing. We have to write in order to synthesize and convey our research to a larger audience, and we certainly have to write to produce a dissertation. Writing advice from all kinds of writers, from fellow academics to authors of novels, frequently includes this tip: work on your writing every day, even if only for a brief moment. Many writers state that they carve out a specific time in their day that is dedicated only to writing, and they commit to getting something down on paper during that time.

Pick a time during the day that you think is your peak time for writing. For some, it’s early morning right after they wake up. For others, it’s just before bed, or perhaps just after lunch. Whenever the time, dedicate it to writing every day. Of course, some days you will be writing far more, but on the days that feel especially sluggish, having this little bit of time tucked away for writing can help you chip away at your writing tasks, even if that chipping is miniscule. Remember that getting your Ph.D. is a marathon, not a sprint!

Also remember that writing every day does not mean you have to contribute to your research writing every single day. Writing other things (such as papers outside your dissertation, blog posts, notes for readings, etc.) can have a positive impact on your writing productivity in general. Writing skills are like a muscle; the more you work at them, the stronger they will become. Just as there are many different exercises that can help you build muscle strength, there are many different forms of writing that will help you become a stronger writer overall.

Take advantage of university resources!

The Center for Academic and Professional Communication at Rice is a great resource for all your writing needs. The CAPC offers various ways to help you improve writing and help you get your writing done. You can set up one-on-one consultations to go over your writing with CAPC staff and get individualized feedback. To help stay productive, you can go to the (virtual) Graduate Writers’ Lounge on Zoom for some writing group motivation, or even participate in more field-specific writing groups with other Rice grad students. If you want guidance about how to improve your writing as well as some helpful tools for staying on top of it, visiting the CAPC is a great place to start.

For more helpful writing guidance, check out CAPC’s resources page .

Figure out what motivates you to work.

Some people have no problem getting work done. They say they will do X and so they sit down and do it. Unfortunately, not all of us have that much laser-focused will power! Many of us need some kind of motivation to get our work done that goes beyond the sheer desire to get our work done. It may be a deadline, a reward for finishing a task, or social support, to name just a few motivators. Understanding what motivates you to work is an important step in being a better manager of your time. For example, if you know that deadlines do absolutely nothing for your motivation, then don’t think setting a deadline for that dissertation chapter is going to impact your progress significantly. In contrast, if you know external incentives are a big motivator, then commit to buying yourself a reward only when that dissertation chapter is finished.

Accountability groups can be a big help.

In the same vein as understanding your motivation, it is also important to understand how you best hold yourself accountable. Many people find accountability groups to be extremely helpful in staying on track with work. Having a tough time making yourself work on that paper? Get together with some of the students in your grad program to form a writing group. Pick a set time every week to “meet” (this could be virtually over Zoom!) to work solely on writing. At the beginning of each meeting, everyone in the group states what they are working on. After a set amount of time passes, everyone updates the group on the progress you have made. Nobody wants to be the person who says, “Actually, guys, I didn’t write anything during this past hour because I was scrolling on Twitter.” Accountability writing groups are a popular tool amongst writers of all kinds, and there is a lot of advice out there about how to set up a successful group. You can check out how to make a successful accountability writing group here , here , and here .

Make SMART goals.

Writing a dissertation is a daunting task. Writing one paper can feel overwhelming oftentimes! While the goal of “finish my dissertation” is well and good, it provides you with absolutely zero guidelines. Instead, break up your big goals into small goals that can actually be crossed off a to-do list frequently.

Many people swear by the concept of SMART goals . What are SMART goals? They are:

SMART goals can help you chop up big goals into smaller, doable pieces. Think of your goals like Russian nesting dolls. You have your big, main goal: finish your dissertation. That is a two or three year goal, but it isn’t a SMART goal. It contains no criteria that guides you on how to complete it. You have to store your SMART goals within this big goal—that is how the big goal gets done. So, within your big dissertation doll, you have a series of subsequently smaller dolls that represent SMART goals (that get SMARTer and SMARTer). Within that goal, you have your goal for this year: complete all data collection for the dissertation, for example. Within that goal, you have your goal for the next six months: run your first experiment. Then, your goal for the next few months, the goal for this month, the goal for this week…

Having big goals is important, but you need to have small goals that can actually get done. These are the goals that move you closer to that big goal! Making sure your goals are specific and doable will help you make progress. Like the old saying goes, the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at time!

Take time off to recharge.

You know what is not good for your productivity? Working all the time! A lot of grad students believe that they must be working 24/7, but that mindset is not practical or healthy. That constant grind is also not inherently improving the quality of your work. In fact, taking time off can make you more successful at your work. If you sit down at your computer and feel only exhaustion and frustration, you may be burnt out and in desperate need of a break. Burnout will probably look a bit different for everyone, but here are some common signs that you’ve been burning the candle at both ends for far too long.

Make sure you allow yourself to step away from work, whether that be in the form of a vacation to a favorite destination, or long weekend visiting friends and family nearby, or a weekend where you do not touch your work at all (no, really -- hands off the laptop!). Combating burnout can also be helped by having a consistently structured work schedule that separates work time from relaxation time. However, even if you are somebody who does a good job of balancing work and play, taking a vacation every now and then can still help you feel recharged and recentered.

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About the author: Originally from Massachusetts, Emily Elia is a third-year Ph.D. student in political science. She graduated from the University of Alabama in 2018 and currently studies comparative politics with a focus on Latin America.

Strategies for writing a PhD dissertation: write before you’re ‘ready’

Reading isn’t writing, and knowing about your topic isn’t writing. So, what should graduate students do to get started and make steady progress? Monique Dufour suggests practising well before it’s time to write the thesis or dissertation

Monique Dufour

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You’ve completed the coursework of your graduate programme and passed your comprehensive exams with flying colours. You know the literature, you have a novel idea, and you have collected preliminary data. It’s time to write your thesis.

Why is it so hard to start (never mind generate momentum and make steady progress)?

Graduate programmes in the US are often structured on the assumption that reading, discussion and research will prepare a student to write the thesis. But reading isn’t writing. Knowing about your topic isn’t writing. Conducting research and having great conversations with your advisers do not automatically translate to a capacity for writing papers or chapters. Even writing seminar papers may feel surprisingly different from tackling this long, significant piece of independent scholarship.

• Tips for surviving the first year of your PhD
• Get your PhD thesis beach ready
• ‘Augmenting’ the doctoral thesis in preparation for a viva

What you need is a writing practice, a habit of using writing as part of your thinking and research. In a writing practice, you write before you are “ready”, before the ideas have crystallised in your mind and, crucially, before you officially enter the thesis-writing phase of your programme. You don’t wait until you are assigned to do so to write or until you need to produce and deliver professional work. You write for yourself , to develop your facility for translating ideas into words and sentences.

Writing for yourself to turn practice into words

If you want to do something well, you need to practise. No wonder, then, that many graduate students who wait until they enter the thesis phase to develop a writing practice may find themselves stuck. They are confronted with the need to write on the spot at the highest-stakes moment in their programme. When this happens, to comfort their apprehension, they return to reading or collecting more data, as though these comfort zones will make them more “ready” to write.

