This presentation is to solely guide the students who are dealing with the academic paper writing like dissertation and thesis. Usually there are some misunderstandings that lead a student towards losing their grades and in order to prevent this from happening, these useful tips can be taken in to consideration and if really effective, then can be implemented. http://www.papermoz.co.uk/dissertations/dissertation-writing/

1. Dissertation Writing:
Practical and Psychological

2. Dissertation Writing
Practical
• How to Think
about the Thesis
• How to Structure
the Thesis
• How to Plan
the Thesis
Psychological
• What it feels like
• Why is it so hard?
• What you can do
about it

3. Dissertation Writing
Practical
• How to Think
about the Thesis
• How to Structure
the Thesis
• How to Plan
the Thesis
Psychological
• What it feels like
• Why is it so hard?
• What you can do
about it

4. How to think about the Thesis
• Thesis
– What defensible claim are you making?
• Motive
– Why study this problem, what lacks in state-of-the art?
• Evidence
– The chain of arguments that defends your claim
– (some may be constructive)
• Two examples
– Po-Ling Kuo (bioeng), Werfel (comp sci)
• Reading: Elements of the Academic Essay

5. How to Structure the Thesis
• Introduction:
– It’s the hardest part to write,
and you need to write it first!!
(can change the whole tone of thesis)
• Table of Contents
– Titles should tell a story
• Chapters
– Chain of evidence
(don’t forget the links!)
– Don’t write them first, until you
are happy with intro/toc
Structure: One nice structure
is like a “mini-dissertation”:
motive, thesis, evidences,
illustrative example,
related work, thesis outline.
Bad style:
“I did X, I did Y, I did Z, .....”

6. Common Misconceptions
• I’ll write the introduction last
• It’ll be easy to write; I just slap my papers together
• I can give everyone the draft 1 month before the date.
(And it’ll take me just 1 month to write)
• Everything I did in 5 years must go into my thesis
• Nobody will ever read the thesis

7. How to Plan the Thesis
Thesis Defense Date
• - 1 month:
– Complete draft to all committee members;
good idea to meet with them individually
• - 1 month:
– Complete draft to advisor
• - 1 month:
– Incomplete draft to advisor
(complete introduction, most of other chapters)
• - 1 month:
– First version introduction and table of contents to advisor
• - 1 month:
– Start writing the intro and table-of-contents
Take-home Message: The deadlines are not just for you, but also for your advisor/committee

8. Dissertation Writing
Practical
• How to Think
about the Thesis
• How to Structure
the Thesis
• How to Plan
the Thesis
Psychological
• What it feels like
• Why is it so hard?
• What you can do
about it

9. Sources
•
•
•
http://www.papermoz.co.uk/dissertations/dissertation-writing/
http://www.cmu.edu/stugov/gsa/resources/dissertationgroups/
http://www.lsa.umich.edu/sweetland/graduate/dissertationwriting
groups

10. Sources
•
•
•
http://www.papermoz.co.uk/dissertations/dissertation-writing/
http://www.cmu.edu/stugov/gsa/resources/dissertationgroups/
http://www.lsa.umich.edu/sweetland/graduate/dissertationwriting
groups