Introduction
Writing a Thesis or Dissertation: An Overview of the Process
MANY YEARS AGO, when I was a graduate student, I found the experience of writing my dissertation difficult, mystifying, certainly stressful—words that many graduate students today are likely to use as well. Graduate school overall is challenging, but writing a thesis or dissertation is particularly anxiety provoking because little or no instruction is usually provided about how to do it. In fact, a report written in 1900 for the Pedagogical Section of the Modern Language Association contains a statement that has surprising relevance to the situation graduate students face today:
When a man has obtained his A.B. degree, he ought to be able to write his language with sufficient correctness to be responsible in the future for his own style. If he has not thus learned to write reasonably well, he probably never will learn. (Mead xxii)
Written over a hundred years ago, the statement, of course, reflects the biases of its time: that graduate students are, by definition, male; that correctness equals excellence; and that improvement in writing is unlikely after a certain point in one’s academic development. But beyond these obviously outdated assumptions, the report implies several equally misconceived notions about graduate student writing that explains the persistence of the “sink or swim” approach to writing that many graduate students encounter:
• Graduate students should be able to write a thesis or dissertation without further instruction in writing.
• Previous coursework adequately prepares students for writing a thesis or dissertation—that is, students who have successfully written seminar papers will be able to locate a suitable topic, craft an effective proposal, and develop it successfully with relatively little difficulty.
These assumptions have never been true. Recalling my own experience in graduate school and having worked with graduate students across the curriculum on theses and dissertations, I am well aware of how difficult the process can be. But I also know that when students understand that scholarly work involves interacting with members of a community and that a thesis or dissertation involves entering the conversations of that community, they are able to move through the process with less difficulty.
The Rationale for This Book
The 1900 report for the MLA predates the “process” approach to composition, an approach that recognizes that learning to write in an unfamiliar scene or context usually does not occur without helpful feedback and extensive revision. However, that approach is rarely used in working with graduate students. As Sullivan notes,
Most graduate faculty assume that graduate students, by definition, “already know how to write,” and thus writing assumes a secondary and often marginal role in graduate education. The written product, but not the writing process, compels the attention of graduate faculty. ... Despite development of theories which emphasize the processes and contexts of interpretation, we are still tied to current-traditional modes of writing instruction. (285)
Sullivan maintains that the process through which students are “taught” (or not taught) to write a thesis or dissertation completely ignores recent research in composition, with its emphasis on process, multiple drafts, rhetorical goals, and community, and adheres to a remarkably old-fashioned current-traditional paradigm. To write within that paradigm means that students are expected to know intuitively what is required of them; if they don’t know, they are, by definition, “unqualified” for graduate work.
Most graduate students, however, have a great deal of difficulty figuring things out on their own and need additional instruction and support. This book is intended to fulfill that need.
A Genre Approach to the Thesis or Dissertation
Many of the underlying assumptions of Writing the Successful Thesis and Dissertation: Entering the Conversation derive from current rhetorical genre theory, which maintains that the effectiveness of any text depends on its context—that is, that writing is a way of responding to readers within a particular scene and that “genre” is determined by the appropriateness of that response. Although the word genre is often understood only as a means of classifying texts, contemporary genre analysis views texts more comprehensively, focusing not only on their form and textual conventions, but, more important, on their purpose and on how components of a text contribute to the fulfillment of that purpose. Thus, the current view of genre conceives of text in terms of function. Accordingly, this book focuses on what a successful thesis or dissertation is intended to do and on how its various components enable it to fulfill its purpose. It emphasizes that in order for you to enter the disciplinary conversation, you must become familiar with critical issues in your discipline, problematize and focus a topic, and fulfill genre expectations not only in terms of form and style, but also in terms of the goals you set, the role you assume as you write, and the way you conceive of your readers.
The Incorporation of Reading Strategies
The current misconception that graduate students do not need further instruction in writing also characterizes current beliefs about graduate students’ reading abilities. Although in some M.A. and Ph.D. programs students may not take actual graduate “classes,” students in American programs usually do. There they encounter readings that may be considerably more difficult and complex than those they read earlier in their academic lives. But instruction in how to read difficult texts does not usually occur in graduate classes because of a pervasive but erroneous belief that graduate students already know how to do it. Reading in graduate writing courses is therefore “assigned,” but the process of engaging meaningfully with complicated material is not addressed. Although not all graduate students will admit that they are experiencing difficulty, all struggle with the type and amount of reading they must complete in the process of developing and completing a thesis or dissertation. In recognition of these difficulties, Writing the Successful Thesis and Dissertation: Entering the Conversation includes a chapter focused on reading strategies that you will find helpful as you search for a possible topic and write a review of the literature.
The use of genre theory, a process approach to writing, and a focus on the interconnections between reading and writing inform the underlying theoretical approach of this book. The practical strategies and instructional suggestions are all founded on this approach.
Overview of Chapters
Chapter 1, “Getting Started,” defines scholarship as an interaction with a scholarly community, and the thesis or dissertation as a means of entering a conversation with that community. It emphasizes the importance of understanding what constitutes “knowledge” in a field and discusses various difficulties students may experience in choosing a topic, developing a proposal, and writing drafts.
Chapter 2, “So What? Discovering Possibilities,” discusses a number of strategies to help you learn to speak the language of the academy and discover possibilities for a thesis or dissertation. As Bartholomae observed in his frequently anthologized essay “Inventing the University”...
Every time a student sits down to write for us, he has to invent the university for the occasion.... The student has to learn to speak our language, to speak as we do, to try on the peculiar ways of knowing, selecting, evaluating, reporting, concluding and arguing that define the discourse of our community.
