Coping with Questions in Your Thesis or Dissertation Examination Although the specific procedures of thesis and dissertation examinations vary a great deal among disciplines, fields of study and individual departments, most theses and dissertations are examined via committee, and questions…
Post-Examination Language Revisions in a Thesis or Dissertation
Post-Examination Language Revisions in a Thesis or Dissertation The first and most important thing to acknowledge here is that revisions will almost certainly be required after a thesis or dissertation is examined. No matter how polished and perfect you thought…
Grammatical Agreement in the Scholarly Prose of a Thesis or Dissertation
Grammatical Agreement in the Scholarly Prose of a Thesis or Dissertation Establishing agreement between the subject of an English clause or sentence and the verb that tells the reader what that subject is thinking, doing, feeling and so on is…
Proofreading a Thesis or Dissertation for Final Examination
Proofreading a Thesis or Dissertation for Final Examination When a student has finally reached the point at which all major aspects of a thesis or dissertation are finished and the examination process has been initiated, it is a time for…
Some General Advice on Submitting a Thesis or Dissertation for Examination
Some General Advice on Submitting a Thesis or Dissertation for Examination University regulations regarding the submission of a postgraduate thesis or dissertation both before and after the formal examination vary. Some guidelines for students are short and rather vague, whereas…
The Art of Listening for Thesis and Dissertation Candidates
The Art of Listening for Thesis and Dissertation Candidates Most postgraduate students who are conducting advanced research and engaged in writing a thesis or dissertation would argue that they are very good listeners indeed. Sound listening skills are required, after…
The Correct and Effective Use of En Rules without Spaces in Your Thesis or Dissertation
The Correct and Effective Use of En Rules without Spaces in Your Thesis or Dissertation As you draft your thesis or dissertation, you will likely discover that you need to use en rules, so you will also need to understand…
The Correct Use of Infinitive Verbs in Academic & Scientific English
The Correct Use of Infinitive Verbs in Academic & Scientific English It was once considered completely inappropriate to split infinitives in formal, particularly scholarly writing in the English language, but the rules tend to be less strictly observed these days….
The Correct Use of Three Notoriously Tricky English Verbs Lie, Lie, Lay
Lie, Lie and Lay: Three Challenging English Verbs and How To Use Them Properly in Your Thesis or Dissertation English presents many challenges for students who are writing a thesis or dissertation in the language. This is obviously the case…
Brainstorming for Your Thesis or Dissertation while Reading Sources
Reflecting on the Sources You Read and Recording Your Thoughts for Future Use Taking careful notes as you read the sources that inform your thesis or dissertation research should obviously involve recording any material in those sources that may prove…
Revising a Thesis or Dissertation Abstract and Visual Aids for Publication
Revising a Thesis or Dissertation Abstract and Visual Aids for Publication As you start to develop an article from the research and writing you have done for your thesis or dissertation, you will ideally already have designed some tables and…
Rewriting Doctoral or PhD Thesis Research for Journal Readers
Anticipating Your New Audience as You Transform Your Thesis into Articles When you transform a long and detailed study such as a thesis or dissertation into one or more scholarly articles, the word limits set by most scholarly journals will…
How To Overcome Writer’s Block when Writing Your Thesis
How To Overcome Writer’s Block when Writing a Thesis or Dissertation The only true cure for writer’s block is writing, as unhelpful or even frustrating as that thought may seem when the flood of ideas you want to communicate becomes…
How to Use the Semicolon Correctly in English
How to Use the Semicolon Correctly in English Although the semicolon (;) is used more rarely these days than it once was and is even considered redundant by some writers, it remains an effective piece of punctuation with very specific…
Why You Should Hire an Academic Proofreader for Your Thesis or Dissertation
Why You Should Hire an Academic Proofreader for Your Thesis or Dissertation Careful proofreading are required at many stages in the lengthy process of producing a successful thesis or dissertation. The parts of your writing that you share at various…
Helpful Tips for Improving Thesis or Dissertation Writing Skills
Helpful Tips for Improving Thesis or Dissertation Writing Skills For the grand majority of postgraduate students, writing a thesis or dissertation will be the most challenging writing project they have yet attempted. Most students will have written essays and reports…
Dealing with the Temptation of Procrastination while Doing a PhD or MA
Dealing with the Temptation of Procrastination while Doing a PhD or MA The temptation to procrastinate while working on a PhD or MA can seem irresistible at times. For the majority of students, the process of writing (or starting to…
How To Construct the Central Argument of a Doctoral or PhD Thesis
How To Construct the Central Argument of a Doctoral or PhD Thesis A carefully constructed argument is as vital to a successful academic or scientific thesis as methodology and evidence are. Indeed, the argument of a thesis or dissertation encompasses…
