60 ■ HOW TO GET A PhD

inevitably spend most of your time on the summary. You will know the details of your work very well by this time, and the ‘summary’ could easily stretch into large amounts of repetition. Then, when you have written most of a chapter, just a short ending does not seem so bad. DSP has examined theses where, after an overlong summary, only on the final page was a conclusion attempted - in one case only in the final paragraph was this ventured. Of course this is inadequate, and such submissions are referred back for the necessary further work to be done.

It is important then to be clear that the summary and the conclusions are separate tasks, and that more effort needs to go into the conclusions than the summary. Then you must have a concept of what purpose the conclusion performs: namely, to demonstrate how the background theory and the focal theory are now different as a result of the study.

■ Detailed structure and choice of chapter headings

You may hear people telling you about the ‘ideal’ length of a thesis. Pay no attention. A thesis should be no longer than it needs to be in order to report what you have done, why you did it and what you have concluded from the results of your work. Don’t be impressed by theses that run to two volumes: it is often (correctly) said that a lot is written in order to obscure the fact that little has been achieved. In fact you might adopt the maxim that if you can say it briefly you should do so; but not if this means using lots of long words and complex sentence structures.

As we saw above, a thesis must contain the four elements of the PhD form. Just how they are presented can vary. A possible example, commonly used, would be:

□ introduction (including aims);

□ literature survey (background theory as a review of the relevant literature);

□ method (data theory including a description of what has been done);

□ results (focal theory including what was found);

□ discussion (development of focal theory and suggestions for future work);

□ conclusions (summary and contribution).

These general sections can be further subdivided into relevant chapters, depending on your discipline and topic. In addition to the main sections your thesis will require, at the beginning, an abstract that summarizes the work in order to make the job of the examiners easier. There should also be a clear statement of the problem under exploration. Once they know what to expect, the examiners have a frame of reference for reading the thesis. At the end you should have a detailed list of references and any appendices



	60 ■ HOW TO GET A PhD inevitably spend most of your time on the summary. You will know the details of your work very well by this time, and the ‘summary’ could easily stretch into large amounts of repetition. Then, when you have written most of a chapter, just a short ending does not seem so bad. DSP has examined theses where, after an overlong summary, only on the final page was a conclusion attempted - in one case only in the final paragraph was this ventured. Of course this is inadequate, and such submissions are referred back for the necessary further work to be done. It is important then to be clear that the summary and the conclusions are separate tasks, and that more effort needs to go into the conclusions than the summary. Then you must have a concept of what purpose the conclusion performs: namely, to demonstrate how the background theory and the focal theory are now different as a result of the study. ■ Detailed structure and choice of chapter headings You may hear people telling you about the ‘ideal’ length of a thesis. Pay no attention. A thesis should be no longer than it needs to be in order to report what you have done, why you did it and what you have concluded from the results of your work. Don’t be impressed by theses that run to two volumes: it is often (correctly) said that a lot is written in order to obscure the fact that little has been achieved. In fact you might adopt the maxim that if you can say it briefly you should do so; but not if this means using lots of long words and complex sentence structures. As we saw above, a thesis must contain the four elements of the PhD form. Just how they are presented can vary. A possible example, commonly used, would be: □ introduction (including aims); □ literature survey (background theory as a review of the relevant literature); □ method (data theory including a description of what has been done); □ results (focal theory including what was found); □ discussion (development of focal theory and suggestions for future work); □ conclusions (summary and contribution). These general sections can be further subdivided into relevant chapters, depending on your discipline and topic. In addition to the main sections your thesis will require, at the beginning, an abstract that summarizes the work in order to make the job of the examiners easier. There should also be a clear statement of the problem under exploration. Once they know what to expect, the examiners have a frame of reference for reading the thesis. At the end you should have a detailed list of references and any appendices