Bartholomae’s idea of “inventing the university” was concerned with the difficulties first-year college students experience when they write academic essays, but the point about learning a new language pertains to all novice/expert situations. To participate in the discourse community associated with a particular field, you, as a student, must “listen” to conversations of published colleagues—that is, read deeply in relevant texts—in order to have something that members of the community will regard as “worth considering.”
This chapter emphasizes that when you write for a scholarly community, you are, in essence, joining a vast collaboration.
Chapter 3, “The Proposal as an Argument: A Genre Approach to the Proposal,” focuses on the proposal, emphasizing that it is essentially an argument that convinces an audience of scholars that the ideas that will be developed in the thesis or dissertation are worth considering. In this context, the purpose of the proposal is to persuade a committee and other members of the academic community that the problem is of significance to the discipline and has not been adequately addressed in previous work, although selected other texts may have discussed it.
In approaching the proposal as an argument, this chapter addresses the tendency of graduate students to construct proposals that contain a great deal of information but no central point. I have read a great many proposals that review relevant research, discuss antecedent texts, cite statistics, perhaps summarize plots of literary works, but develop no main point. Such texts elicit a reaction from readers that can be summarized as “So what?” or “What’s your point?” To avoid the “so-what” phenomenon, this chapter distinguishes between issues and arguments and discusses strategies for transforming vaguely conceived ideas into a focused position. This chapter also contains sample proposals with annotations.
Chapter 4, “Mapping Texts: The Reading/Writing Connection,” discusses reading strategies derived from current composition and reading scholarship. Particular attention is given to the strategy of “mapping texts,” which is based on the idea that effective readers and writers play an active role in both comprehending what they read and writing a text based on that reading. For a reader who is writing a thesis or dissertation, “mapping texts” means engaging with texts not only to comprehend the ideas they present, but also to see how they present these ideas in terms of structure and language choice. Mapping texts enables you not only to engage meaningfully with scholarly work, but also to use reading to gain insight into text strategies that you can incorporate into your own writing.
Chapter 5, “Writing and Revising,” discusses insights into the teaching of undergraduate writing that you can apply to writing a thesis or dissertation. These include a discussion of writer/reader relationships, strategies for developing ideas, and suggestions for planning, organizing, and revising various drafts. To facilitate revision, this chapter includes a number of worksheets that you can use, including a “Function” worksheet that you can use both to examine scholarly texts and to revise drafts.
Chapter 6, “Writing the Literature Review,” presents the literature review in terms of genre, focusing on the function of the review and suggesting possibilities for organizing it.
Chapter 7, “Using Visual Materials,” presents a number of suggestions for using visual materials to enrich the thesis or dissertation. Many theses and dissertations require the use of statistical materials produced in graphs, figures, tables, and charts, but students often do not know how to use them effectively. This chapter presents several possibilities for using visual and numerical material for enhancing the argument of your thesis or dissertation. It also includes examples of what not to do.
Chapter 8, “The Advisor and Thesis/Dissertation Committee,” discusses the advisor’s role in the thesis/dissertation process and the importance of choosing the right person. Stressing the importance of mutual understanding of advisor-student roles, the chapter suggests that, aside from providing guidance and support, an effective advisor can raise student consciousness about what is involved in planning a large text project, particularly setting realistic goals, developing efficient research strategies, and reviewing relevant literature.
In addition, this chapter addresses potential administrative issues associated with graduate studies committees and departmental concerns. It helps you become aware of the forms of scholarly investigation that are favored in your department and suggest possibilities for maximizing departmental resources.
Chapter 9, “Working with Grammar and Style,” addresses these topics from the perspective of rhetoric. It emphasizes that grammar and style are not ends in and of themselves, but that they should be used to achieve particular rhetorical goals. It focuses on the following topics: cohesion, coherence, emphasis, sentence expansion, and imitation.
Chapter 10, “Practical Considerations,” focuses on other elements associated with the thesis/dissertation process: writing the abstract, working with human subjects, submitting a thesis/dissertation electronically, and understanding the problematic issue of plagiarism.
This book, then, has several goals:
• To help you understand the thesis or dissertation as a genre
• To enable you to develop an effective writing process appropriate for graduate work
• To improve your ability to read complex texts
• To offer practical suggestions for completing this important culminating task more effectively
In the course of writing this book, I have become increasingly aware of how the requirements of a thesis/dissertation vary according to discipline, institution, department, and country. A thesis/dissertation in the humanities is different from one in the social or hard sciences, and programs in countries other than the United States have quite different requirements from those with which I am most familiar.
However, because this book focuses primarily on thinking and writing, and is based on theories of genre and process, graduate students in many disciplines and institutional settings will be able to adapt its main ideas for their own purposes. There is no question that writing a thesis or dissertation is a challenging, difficult enterprise. In fact, at times, you may feel quite lost as you blunder your way through dense and seemingly endless paths. Writing the Successful Thesis and Dissertation: Entering the Conversation will help you find your way.
Works Cited
Bartholomae, David. “Inventing the University.” When a Wrier Can’t Write: Studies in Writer’s Block and Other Composing Process Problems. Ed. Mike Rose. New York: Guilford Press, 1885. 134–165.
Mead, W. E. “Report of the Pedagogical Section.” Proceedings for 1900, PMLA 16 (1901): xix–xxxii.
Sullivan, Patricia A. “Writing in the Graduate Curriculum: Literary Criticism as Composition.” Journal of Advanced Composition 11.1 (1991): 283–299.