You don’t need permission from your adviser to start a writing practice early in your programme. This writing is for you. Yes, you will likely write material that finds its way into your thesis drafts. But the main value of this work is that you establish a comfortable relationship with writing, with its pleasures and its challenges. You will reap the benefits of your practice through your dedication over time.

I recommend experimenting with these approaches to developing a writing practice.

Write regularly

Put “writing practice” in your calendar and show up for it. Do this with a frequency that is aspirational but actionable. You will build the habit and build trust in yourself. Try my version of the pomodoro technique to shape your writing sessions.

Keep a dialogic notebook

To take dialogic notes (a form of Cornell Notes), draw a line down the centre of a page. On one side, note what you’re taking in – what you are hearing, observing or reading (for instance, at a lecture, note key concepts, explanations or equations). On the other side of the page, engage with what you’re taking in. What does it provoke you to think about? Does it raise questions to explore? Uncertainties to clarify? Connections to forge?

Dialogic notetaking is a tool of memory; it helps you to retain what you hear and read. It is a tool of thought ; it sparks ideas, insights and questions. You can explore and experiment and play. It is also a tool of expression; you learn to put your perceptions and ideas into words. It worked for Leonardo . It can work for you.

Pause regularly to review and synthesise

Amid the demands of graduate school, writing pieces that you will not hand in or don’t “count” may seem like a waste of time. But regular writing review sessions will pay off. I recommend that scholarly writers (graduate students and faculty alike) set aside about 30 minutes a week to write about the important things that they are learning and/or thinking about and connecting them to what they already know.

Synthesis is an essential skill that requires intentional effort and practice. Take time in your writing practice to bring together the disparate things you are learning, to connect them to each other and to your own research questions.

Ask and explore questions

Turn to your notebook to write out the questions that arise in your mind as you work in the lab or read the literature. Take a few sentences to explore those questions. You don’t need to figure out the answers. The value lies in the practice of moving that amorphous sense of a question from your head to the written form. When you get stuck in a project, ask yourself: “What am I trying to figure out?” Your goal is to move yourself from the inchoate feelings of inadequacy and discomfort to the empowering experience of problem-definition and problem-solving.

When you write before you feel ready, you will learn a surprising truth: that you get ready by writing.

Monique Dufour is an associate professor of history as well as a faculty fellow in faculty affairs at Virginia Tech. 

If you would like advice and insight from academics and university staff delivered direct to your inbox each week, sign up for the Campus newsletter .

For further reading on this topic, see From Student to Scholar: A Guide to Writing Through the Dissertation Stage by Keith Hjortshoj (Routledge, 2019).

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Developing a Thesis Statement

Many papers you write require developing a thesis statement. In this section you’ll learn what a thesis statement is and how to write one.

Keep in mind that not all papers require thesis statements . If in doubt, please consult your instructor for assistance.

What is a thesis statement?

A thesis statement . . .

• Makes an argumentative assertion about a topic; it states the conclusions that you have reached about your topic.
• Makes a promise to the reader about the scope, purpose, and direction of your paper.
• Is focused and specific enough to be “proven” within the boundaries of your paper.
• Is generally located near the end of the introduction ; sometimes, in a long paper, the thesis will be expressed in several sentences or in an entire paragraph.
• Identifies the relationships between the pieces of evidence that you are using to support your argument.

Not all papers require thesis statements! Ask your instructor if you’re in doubt whether you need one.

Identify a topic

Your topic is the subject about which you will write. Your assignment may suggest several ways of looking at a topic; or it may name a fairly general concept that you will explore or analyze in your paper.

Consider what your assignment asks you to do

Inform yourself about your topic, focus on one aspect of your topic, ask yourself whether your topic is worthy of your efforts, generate a topic from an assignment.

Below are some possible topics based on sample assignments.

Sample assignment 1

Analyze Spain’s neutrality in World War II.

Identified topic

Franco’s role in the diplomatic relationships between the Allies and the Axis

This topic avoids generalities such as “Spain” and “World War II,” addressing instead on Franco’s role (a specific aspect of “Spain”) and the diplomatic relations between the Allies and Axis (a specific aspect of World War II).

Sample assignment 2

Analyze one of Homer’s epic similes in the Iliad.

The relationship between the portrayal of warfare and the epic simile about Simoisius at 4.547-64.

This topic focuses on a single simile and relates it to a single aspect of the Iliad ( warfare being a major theme in that work).

Developing a Thesis Statement–Additional information

Your assignment may suggest several ways of looking at a topic, or it may name a fairly general concept that you will explore or analyze in your paper. You’ll want to read your assignment carefully, looking for key terms that you can use to focus your topic.

Sample assignment: Analyze Spain’s neutrality in World War II Key terms: analyze, Spain’s neutrality, World War II

After you’ve identified the key words in your topic, the next step is to read about them in several sources, or generate as much information as possible through an analysis of your topic. Obviously, the more material or knowledge you have, the more possibilities will be available for a strong argument. For the sample assignment above, you’ll want to look at books and articles on World War II in general, and Spain’s neutrality in particular.

As you consider your options, you must decide to focus on one aspect of your topic. This means that you cannot include everything you’ve learned about your topic, nor should you go off in several directions. If you end up covering too many different aspects of a topic, your paper will sprawl and be unconvincing in its argument, and it most likely will not fulfull the assignment requirements.

For the sample assignment above, both Spain’s neutrality and World War II are topics far too broad to explore in a paper. You may instead decide to focus on Franco’s role in the diplomatic relationships between the Allies and the Axis , which narrows down what aspects of Spain’s neutrality and World War II you want to discuss, as well as establishes a specific link between those two aspects.

Before you go too far, however, ask yourself whether your topic is worthy of your efforts. Try to avoid topics that already have too much written about them (i.e., “eating disorders and body image among adolescent women”) or that simply are not important (i.e. “why I like ice cream”). These topics may lead to a thesis that is either dry fact or a weird claim that cannot be supported. A good thesis falls somewhere between the two extremes. To arrive at this point, ask yourself what is new, interesting, contestable, or controversial about your topic.

As you work on your thesis, remember to keep the rest of your paper in mind at all times . Sometimes your thesis needs to evolve as you develop new insights, find new evidence, or take a different approach to your topic.

Derive a main point from topic

Once you have a topic, you will have to decide what the main point of your paper will be. This point, the “controlling idea,” becomes the core of your argument (thesis statement) and it is the unifying idea to which you will relate all your sub-theses. You can then turn this “controlling idea” into a purpose statement about what you intend to do in your paper.

Look for patterns in your evidence

Compose a purpose statement.

Consult the examples below for suggestions on how to look for patterns in your evidence and construct a purpose statement.

• Franco first tried to negotiate with the Axis
• Franco turned to the Allies when he couldn’t get some concessions that he wanted from the Axis

Possible conclusion:

Spain’s neutrality in WWII occurred for an entirely personal reason: Franco’s desire to preserve his own (and Spain’s) power.

Purpose statement

This paper will analyze Franco’s diplomacy during World War II to see how it contributed to Spain’s neutrality.

• The simile compares Simoisius to a tree, which is a peaceful, natural image.
• The tree in the simile is chopped down to make wheels for a chariot, which is an object used in warfare.

At first, the simile seems to take the reader away from the world of warfare, but we end up back in that world by the end.

