44 4 Making a Strong Start
Writing up at the End
In Chap. 2, I mentioned Karen’s problem in starting to write her thesis. When she
was a student, word processors and working online were not yet widespread, and
the integrated research-writing process that I have discussed was not possible. In-
stead, we had the ‘research first and write later’ model of thesis writing.
Despite the flexibility offered by the word processor, it seems that old habits
die hard among supervisors. Judging from the seminars I’ve held on ‘Starting Your
Thesis’, some supervisors are still advocating the old method, and may, in the sci-
ences, even discourage their students from writing until they have finished their
main experiments. This brings two risks. One is that the writing is likely to be less
polished—we all like to put off tasks we are unfamiliar with, or less good at, and
for students with an experimental background writing is often in this category. But,
looked at rationally, if writing is not your strength then you should put more effort
into it, not less. The second risk is that your thesis will be less of a narrative; you
are in danger of writing your thesis around the results of these experiments, and
neglecting to tell the reader of what was involved in obtaining these results, not to
mention the thinking that led to the experiments. As an examiner, I am never im-
pressed by a thesis that gives an account of ingenious experiments and the results
obtained from them, but fails to tell me why the experiments were carried out or
what the implications of the findings were. Narrative is essential, and the best way
I know to develop a good narrative is to start writing early.
I did manage to get Karen going eventually. I asked her how many important
ideas she had identified in those hundreds of papers, ideas that had taken the theory
of her topic along another step. To my surprise, she replied almost immediately
that there were only four, and explained them. I saw that somehow her unconscious
mind had been working on those papers, sorting them, organizing them, ordering
them. These four ideas provided the titles of four sections of her review of existing
theory, and I suggested she start writing on this basis. She came back in 2 weeks
with a brilliant review of the theory that scarcely needed any further change.
My advice to Karen enabled her to get started because it gave her a structure
to write to and enabled her to resolve the tension between her rational, conscious
thinking and her creative, unconscious thinking. To get started on the thesis, you
must acknowledge and harness this tension. To do this you must first devise a logi-
cal structure for the whole thesis; a good way to ensure that the structure is sound is
to write the introductions to each chapter, then string them together to see whether
the report develops logically.
Then start to write. I suggest that you use writing to drive the reading. List the
papers you haven’t read in the place where you expect to discuss them. Your back-
ground should mutate from a description of intended reading into an analysis of
what you have read.
For the early-start model of thesis writing I suggested that students begin by
writing the introductory chapter that described why they were doing the research,
what their aim and scope were, and how they intended to achieve their aim. This