Formatting Headings & Subheadings for Your Thesis or Dissertation
Formatting Headings and Subheadings with Word’s Heading Styles A carefully organised thesis or dissertation communicates advanced research and sophisticated discussions to readers and examiners more clearly than a poorly organised one does, which is no doubt why universities and departments…
Managing Sources That Overlap Your Research Intentions
Managing Sources That Overlap Your Research Intentions It is usually pleasant for a scholar to discover academic or scientific sources that present information associated with his or her research interests and areas of expertise. It is not quite so pleasant…
The Best of Beginnings: The First Formal Meeting with Your Supervisor
The Best of Beginnings: The First Formal Meeting with Your Supervisor As you embark upon the advanced research required for a thesis or dissertation, you may already know or have corresponded extensively with the faculty member who will be your…
Thesis and Dissertation Meetings with Your Mentors
The Post-Meeting Effect and How To Make the Most of It Meetings associated with planning, conducting and writing up research tend to be a fact of life for thesis and dissertation students. Meetings with your supervisor or primary mentor will…
What Thesis Students Need To Know & Do for Success
The Responsibilities of Thesis and Dissertation Students Most postgraduate research and the theses and dissertations that grow from it are student driven, and the enthusiasm, initiative and persistence of candidates are often considered to be as important as their research…
How Long Should a Dissertation or Thesis Introduction Be?
How Long Should a Dissertation or Thesis Introduction Be? How long should the introduction to your thesis or dissertation be? The most obvious answer is as long as it needs to be – no longer and no shorter. This is…
Using Direct Quotations in Your Thesis or Dissertation
Using Direct Quotations in Your Thesis or Dissertation Whenever you quote the exact words of another author or speaker in your thesis or dissertation, it is essential that you quote those words with accuracy and observe with precision and consistency…
How To Integrate Words from Foreign Languages into Your Thesis or Dissertation
How To Integrate Words from Foreign Languages into Your Thesis or Dissertation If you are writing your thesis or dissertation in the English language but need to use certain words, phrases or longer passages of text in another language (or…
When Major Revisions Are Required after Your Thesis or Dissertation Exam
When Major Revisions Are Required after Your Thesis or Dissertation Exam Anticipating the inevitability of revisions after the final examination of a thesis or dissertation may be a wise strategy for any postgraduate student, but no candidate wants to think…
Using or Not Using the Serial or Oxford Comma in Your Thesis or Dissertation
Using or Not Using the Serial or Oxford Comma in Your Thesis or Dissertation A serial or Oxford comma is the comma that appears immediately after the penultimate item in a series or list when a conjunction separates that item…
The Benefits of Writing for Your Thesis or Dissertation Supervisor as Soon as Possible
The Benefits of Writing for Your Thesis or Dissertation Supervisor as Soon as Possible The impulse to postpone writing something to submit to your supervisor or primary mentor until you feel you have truly worthwhile research to report and valuable…
Using Numerical References in Your Thesis or Dissertation
Using Numerical References in Your Thesis or Dissertation If you are writing a thesis or dissertation in the medical or biological sciences, you will probably need to use numerical references such as those required for a Vancouver style of referencing….
Choosing an External Examiner for Your Thesis or Dissertation
Choosing an External Examiner for Your Thesis or Dissertation Doctoral theses and many other long research-based documents that are written to earn credit towards academic and scientific degrees require formal examination by a committee. In most cases, this committee consists…
Expressing Scholarly Speculation Effectively in Your Thesis or Dissertation
Expressing Scholarly Speculation Effectively in Your Thesis or Dissertation Reporting the methodological processes and final results of most research is relatively straightforward, and advanced students tend to do an excellent job of it in their theses and dissertations. However, the…
Making the Best Use of Tables and Figures in Your Thesis or Dissertation
Making the Best Use of Tables and Figures in Your Thesis or Dissertation Scholarly writing can be significantly enhanced by the careful use of well-designed tables and figures of various kinds. By catching the eye and presenting complex information in…
Perfecting Sentence Structure in Your Thesis or Dissertation
Perfecting Sentence Structure in Your Thesis or Dissertation The process of writing a thesis or dissertation in the English language tends to place new demands on the textual skills of most students, particularly those students whose first language is not…
Taking Critical Notes when Reading and Thinking about Sources for Your Thesis or Dissertation
Taking Critical Notes when Reading and Thinking about Sources for Your Thesis or Dissertation When working on your thesis or dissertation, you will no doubt be consulting scholarly sources such as previous trials and experiments, primary documents and theoretical studies…
Does Good Grammar Really Matter in a Thesis or Dissertation?