This paper will analyze the way the simile about Simoisius at 4.547-64 moves in and out of the world of warfare.

Derive purpose statement from topic

To find out what your “controlling idea” is, you have to examine and evaluate your evidence . As you consider your evidence, you may notice patterns emerging, data repeated in more than one source, or facts that favor one view more than another. These patterns or data may then lead you to some conclusions about your topic and suggest that you can successfully argue for one idea better than another.

For instance, you might find out that Franco first tried to negotiate with the Axis, but when he couldn’t get some concessions that he wanted from them, he turned to the Allies. As you read more about Franco’s decisions, you may conclude that Spain’s neutrality in WWII occurred for an entirely personal reason: his desire to preserve his own (and Spain’s) power. Based on this conclusion, you can then write a trial thesis statement to help you decide what material belongs in your paper.

Sometimes you won’t be able to find a focus or identify your “spin” or specific argument immediately. Like some writers, you might begin with a purpose statement just to get yourself going. A purpose statement is one or more sentences that announce your topic and indicate the structure of the paper but do not state the conclusions you have drawn . Thus, you might begin with something like this:

• This paper will look at modern language to see if it reflects male dominance or female oppression.
• I plan to analyze anger and derision in offensive language to see if they represent a challenge of society’s authority.

At some point, you can turn a purpose statement into a thesis statement. As you think and write about your topic, you can restrict, clarify, and refine your argument, crafting your thesis statement to reflect your thinking.

As you work on your thesis, remember to keep the rest of your paper in mind at all times. Sometimes your thesis needs to evolve as you develop new insights, find new evidence, or take a different approach to your topic.

Compose a draft thesis statement

If you are writing a paper that will have an argumentative thesis and are having trouble getting started, the techniques in the table below may help you develop a temporary or “working” thesis statement.

Begin with a purpose statement that you will later turn into a thesis statement.

Assignment: Discuss the history of the Reform Party and explain its influence on the 1990 presidential and Congressional election.

Purpose Statement: This paper briefly sketches the history of the grassroots, conservative, Perot-led Reform Party and analyzes how it influenced the economic and social ideologies of the two mainstream parties.

Question-to-Assertion

If your assignment asks a specific question(s), turn the question(s) into an assertion and give reasons why it is true or reasons for your opinion.

Assignment : What do Aylmer and Rappaccini have to be proud of? Why aren’t they satisfied with these things? How does pride, as demonstrated in “The Birthmark” and “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” lead to unexpected problems?

Beginning thesis statement: Alymer and Rappaccinni are proud of their great knowledge; however, they are also very greedy and are driven to use their knowledge to alter some aspect of nature as a test of their ability. Evil results when they try to “play God.”

Write a sentence that summarizes the main idea of the essay you plan to write.

Main idea: The reason some toys succeed in the market is that they appeal to the consumers’ sense of the ridiculous and their basic desire to laugh at themselves.

Make a list of the ideas that you want to include; consider the ideas and try to group them.

• nature = peaceful
• war matériel = violent (competes with 1?)
• need for time and space to mourn the dead
• war is inescapable (competes with 3?)

Use a formula to arrive at a working thesis statement (you will revise this later).

• although most readers of _______ have argued that _______, closer examination shows that _______.
• _______ uses _______ and _____ to prove that ________.
• phenomenon x is a result of the combination of __________, __________, and _________.

What to keep in mind as you draft an initial thesis statement

Beginning statements obtained through the methods illustrated above can serve as a framework for planning or drafting your paper, but remember they’re not yet the specific, argumentative thesis you want for the final version of your paper. In fact, in its first stages, a thesis statement usually is ill-formed or rough and serves only as a planning tool.

As you write, you may discover evidence that does not fit your temporary or “working” thesis. Or you may reach deeper insights about your topic as you do more research, and you will find that your thesis statement has to be more complicated to match the evidence that you want to use.

You must be willing to reject or omit some evidence in order to keep your paper cohesive and your reader focused. Or you may have to revise your thesis to match the evidence and insights that you want to discuss. Read your draft carefully, noting the conclusions you have drawn and the major ideas which support or prove those conclusions. These will be the elements of your final thesis statement.

Sometimes you will not be able to identify these elements in your early drafts, but as you consider how your argument is developing and how your evidence supports your main idea, ask yourself, “ What is the main point that I want to prove/discuss? ” and “ How will I convince the reader that this is true? ” When you can answer these questions, then you can begin to refine the thesis statement.

Refine and polish the thesis statement

To get to your final thesis, you’ll need to refine your draft thesis so that it’s specific and arguable.

• Ask if your draft thesis addresses the assignment
• Question each part of your draft thesis
• Clarify vague phrases and assertions
• Investigate alternatives to your draft thesis

Consult the example below for suggestions on how to refine your draft thesis statement.

Sample Assignment

Choose an activity and define it as a symbol of American culture. Your essay should cause the reader to think critically about the society which produces and enjoys that activity.

• Ask The phenomenon of drive-in facilities is an interesting symbol of american culture, and these facilities demonstrate significant characteristics of our society.This statement does not fulfill the assignment because it does not require the reader to think critically about society.

Drive-ins are an interesting symbol of American culture because they represent Americans’ significant creativity and business ingenuity.

Among the types of drive-in facilities familiar during the twentieth century, drive-in movie theaters best represent American creativity, not merely because they were the forerunner of later drive-ins and drive-throughs, but because of their impact on our culture: they changed our relationship to the automobile, changed the way people experienced movies, and changed movie-going into a family activity.

While drive-in facilities such as those at fast-food establishments, banks, pharmacies, and dry cleaners symbolize America’s economic ingenuity, they also have affected our personal standards.

While drive-in facilities such as those at fast- food restaurants, banks, pharmacies, and dry cleaners symbolize (1) Americans’ business ingenuity, they also have contributed (2) to an increasing homogenization of our culture, (3) a willingness to depersonalize relationships with others, and (4) a tendency to sacrifice quality for convenience.

This statement is now specific and fulfills all parts of the assignment. This version, like any good thesis, is not self-evident; its points, 1-4, will have to be proven with evidence in the body of the paper. The numbers in this statement indicate the order in which the points will be presented. Depending on the length of the paper, there could be one paragraph for each numbered item or there could be blocks of paragraph for even pages for each one.

Complete the final thesis statement

The bottom line.

As you move through the process of crafting a thesis, you’ll need to remember four things:

• Context matters! Think about your course materials and lectures. Try to relate your thesis to the ideas your instructor is discussing.
• As you go through the process described in this section, always keep your assignment in mind . You will be more successful when your thesis (and paper) responds to the assignment than if it argues a semi-related idea.
• Your thesis statement should be precise, focused, and contestable ; it should predict the sub-theses or blocks of information that you will use to prove your argument.
• Make sure that you keep the rest of your paper in mind at all times. Change your thesis as your paper evolves, because you do not want your thesis to promise more than your paper actually delivers.

In the beginning, the thesis statement was a tool to help you sharpen your focus, limit material and establish the paper’s purpose. When your paper is finished, however, the thesis statement becomes a tool for your reader. It tells the reader what you have learned about your topic and what evidence led you to your conclusion. It keeps the reader on track–well able to understand and appreciate your argument.

