sentences usually reflect either the author writing inauthenti-
cally in a pompous style, or trying to do too many things
within a single sentence, typically by loading in qualifying
clauses beginning with ‘although’, ‘however’ and so on. A
sentence should express a single thought or proposition, not
multiple ones.
Each sentence is also important as a fundamental building
block of your thesis as a whole. You should routinely run a
checklist over new sentences in turn to ensure that you main-
tain quality control. The basic ethos here is that sentences can
only do one of three things for you – build, blur or corrode.
They can build the thesis, forming part of the coral-reef accre-
tions of your core argument. Or they can blur the thesis,
creating patches of text (like repetitions) which perhaps are not
actively damaging but which fail to advance the argument.
Or they can corrode your argument, mis-stating propositions
and actively weakening your chances of getting a doctorate.
Unless a sentence builds your thesis, you are best cutting it out.
You must ruthlessly eliminate all corrosive sentences, which are
liabilities if left alone. You may need to retain a few blurring
sentences with little new content, to help give continuity or to
make rhetorical linkages at certain points.
Every author has a meaning in which all the
contradictory passages agree, or he [or she] has no
meaning at all.
Blaise Pascal^8Three other questions are helpful to bear in mind when checking:
◆ Is the sentence correct? Is it argumentatively substantive and
logically put? Is it factually right? Do all parts of the
sentence work together to meet these tests?
◆ Is it appropriatefor PhD level work? Some propositions may
be factually true or argumentatively sound, but just not
what we would expect to see people saying or discussing at
the doctoral level. For instance, we would not expect a car
engine designer to tell us that: ‘Internal combustion engines
go brmm, brmm you know’ – even though that is
completely correct.
116 ◆AUTHORING A PHD