Does Good Grammar Really Matter in a Thesis or Dissertation? The short answer to that question is a resounding yes, good grammar matters a great deal, despite the fact that the validity of fussing over correct grammar seems to have…
PhD Theses or Dissertations: Footnotes-Notes for Documentation
PhD Theses or Dissertations: Footnotes-Notes for Documentation | Tips on How to Write a Thesis or Dissertation Providing references via footnotes or endnotes is a very different style of documentation than the author–date and numerical referencing systems. The use of…
Beginning Sentences Correctly and Effectively in Your Thesis or Dissertation
Beginning Sentences Correctly and Effectively in Your Thesis or Dissertation Each sentence of the scholarly English prose you write for your thesis or dissertation should start in ways that are precise and complete, and certain elements of writing should never…
Exploiting the Power of Keywords in your PhD Thesis or Dissertation
Exploiting the Power of Keywords in your PhD Thesis or Dissertation Although a tiny and, in the history of doctoral studies, relatively recent aspect of a PhD dissertation, keywords (also called ‘key words’ or ‘key terms’) pack a very large…
The Importance of Writing with Precision in a Thesis or Dissertation
The Importance of Writing with Precision in a Thesis or Dissertation As a postgraduate student working on a thesis or dissertation, you no doubt enjoy the benefits of a primary mentor or supervisor who is an expert in your area…
Maintaining the Flow of Text while Writing a Thesis or Dissertation
Maintaining the Flow of Text while Writing a Thesis or Dissertation Life is full of distractions, and they seem to multiply in both number and kind when a student sits down to write a thesis or dissertation. The type of…
Reporting the Facts of Your Findings in a Thesis or Dissertation
Reporting the Facts of Your Findings in a Thesis or Dissertation There is no doubt that the ways in which to present and organise a report of research results in a thesis or dissertation vary widely. The nature of an…
Using Three Grammatical Structures Agreeably in a Thesis or Dissertation
Using Three Grammatical Structures Agreeably in a Thesis or Dissertation If you are not a native speaker of English, but are writing a thesis or dissertation in the language, you may find yourself struggling at times to establish agreement between…
How To Choose the Right Proofreader for Your Thesis or Dissertation
How To Choose the Right Proofreader for Your Thesis or Dissertation Completing the research and writing required for a thesis or dissertation is an enormous undertaking. Whether it is considered in terms of time, effort or tuition, the investment of…
Punctuating Sentences as Lists in Theses and Dissertations
Punctuating Sentences as Lists in Theses and Dissertations Lists are extremely effective tools for students who are writing a thesis or dissertation. A list can present a great deal of complicated material in a concise format that is especially clear…
Structure and Order for Reporting Results in Your Thesis or Dissertation
Structure and Order for Reporting Results in Your Thesis or Dissertation The task of reporting the results of advanced research in a thesis or dissertation can be enormously challenging. In most cases, the student designing the section or chapter dedicated…
Forming the Future Tenses of English Verbs for Theses and Dissertations
Forming the Future Tenses of English Verbs for Theses and Dissertations Many thesis and dissertation candidates, especially those whose native language is not English, find the conjugation of English verbs somewhat tricky. For this reason, I have written a few…
English Verbs and Their Present Tenses in Theses and Dissertations
English Verbs and Their Present Tenses in Theses and Dissertations Increasing numbers of students who are writing a thesis or dissertation in the English language are not native speakers of that language. Although they may possess excellent writing skills in…
The Importance of Proofreading Your Thesis or Dissertation
The Importance of Proofreading Your Thesis or Dissertation Writing a thesis or dissertation is for most postgraduate students the first instance in which they are required to produce a long academic or scientific document. The content of theses and dissertations…
The Value of a Working Table of Contents for Your Thesis or Dissertation
The Value of a Working Table of Contents for Your Thesis or Dissertation Although every student working on a thesis or dissertation begins the project with the best of intentions and an ideal outline in mind, it often proves difficult…