Writing Process and Structure

This is an accordion element with a series of buttons that open and close related content panels.

Getting Started with Your Paper

Interpreting Writing Assignments from Your Courses

Generating Ideas for

Creating an Argument

Thesis vs. Purpose Statements

Architecture of Arguments

Working with Sources

Quoting and Paraphrasing Sources

Using Literary Quotations

Citing Sources in Your Paper

Drafting Your Paper

Generating Ideas for Your Paper

Introductions

Paragraphing

Developing Strategic Transitions

Conclusions

Revising Your Paper

Peer Reviews

Reverse Outlines

Revising an Argumentative Paper

Revision Strategies for Longer Projects

Finishing Your Paper

Twelve Common Errors: An Editing Checklist

How to Proofread your Paper

Writing Collaboratively

Collaborative and Group Writing

• Career Advice

How to Finish Your Dissertation

By  Kerry Ann Rockquemore

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iStock/Alexei Nabarro

Dear Kerry Ann,

I was hoping to finish my dissertation last year and graduate in May. But it’s August, I’m heading back for another year on campus and I’m nowhere near finishing the dissertation. The sad part is that it’s not the research that is holding up my progress (it is mostly complete) and it’s not my committee (they are supportive and want me to finish). The problem is that I’m not writing. I’m starting to think that I may never finish and will end up another A.B.D. who fades out of the program.

But I do want to finish my dissertation! And yet I’m not making any progress. I need help beyond your usual suggestion to start a daily writing habit (I tried that and it didn’t work).

Need Help Finishing

Dear Need Help,

I am so glad to hear that you are resolved to complete your dissertation, recognize that what you’re doing isn’t working and are open to new experiments for the upcoming academic year.

There’s an important reason that nearly half of graduate students who start doctoral programs don’t finish -- they never complete their dissertations. That means you’re not the only person who has struggled while A.B.D. Over the past year, I’ve worked with more than 400 dissertation writers , and I’ve seen over and over again that isolation, perfectionism and procrastination are the three biggest threats to completion.

So that leaves us with a very simple issue. If you have only one way to finish your dissertation (write it) and you know the three challenges you need to overcome to do the writing (isolation, perfectionism and procrastination), then the key question is: How can you create an environment and support systems this year that will enable you to write on a regular basis? In other words, how can you design your work time to ensure that you have everything you need to complete your dissertation this year? Only you can answer these questions, but I would like to share a few insights and gentle suggestions.

Get Real About Daily Writing

I know I sound like a broken record on this point, so I’ll be brief. You cannot binge write a dissertation over a weekend, over a weeklong writing retreat or even if you hide in a cave for a month. High-quality work takes time to produce. We know that the most productive academic writers don’t write in large uninterrupted blocks of time; they write every day (Monday through Friday) in small increments.

I also realize that it seems like everyone these days is telling dissertation writers to “ write your dissertation in 15 minutes a day ” or that “you should try 25-minute pomodoros .” And as you’ve noted, I regularly advise people to write for at least 30 minutes per day. In response, graduate students tell me “that’s pie in the sky,” “it’s impossible to write a dissertation in 15 minutes a day“ or (my personal favorite) “ Bolker really meant 15 hours a day -- the publisher made a mistake and never fixed it, sending an entire generation of graduate students into a tailspin of self-loathing and misery.”

So let me make two important distinctions. First and foremost, when I encourage you to write at least 30 minutes per day, the most important part of that phrase is “at least.” It doesn’t mean that you’re going to complete your dissertation in one semester by writing for only 30 minutes per day. It’s advice given to people like you, who are not writing at all. In fact, it literally means start with 30 minutes a day, boo. When you’ve got that locked down, work your way up to longer periods of writing.

The second distinction that’s important is about the expectation versus the reality of what constitutes writing. Many graduate students I’ve worked with imagine that writing means producing perfect prose on the first draft. I have observed students spend 30 minutes writing, revising, deleting and rewriting a single sentence. If that’s how you are spending your daily writing time, I understand why you might conclude that it doesn’t work.

Instead, consider that drafting and revising are two separate stages of the writing process. Those initial drafts are where you work out your existing ideas and generate new ones. For that reason, much of what you write is for you, for your own thought process, and may never be shared with your committee or make it to the final draft. This is why we often say “ writing is thinking !”

Win the Battle of the Moment

If you’re like the majority of dissertation writers I’ve worked with, your initial attempts at daily writing fail. Why? Because you experience a repeating and self-defeating pattern that looks like this: you set aside time in your calendar for dissertation writing and you fully intend to write during that scheduled time. Then when the time comes, you experience a subtle but powerful urge to do anything but write. It’s such a strong and seemingly harmless impulse (“Let me just answer one quick email!”) that you follow the urge where it leads you, whether it be email, Facebook, teaching prep, more reading or a snack. Pretty soon your writing time is over and you haven’t written a single word. You promise yourself that you’ll do better tomorrow, but the next day comes and goes with the same result. After a week, you decide the whole daily writing thing doesn’t really work for someone like you.

I call this daily struggle “the battle of the moment.” It’s the moment that it’s time to start writing -- the hardest moment to move through -- and if you can just get going you’ll be fine. It’s truly a battle between your future self and your resistance . One of you will win and one of you will lose. In other words, either your future will win and you’ll start writing your dissertation or your resistance will win and you’ll end up arguing with somebody on Facebook about the presidential election.

The best way to win the battle of the moment is to first understand that it’s normal for your resistance to show up every day when it’s time to write. I encourage you to become aware of it and accept it for what it is . Then set a timer for a small block of writing. ( Even 10 minutes will get you through the moment.) The goal is to win the moment each day. Once you can stack up enough daily wins, you’ll see that you’re making progress on your dissertation.

And it’s important to know that your resistance is strongest when you’re alone because it festers in isolation. But that also means that your resistance is weakest in the presence of other active daily writers. For that reason, I strongly encourage you to consider what type of writing support you can create for yourself this year. Be creative! Dissertation writers use many different types of support structures to overcome resistance: write on-sites , writing buddies, accountability groups, dissertation boot camp , Facebook groups, writing retreats and 14-day writing challenges , to name just a few.

Learn to Analyze Why You’re Not Writing and Design Work-Arounds

If you’ve tried daily writing in the past but were unable to maintain it, then ask yourself why ? What exactly kept you from the single most important activity that will allow you to complete the dissertation, finish your degree and move on with your professional life? What happened (be as specific as possible) when you sat down to write?

For most dissertation writers, the inability to develop and maintain a daily writing practice is due to one of three things: 1) technical errors, 2) psychological obstacles or 3) external realities. While I’ve written about those in detail elsewhere , let me provide a quick dissertation-specific overview so that you can diagnose why you’re not writing and then design a quick and effective work-around.

