48 4 Making a Strong Start
then on I made a conscious effort to write carelessly, as I described it to myself, and
it usually worked. Sometimes the words wouldn’t flow and sometimes I had to edit
the text a great deal later on, but mostly I was able to write 10 or 20 times faster than
before. With experience, I usually write like this now.
Over the years I have shifted from writing on paper to writing almost exclusively
at the computer. However, a few years ago I was struggling with some writing of a
kind that was new to me (an essay on an aspect of teaching practice) and had been
blocked for days. In desperation I decided to move away from the computer and
sit in a favourite spot, away from all the usual distractions of phones and email, to
write in a notebook. I had only intended to write bullet points, in an attempt to try
and capture the topic of the essay, but within an hour I was writing flowing text,
and the thoughts that had been building up in my mind over the previous days were
soon on paper. Ever since, I have often kicked off the writing process in a similar
way, by brainstorming thoughts into a notebook I carry round with me. Sitting in
dull seminars seems to be a fruitful way for new papers to get started.
Writing an Individual Chapter
How do you turn the literature reviews or descriptions of research procedures that
you wrote in your first year into thesis chapters? You wrote them as stand-alone
pieces, before you were an expert in your subject.
Just as the thesis itself must be properly structured to ensure that the reader
always knows exactly what is going on, so must individual chapters. Why is this
particular chapter there? What is its function in the thesis? You must make this abso-
lutely clear. The best way to ensure clarity is to write a formal introduction to every
chapter. Follow with the business of the chapter itself, then a formal conclusion.
Some supervisors consider this to be a rather stilted approach, and skilful writers
can get away without formal introductions and conclusions. This doesn’t mean that
they can do away with them altogether; rather, that they do it less formally and obvi-
ously. Most of us don’t have such writing skills, however, and I recommend that you
write formal introductions and conclusions to all chapters.
By a formal introduction, I mean a piece of text that is designed to explain the
role the chapter plays in the thesis. A typical such introduction is organized as about
three paragraphs.
- First paragraph: creates a link back to the earlier parts of the thesis, in particular
the previous chapter, to make it obvious why the chapter is needed. - Second paragraph: states the aim of the chapter, what the reader learns from it
and how it advances the overall goal. - Third paragraph: outlines how you intend to achieve this aim. This paragraph
often has the ‘overview of contents’ flavour that so many writers think consti-
tutes an introduction. But it is only one part of the introduction, and without the
other two parts the reader struggles for a sense of direction. (Incidentally, writers
sometimes literally give it as a table of contents. This is far from helpful. The
reader needs to know not only what you will be dealing with in the chapter, but
also the logical connection between the various sections.)