Do not select boring, mundane or anodyne quotes as
epigraphs or opening sentence material, especially from con-
temporary authors working in the same field as you. Useful
starting quotes really need to be something like epigrams (witty
or striking thoughts cogently expressed in a short space), or par-
ticularly thought-provoking or fundamental reflections for your
themes (if you pick a longer quotation). A beginning quote from
a contemporary professional author working in exactly your
field can make your work look derivative. So try not to cite such
people. Instead pick much more general quotes. Classical or
canonical or long-dead authors in your field (who may safely
be quoted without looking derivative) are a good option. Con-
temporary non-professional authors (novelists, playwrights,
journalists) make a good impression, and in some disciplines
other modern sources (magazines, newspapers, music CDs or TV
programmes like The Simpsons) are also appropriate. You can also
use contemporary professional authors working in radically dif-
ferent fields from your own but making a relevant point for your
work. Looking for more general quotes can run the danger of
your falling for clichés or very tired, familiar aphorisms (such as
those found in most dictionaries of quotations). Reasonably
well-read readers may well see such quotes as routine: they can
be no help to you. General purpose sources (Shakespeare, the
Bible, major philosophers and so on) are helpful only if the
quotes you use are apt and unusual. If you think that quota-
tions may work for you, keep a sharp eye out for interesting
observations as you read (both in general literature and profes-
sional sources), and record any possibles in a PC file as soon you
encounter them. That way you can pick and choose from a
large selection, and are more likely to find one that is really
effective and appropriate in a given context.
Astriking example, incident, event, conjunction, narrative or
other piece of empirical informationcan also be an effective start,
crystallizing and perhaps dramatizing a theme which the chapter
will explain or develop at length. By presenting the chapter focus
in a very concrete way, or an element that leads into it, such a
start can achieve an impact which a dry recital of theories or
ideas cannot. For instance, Michel Foucault’s opening pages for
his philosophical book Discipline and Punishstarts with a detailed
description of the gruesome logistics of a nineteenth-century
94 ◆AUTHORING A PHD