Technical Errors: Dissertation writers often struggle to establish a daily writing practice due to several technical errors. That simply means that you’re missing a skill or technique. As soon as you identify the error, the work-around is clear. Here are the most common technical errors I’ve observed in working with dissertation writers and a corresponding work-around:

• You haven’t set aside a specific time to write. (A work-around is to designate time in your calendar for dissertation writing.)
• You have been setting aside the wrong time for writing. (A work-around is experimenting with writing first thing in the morning.)
• You struggle to get started writing each day. (A work-around is to develop a writing ritual.)
• You have no idea how much time tasks take and keep grossly underestimating how long it takes to do them. (A work-around is to use a timer to collect data on how long it takes you to complete various writing tasks.)
• You don’t have any way to measure progress because you just have “write dissertation” as your daily writing goal. (A work-around is to set SMART goals .)
• You feel overwhelmed because you can’t figure out what you have to do. (A work-around is to make a dissertation plan that lays out the steps for completing each chapter.)
• You keep writing and revising the same sentence. (A work-around is to try Write or Die to permanently separate the drafting stage from the revising stage.)

Psychological Obstacles: Technical errors can be fixed with changes in your writing habits, but psychological obstacles often underlie dissertation writers’ inability to write daily. The most common I’ve observed are impostor syndrome , perfectionism , disempowerment , inner critics on steroids , fear of failure and/or success and a lack of clarity about your future goals. Regrettably, a quick tip, trick or hack will not eliminate psychological obstacles, but we can loosen their grip by increasing our awareness of their existence, reframing them and experimenting with behavioral changes.

External Realities: Lastly, I would be remiss if I did not recognize that sometimes the inability to maintain a daily writing practice results from an external reality that is beyond your control. The truth is that life events occur that directly impact the amount of energy we have to write. For example, you have a baby, someone dies, you or someone you love becomes ill and you have unexpected recovery/caregiving, you get divorced, etc. These situations can’t be “fixed,” so they require patience, compassion toward yourself, adjusted expectations and the willingness to explicitly ask for the kind of support you need.

Change Your Peer Group

In my experience, people who don’t finish their dissertations have one of two problems with the people they surround themselves with: 1) they don’t have anyone who is actively writing a dissertation in their daily life (i.e., they remove themselves entirely from contact with other dissertation writers) or 2) they surround themselves with dissertation writers who are not writing and spend their time complaining about their advisers, their campus, the oppressive nature of graduate education and/or the abysmal state of the job market.

To state the painfully obvious, neither self-isolating nor surrounding yourself with negative peers will help you develop a consistent daily writing habit. What you need most is a positive community that supports you through the ups and downs of writing a dissertation and celebrates your successes every step of the way. Every small win builds momentum, and seeing other people succeed makes it seem possible for you, too. It’s sharing the daily grind while making personal progress that reduces the isolation, perfectionism and procrastination that got you to this point.

I hope it’s clear from these suggestions that finishing your dissertation is a realistic possibility. It won’t happen if you keep on doing the things that have kept you unproductive. But if you’re willing to get serious about writing, get into a relationship with your resistance and join a positive community of writers, you will quickly start to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Peace and productivity,

Kerry Ann Rockquemore, Ph.D.

President, National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity

P.S. I love your questions, so keep posting them on my Facebook page or email me at [email protected] .

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Stuck without progress working on thesis - worried about failure

I am a student of Indian origin. I am Studying Mechanical Engineering in a local university in north of Germany.

I am writing my thesis in a company. My task is to optimize the throughput of the line. I tried to apply 2-3 concepts on optimization to the output of the line, but my all efforts been in vain. Now I am looking at my computer screen the whole day everyday, hopping hopelessly from one research paper to another but finding nothing. I have only 2 months before my final presentation in front of the company's manager. And in it I have to prove to them that giving me this topic for my thesis was not a waste of around 1500€/month.

I am not able to sleep. For the last 15 days I haven't gone out for shopping or anything. Eating just a little bit of food only one time. Talking to no one, my family or friends. Just sitting all day in front of the screen trying to find some kind of breakthrough. I think i am going into depression. I am afraid that i will fail this thesis.

I don't know what to do? How to do? Who to ask for help regarding my thesis and topic. I am constantly worried about what if i fail. What will happen. Should I have to go back to India without completing my Master's.

Update 28.09.2020: Thanks a lot. I have passed my Thesis as well as my masters with satisfactory Noten(Grade). Over all 2.5 Noten for my Master Degree and 2.5(average of Report and Presentation) . Once thanks a lot this wonderful community who gave me the ideas and support in my difficult time.

• research-process
• emotional-responses

• 11 I hope you prevail. I've been this worried in school and eventually everything will be better and it will all be behind you. I am sorry that you are struggling with so much stress. –  OutOfCharacters Commented Jan 14, 2020 at 14:22
• 45 Rather than deprive yourself of food and sleep, I would suggest having a good meal, getting some sleep, and try talking to other people. The reason theses are traditionally done at universities and not done through the mail is that talking to your advisor, professors, and fellow students is considered important for making progress. Explain your failed solutions to them. It will definitely be less depressing than going over failed solutions by yourself. –  Chan-Ho Suh Commented Jan 14, 2020 at 16:10
• 3 Once a problem is in my head, I find that if I take a break when I'm stuck, do something totally unrelated and think about other things, especially a light leisure activity, often my subconscious will still be processing the problem and I will spontaneously arrive at a solution. Take a long walk, read a fiction book, take a long hot shower, play a moderately difficult video game, get your mind off the problem with a soft distraction for a few hours. And most importantly do something you enjoy to get your mind out of this hopeless state! Its hard to generate ideas when you feel hopeless. –  user2647513 Commented Jan 14, 2020 at 17:28
• 7 Document the failed attempts you made and try to be as general and thorough as possible to close as many doors as possible. Not every problem has a solution. You will have something written down, will not be staring at a screen for no reason (you will be staring at a screen for a reason) and maybe along the way get the luck and the reward. –  PatrickT Commented Jan 14, 2020 at 20:51
• 16 Remember: Documenting negative results is also important because it stops people from wasting time, money, and effort on them in the future. –  user76284 Commented Jan 15, 2020 at 4:36

13 Answers 13

Having worked with master's students in an applied research lab, I am fairly confident that you are not expected to come up with a solution that will dramatically change the production process and lead to great profits. Your stipend is not contingent on your work delivering monetary returns; research doesn't work like that.

You are engaged by them to apply your skills, use your time and energy to contribute to their problem. The magnitude of that contribution and its ultimate impact on the company could vary wildly. So steer yourself out of both extreme expectations (that you will fail completely, vs you will create a revolution through your work) and put in your honest, best efforts. Be systematic and document everything. What you see as a negative result or failure now could be a positive confirmation to a more experienced researcher at some time in the future. Don't worry too much about the ultimate outcome, but don't procrastinate either. Keep executing chunks of work, and once again, document everything.

Remember, you justify your stipend through your efforts, not through the outcomes.

• 4 I completely agree with this. My master's research failed to produce successful results (i.e. we were trying to create an improved algorithm and failed), and my thesis was still considered a success by my committee. –  bob Commented Jan 15, 2020 at 19:36

Your work has not been in vain.

What you have shown to the company are those methods which don't offer improvement, now, they can continue looking at other methods.

While you have had a limited time to look at a few methods, you should write those up and then consider suggesting other avenues that they could continue after you finish. That should sort your thesis issues...

• 35 Exactly. I can't count how many times in meetings people will chime in with 20 different ideas about how to improve a process. If you can show them concrete data from six of them showing the changes that were made and what the result was, then that instantly gives you a headstart for the next round of experimentation. It really is extremely useful to have well documented and well tested experiments, even when they produce a null result. –  J... Commented Jan 14, 2020 at 15:56

Expectations

First of all, it is important to be clear precisely what the expectations of this project are. If you are a master's student working alone on such a project, there should be no expectation of positive results, especially since you seem to indicate that you have only been working on it for a short amount of time. A Ph.D. might be a different matter, but then you would work on research for many years before writing a thesis.

It sounds to me that you have set a particular bar of expectation for yourself that you feel you are not reaching. Reevaluate if that expectation is reasonable, firstly for yourself, and second by the official standards which you are being held to.

Communication

In such situations, having communication and people to talk to is important. You should certainly be discussing the situation with a supervisor, but do not cut off contact with friends and family and jeopardize your mental health, which will do nothing good for you. You are less likely to make any breakthrough if you are starving yourself and not talking to anyone. Discuss what you are working with someone, anyone, whether they understand it or not, and discuss other things as well! Relaxing can help a lot. Take breaks, go for walks, meditate, whatever helps you to calm yourself and clear your head.

You may be suffering from impostor syndrome

I think you underestimate what you have accomplished and your future achievement potential. There is no reason to give up when you have already put in so much effort. If you genuinely feel that your current position is due to lack of effort, then that's something you can change going forward, but it doesn't sound like that's the case. You've put in the effort, and null results are results, don't dismiss them!

Do not worry about the money

Consider that any entry-level engineer with a Bachelor's degree at your company probably makes at least twice what you are being paid. No reasonable person would consider that they had wasted money paying someone minimum wage to do research on how to improve their production line for a few months, even if they didn't produce a positive result (and no one can expect a single master's student to produce significant result in a few months of work).

• 7 +1 for "entry-level engineer[...] makes at least 3-4 times what you are being paid" . Also keep in mind that new engineers are often expected to take some time learning and training before they're "operational", i.e. before they are expected to know what to do next and have little supervision, delivering anything might a whole year depending on area and company processes. –  Mefitico Commented Jan 14, 2020 at 19:17
• 1 Am entry level engineer in Germany absolutely doesn't earn 3-4 times €1500. 2 times is more likely, before taxes. –  BrtH Commented Jan 17, 2020 at 9:19

Start writing up now what you have. Describe (properly) the results of the 2-3 concepts. The next student doesnt have to repeat them then. If you finish the first (complete) draft and you have time, try to come up with hypothesis why these concept failed. If you even have more time, do numerical experiment to check this hypothesis. Add this to the thesis. Depending on you supervisor send him the individual drafts.

Submit your thesis. You will most likely only fail if you do not submit.

You also have a supervisor at university, s/he is usually the person to ask for advice.

• 3 Okay thank you. I am going to write my Professor at the University for advice. I will be needing some help from his side. Supervisor at the company is showing no Interest at all right now. Its like he had left his hope upon me. He is result oriented rather than effort oriented. But now i am not going to go by his strategy. I will do the simulation. Do experiments on it and will complete my thesis. Also i am going to write what problems i faced when implementing the method what i was supposed to implement. Thank you. I love this forum. You all have raised my spirit and hopes. –  K3yur Commented Jan 15, 2020 at 5:34
• 5 When you write the email it might also be best to ask for a personal meeting (you seeing your uni supervisor) to discuss these things. –  lalala Commented Jan 15, 2020 at 6:59
• 3 My dad works at a technical university and he often complains that supervisors from companies do not support their students properly; even excellent students struggle with company-led theses. Stop putting any hope into your supervisor and get as much help as you can from the Professor. I like this piece of advice: imagine that your thesis will be read by the next student working on the same problem. That will help you put in enough detail. Fellow students and friends might agree to read individual chapters of your thesis in exchange for reading a chapter or two of theirs and give you feedback. –  Ansa211 Commented Jan 15, 2020 at 10:41

From personal experience working with people from many other cultures, I know that in some Asian cultures the idea of "failing to complete a task that you have been promised to do" is taken much more seriously than it is in Europe.

As a personal anecdote, a co-worker had arranged vacation time to make a religious pilgrimage. The group were scheduled to depart at 2am. At 11 pm (three hours before departure) the co-worker turned up in the office, attempting to complete some task he had been given before he left!

By pure good luck, there were some senior employees in the office at that hour of the night, having a conference call with a customer in a time zone 8 hours different. The guy was told in no uncertain terms to stop working and go and catch his plane, but he was reluctant to do that until somebody else said they would take full personal responsibility for any consequences of the work not being finished.

To most westerners such a story might seem like pure fiction, but I was there when it happened.

You will not achieve anything by "not going out for shopping, talking to no one, and barely eating" for 15 days - except that you might end up as a medical emergency case because of self neglect. You have made an honest attempt at solving the problem, and you have some results, even though they are negative. That is as much as anyone in the West would reasonably expect from a student writing a thesis.

Put your effort into making a good report of what you have actually done, and the things that you would have liked to do but found too difficult. That will almost certainly be enough for your thesis to be accepted. The risk of lying in a hospital bed and not submitting anything at all is just not worth taking!

• 1500 euros/month is not a big deal for the companies, they do not expect you to offer them breakthrough solutions.
• Negative results are results, report them if you have. That is research
• Frame your suggestions as hypothesis and try to critically analyse them. Those optimization methods you mentioned try to address how they can enhance their production and bla bla.
• Write the literature review about those papers you are reading and that by itself can be good study and great chunk of your MSC thesis.

• 1 Thats a good idea. Thank you for your input. I really appreciate it. So i will write which papers i have referred. Why i felt like that this paper can be useful for this particular problem. What was the reason that i wasn't able to accomplish my problem with th method or concept mentioned. –  K3yur Commented Jan 15, 2020 at 5:40

From your description it is difficult to understand your research question. How about a little more detail so that the community can help you brainstorm ideas?

Aside from that, you are suffering from tunnel-vision and defeatist mentality. You are so focused on failing you have become unable to gain traction. You need to take a few days rest, then come back to the table and try to think about your problem from a new angle. I have found it is useful to read research papers from a different but related topic. Sometimes that reveals new avenues for inquiry.

• Thank you for your reply. My topic is find the optimal size of buffer in between station or nos of pallets in the line by considering failures and cycle time of the station. As an conclusion i need to find a mathematical way to optimize tha line so that the throughput or final output of production line increase and implementing the results in simulation software. –  K3yur Commented Jan 14, 2020 at 6:43
• 1 This could easily be a simulation study. Vary all the parameters you have to measure. Maybe you’re already optimal. Start by quantifying what you know. An equation that captures current efficiency –  HEITZ Commented Jan 14, 2020 at 6:46
• I have already done it. But according to discription of my thesis i need to find some kind of mathematical way to do it. There are ways to do it. But they are too complicated to understand. If i will do this by simulation there wont be many things to write about. Is there anyway that i can deregister my thesis and find a new topic start from the scratch. My supervisor is not showing any more interest as before in my thesis. I told him 2months back that this is getting too complicated for me to understand and i won't be able to complete it. Please allow me to give resignation but he said no. –  K3yur Commented Jan 14, 2020 at 6:53
• 1 No offense but this attitude suggests you are either not interested in the problem or not interested in a higher degree. ‘It’s too complicated’ isn’t something academic minded students say. ‘It’s not interesting’ is another matter. And, your advisor may seem disinterested as a reaction to your disinterest. –  HEITZ Commented Jan 14, 2020 at 6:59
• No offense taken. I am here to understand my situation. I love simulation and production line. My academic is also in same area and that's why i have chosen this topic. But for the amount of time i had. In my opinion was to vast or i can be wrong. I have tried multiple methods but due to lack of data or no one to clear my doubt. I wasn't able to implement the methods. He is disinterested in my topic, there was a little bit misunderstanding between us regarding the deadline of registration of my thesis in university. I register it after 2 months of starting and it should be done within 1month. –  K3yur Commented Jan 14, 2020 at 7:12

Look, I am Master student in a very similar field, Aeronautical engineering in Spain, I was going through the very same thing like a month and half ago, and with the help of my mum I realized that sometimes, health and wellness are way more important than academic results.

Professional help will also help you getting over it, a healthy diet, taking care of the relationships and a bit of exercise are essential to maintain your mind clean.

Aside from that, those dealing with students like us expect from us realistic results, this means that they do not expect you to improve drastically the performance of whatever you are dealing with in just few months, but they are rather interested in seeing how you have fought against the problem, and how you have learn from it.

Good luck, hope you recover from this, recognising you might be entering into a depression stage or having anxiety problems is the very first step towards a full recovery.

• I can't talk to my mum or dad openly about my current mental situation. They will be worried I am about 10K Kms away from my hometown. But I have started doing meditation and had gone for walk it fells great. Thanks. About my thesi. I currently have blurry vision how will it look like. I will tell my supervisor about it. Lets see what happens and what he comments on it. Thank you for your valuable advice. –  K3yur Commented Jan 17, 2020 at 23:12

If i will do this by simulation there wont be many things to write about.

What we have there is the real problem, your attitude.

If you cared about the subject, rather than only about getting the degree, you'd see many interesting things.

For instance, try a sensitivity analysis. For each factor in your simulation, keep the others fixed and run simulations with that one factor slightly larger and slightly smaller. For some factors, the final result will hardly change, while for other factors the final result will change a lot. That tells you which factors are worth further investigation and which are worth ignoring.

If the only thing you give your employers is a ranking of how important each factor is, they got their money's worth.

But that's just one example. There really will be "many things to write about".

this is getting too complicated for me to understand

How the universe works is too complicated for anyone to understand. Yet, despite concentrating on only a few of the most easy aspects of the problem, Einstein is generally not thought of as a failure.

Everything that's complicated is made up of many non-complicated things. Find some aspects that by themselves are relatively simple and study them, ignoring the rest for now.

Even if you don't complete it yourself, the parts that you have analyzed will help your successors to understand how the simple parts fit together to form the complicated whole.

• 1 From the OP's comments, it seems that interest is not the issue attitude is not the problem –  Kai Commented Jan 14, 2020 at 16:08
• 2 Thank you very much. I think i will be going with the simulation. Its model is almost ready it will be completed within two days and then i will start using the method of experimenting and function of Genetic algorithm which is provided by plant simulation. Thank you so much for the clarification. I think i can know think straight and see my thesis in order. Thank you once again. –  K3yur Commented Jan 15, 2020 at 5:29

The feedback I give below is rooted in my own experience, going through all years of school and employment - when I was always expected to provide something.

I am not able to sleep. For the last 15 days I haven't gone out for shopping or anything. Eating just a little bit of food only one time. Talking to no one, my family or friends.

Well, that is the perfect recipe for disaster. How do you expect your brain to function properly (even, better than properly, since you are trying to do a highly intensive task) without caring for it? Go ahead and eat nutritious food, have good rest, do some exercise, and then things will definitely improve.

Just sitting all day in front of the screen trying to find some kind of breakthrough.

With a under-nutritioned, not rested brain? No way.

Moreover, a thesis (regardless of the level) implies research, and research means that you can (and sometimes MUST) cooperate with other people. Go ahead an talk with anyone who might be able to give you some idea. Even terrible ideas can turn into genius ideas.

Corollary: if you have no benefit of staying in front of the computer, do something more beneficial. Even sleeping is better then torturing yourself uselessly.

I think i am going into depression. I am afraid that i will fail this thesis.

As I said, good food, rest, exercise... It will go away.

I don't know what to do? How to do? Who to ask for help regarding my thesis and topic.

The thesis is not something that you do in a toilet and you must be alone.

A thesis has at least one coordinator (provided by the university).

In your case, there are two coordinators , the other one being assigned by the company.

Each of them will provide you with support according to their area of experience / expertise. Even if they do not push or pull you about the work you do, be PROACTIVE and go talk to them. Tell them about your results until now. Tell them about the problems encountered. Ask for help. Ask to be assigned to other specialists which might have good feedback which you can use.

I am constantly worried about what if i fail. What will happen. Should I have to go back to India without completing my Master's.

Leave the worries until after the final exam passes. How can your brain think about the work you need to do, if you keep it busy with analyzing ways of failure?

Bottom line:

• provide the best conditions to your brain to function at maximum capacity;
• remove from mind all negative stuff (worries, fears, negative emotions...); they will appear independent of your will, but when you become aware of this, push them out again;
• be proactive and be in regular contact with your supervisors;
• be proactive and seek help / information / ideas from anyone who might be able to provide them;

My own case: I am able to ignore all the negative stress before a serious endeavor (exam, delivery of project, preparation for some bigger activity...) - even to the point where I feel too "free". However, once the event passes entirely and the really final results are in, my brain suddenly releases all the energy and the feelings and everything which I ignored previously. Physically I become weak for a few seconds / minutes. On rare occasions, I needed to sit for a minute, to recover.

That works excellent for me, and I would never want to change that. Even though the feeling of weakness is not something to be proud of, it allows me to really concentrate on the task and deliver maximum performance.

• Thank you very much. I have started taking care of me. Going for a small walk and doing meditation. I have this things in my schedule. I am introvert kind of guy, not proud about it. But will ask my supervisor in company to guide me to the person that can help. But the problem is that i got only two months left. Now starting with the new methodology will be difficult. I will complete my thesis but i am not sure that i will able to satisfy my University and my supervisor. I will get less grades and unsatisfied. But the way i have done my work i deserve that. –  K3yur Commented Jan 17, 2020 at 23:04
• You started to change for the better. That is great. At your own pace (you can choose it yourself) keep improving. I wish you luck. Talk to the professor too, he might have some good advice for you. –  virolino Commented Jan 20, 2020 at 5:32

This is not your fault. It seems like you had a bad supervisor at the company since a supervisor should meet up with you often to discuss your problems and your progress. He should guide you towards a successful thesis.

Now, first of all, talk to your thesis supervisors and tell them about your concerns. You should have one supervisor in the company and one supervisor at your university and you can ask both for help.

I want to add that here in Germany, people rarely fail their thesis. Not because everyone writes a great thesis on great results, but because the threshold of passing is very low. Not only results, but also effort is recognized, therefore: Get the formal aspects of your thesis right: e.g. no spelling mistakes, good looking images, proper citing, good literature summary, polish your presentation...

If you do that, you will not fail. For the master thesis, negative results are totally acceptable.

Therefore, for your thesis and for the presentation:

• summarize the literature
• show the methods you have tried, show that they did not lead to an improvement
• make educated guesses about why it did not lead to an improvement
• if you have an idea, explain what else could be tried in the future

Maybe the company will not hire you, but you will definitely not fail your thesis.

Should I have to go back to India without completing my Master's.

If you really do fail, maybe because of the limited time left to write the thesis, then that is also not a problem at all. You lost some months, but you can just try again with another topic.

• 1 If you do not submit you will fail. (but this is basically the only way). –  lalala Commented Jan 14, 2020 at 15:33
• 1 Posting my concerns over here was the best thing I had thought in last 2 months. I think my line is already efficient. But there is always a possibility of optimization. I will surely write and complete my thesis on time. I will complete my first draft of the thesis till end of this month. I will be more focus on the points you have mentioned above and try to write properly and neatly. also my colleagues told me that writing is more important than the positive results. I still got two months and i will do it. No more procrastination. –  K3yur Commented Jan 17, 2020 at 22:47

I think you're focusing on the wrong facet. Instead of worrying, "How do I optimize their process," think, "What makes an optimum process?" - and then relate that to the existing model. If it turns out that the optimum way of doing something is what the company is already doing, that's great! . It's not a failure if the company is already doing the right thing!

Instead of focusing on "But I didn't change anything!", focus on "How can I help identify why things are optimal?" Because it's entirely possible their configuration isn't due to extremely studious effort, but a bit of trial-and-error. It's entirely possible that you will give them immense benefit in laying out why their current setup is optimal - they might think it's good simply because they haven't been able to identify anything better, not because they've done rigorous analysis. And, well, I can guarantee you: no factory line remains unchanging over the long haul - they have to adapt, improve, and reorganize. Processes change. Requirements change. Etc. So being able relay why it's currently ideal might help them keep that efficiency after a change down the road.

If I were in your shoes, the next path I'd start poking down is their line history. Did the current setup emerge due to methodical analysis? Was there trial and error? You may be able to give a great deal of value in being able to say, "The current line is actually extremely efficient - there aren't a lot of gains to be had. However, one thing I noticed is that the road to get to the current setup seemed to systemically have a problem with neglect of transport and transit times. These three areas were shuffled around quite a bit, trying to decrease the time moving parts around the factory, but if that was analyzed up front, it might have helped back when the reorg was required."

(For what it's worth: I worked awhile as a IT Dev in a Tire Manufacturing Plant, and was semi-involved in efficiency evaluations. So I actually have a bit of experience on this front. The plant liked it when someone said, "You can shave 15 seconds off the total build time if you toggle the location of these two presses." They loved it when someone said, "Well, there's a systematic mistake XYZ you're making with this - you can shave 15 seconds off the time if you toggle the location of these presses, and the next time you're shuffling the line, you'll get the same savings if you keep in mind XYZ.")

• Thank you Kevin. I will ask my supervisor for line change history in my next meeting with him. Changing postion of the machine can help. I will surely try this in my simulation. Lets see if i can get some postive result. –  K3yur Commented Jan 17, 2020 at 22:39

Thanks a lot. I have passed my Thesis as well as my masters with satisfactory Noten(Grade). Over all 2.5 Noten for my Master Degree and 2.5(average of Report and Presentation) . Once thanks a lot this wonderful community who gave me the ideas and support in my difficult time.

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• How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples

How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples

Published on January 11, 2019 by Shona McCombes . Revised on August 15, 2023 by Eoghan Ryan.

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . It usually comes near the end of your introduction .

Your thesis will look a bit different depending on the type of essay you’re writing. But the thesis statement should always clearly state the main idea you want to get across. Everything else in your essay should relate back to this idea.

You can write your thesis statement by following four simple steps:

• Start with a question
• Write your initial answer
• Develop your answer
• Refine your thesis statement

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Table of contents

What is a thesis statement, placement of the thesis statement, step 1: start with a question, step 2: write your initial answer, step 3: develop your answer, step 4: refine your thesis statement, types of thesis statements, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about thesis statements.

A thesis statement summarizes the central points of your essay. It is a signpost telling the reader what the essay will argue and why.

The best thesis statements are:

• Concise: A good thesis statement is short and sweet—don’t use more words than necessary. State your point clearly and directly in one or two sentences.
• Contentious: Your thesis shouldn’t be a simple statement of fact that everyone already knows. A good thesis statement is a claim that requires further evidence or analysis to back it up.
• Coherent: Everything mentioned in your thesis statement must be supported and explained in the rest of your paper.

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The thesis statement generally appears at the end of your essay introduction or research paper introduction .

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts and among young people more generally is hotly debated. For many who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its many benefits for education: the internet facilitates easier access to information, exposure to different perspectives, and a flexible learning environment for both students and teachers.

You should come up with an initial thesis, sometimes called a working thesis , early in the writing process . As soon as you’ve decided on your essay topic , you need to work out what you want to say about it—a clear thesis will give your essay direction and structure.

You might already have a question in your assignment, but if not, try to come up with your own. What would you like to find out or decide about your topic?

For example, you might ask:

After some initial research, you can formulate a tentative answer to this question. At this stage it can be simple, and it should guide the research process and writing process .

Now you need to consider why this is your answer and how you will convince your reader to agree with you. As you read more about your topic and begin writing, your answer should get more detailed.

In your essay about the internet and education, the thesis states your position and sketches out the key arguments you’ll use to support it.

The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its many benefits for education because it facilitates easier access to information.

In your essay about braille, the thesis statement summarizes the key historical development that you’ll explain.

The invention of braille in the 19th century transformed the lives of blind people, allowing them to participate more actively in public life.

A strong thesis statement should tell the reader:

• Why you hold this position
• What they’ll learn from your essay
• The key points of your argument or narrative

The final thesis statement doesn’t just state your position, but summarizes your overall argument or the entire topic you’re going to explain. To strengthen a weak thesis statement, it can help to consider the broader context of your topic.

These examples are more specific and show that you’ll explore your topic in depth.

Your thesis statement should match the goals of your essay, which vary depending on the type of essay you’re writing:

• In an argumentative essay , your thesis statement should take a strong position. Your aim in the essay is to convince your reader of this thesis based on evidence and logical reasoning.
• In an expository essay , you’ll aim to explain the facts of a topic or process. Your thesis statement doesn’t have to include a strong opinion in this case, but it should clearly state the central point you want to make, and mention the key elements you’ll explain.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
• Appeal to authority fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy

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A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

The thesis statement is essential in any academic essay or research paper for two main reasons:

• It gives your writing direction and focus.
• It gives the reader a concise summary of your main point.

Without a clear thesis statement, an essay can end up rambling and unfocused, leaving your reader unsure of exactly what you want to say.

Follow these four steps to come up with a thesis statement :

• Ask a question about your topic .
• Write your initial answer.
• Develop your answer by including reasons.
• Refine your answer, adding more detail and nuance.

The thesis statement should be placed at the end of your essay introduction .

Cite this Scribbr article

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McCombes, S. (2023, August 15). How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved September 11, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/thesis-statement/

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