Thesis Writing Workshop
Lynne Pearce
Lancaster Univeristy
Today’s session
• Welcome + Introductions
• SESSION ONE: Types of Writing
- Presentation
- Exercise One: Obstacles to Writing
• SESSION TWO: Case Study: Vicky’s Story
- Read case study
- Exercise Two: group discussion + feedback
• SESSION THREE: Audiences
- Exercise Three: group discussion + feedback
- Exercise Four: group work with writing samples
+ feedback
Types of Writing
‘For every research task, there’s a writing task’
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Phases of Writing
Diaries,notebooks, backs of envelopes
‘Free-writing’
Note-taking
Literature reviews
Frameworks
Proposals / abstracts
‘pilot’ essays / chapters
‘Provisional’ chapters
Draft chapters
Edited chapters
Final drafts of chapters
Introductions and Conclusions
Synopsis / Abstract
Types of Writing
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Routines for Writing
Writing to supervisory deadlines
‘Incremental’ writing (small sprints of writing
that accumulate)
‘Binge writing’
‘Accretive’ writing (reading through /
correcting as you go)
‘Slot’ writing
Types of Writing
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Modes of Writing
Peripatetic writing (e.g. In cafes)
Note-taking (in libraries etc)
Diagram-making
Computer-assisted writing utilizing downloads
and cut and paste
Long-hand first drafts
Writing straight onto the computer from brief
notes
‘Free-Writing’
• Devised and developed by academic-writing gurus like Peter Elbow
in the US in the 1980s;
• A widely-recognised technique used to address the various
manifestations of ‘writer’s block’.
How to do Free-Writing:
Write continuously for a short, fixed period of time (e.g., 7 minutes).
Write non-stop, without editing; don’t worry about grammar,
punctuation or spelling but DO write in sentences; write without
any audience (i.e., do not show this writing to anyone); try writing
without a purpose, without a focus, allowing yourself to move from
one topic to another when you want; structure is not important so
you do not need to bring this writing to a conclusion at the end of 7
minutes. (Rowena Murray, University of Strathclyde)
Free-Writing Exercise
• In workshop situations, it’s sometimes useful
to practice free-writing in response to a
prompt;
• Have a go at some free-writing now in
response to the following opening sentence:
‘The biggest obstacle I am facing in my writing
right now is . . .’
WRITE FOR SEVEN MINUTES, FREELY, BUT IN
SENTENCES IN RESPONSE TO THIS PROMPT.
Obstacles to Academic Writing
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Need for ‘quality’ time to write
Laziness
Not knowing one’s audience
Confidence
Getting started (‘the blank page’)
Not feeling one knows enough yet
External / personal pressures and distractions
Fear of the supervisor /reader
The size / scope of the project
Not having done enough ‘research’ yet
Not having a writing routine
The absence of ‘hard’ deadlines
Teaching commitments
NOT HAVING A CLEAR RESEARCH QUESTION / HYPOTHESIS??
Solutions
• Keeping a notebook
• Practising different types of writing – e.g free-writing
• Learning to hand in ‘unfinished’ pieces of work to your supervisor (ie. ‘not
trying to get it right first time’ – Peter Elbow, Writing with Power (1988))
• Make good use of ‘hard’ deadlines!
• Learn to start writing even when the topic is imperfectly grasped
• Use writing to EXPLORE the problem / obstacle rather than solve it
immediately
• Think of writing as a RESEARCH TOOL (not just the communication of
completed ideas)
• Think upon writing as SKILL and a life-long process
• Experiment with style / voice / address
• Experiment with ‘free-writing’
• Establish effective ROUTINES for writing
• DEVISE A WORKING RESEARCH QUESTION/ HYPOTHESIS EARLY ON!
The ‘research question’ or ‘hypothesis’
• What is a hypothesis?
• A hypothesis is a speculative type of question designed to test out
an idea.
• Dictionary definition: ‘A supposition made as basis for reasoning,
without assumption of its truth’.
• ‘A starting point for investigation’
• --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------• We need a hypothesis in order to focus our work – so that we can
say not only what it on, but what it is about.
• We need a hypothesis or preliminary research question before we
begin our secondary reading – otherwise every bit of every book in
our chosen field might seem relevant!
• We need a hypothesis in order to engage with our chosen texts
actively – without a question or hypothesis it is quite possible to
read a text and forget everything about it afterwards.
SESSION TWO: Vicky’s Story
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Introduce
Read Story
Answer questions
Group discussion + feedback
‘Answers’ (see handout)
Vicky’s Story: ‘Answers’
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What could Vicky have done?
Stopped teaching sooner
Sought more explicit / immediate help from her supervisor
Been more honest with herself about the extent to which she was
struggling
Been prepared to listen to her supervisor’s suggestions on how to
shape her thesis / argument
Been less ambitious with her project
Taken fewer notes
Thought about her project in terms of an ‘argument’ rather than a
chapter plan / framework
Nothing . . . [i.e., the experience she went through was, in fact, an
unavoidable part of her apprenticeship].
Vicky’s Story: Answers
• Arranged for Vicky to come off teaching as soon as s/he saw how stressed
it was making her
• Been rather less impressed by the quality of the writing / analysis and
pushed Vicky more on questions and frameworks
• Made her stop and re-think after her second draft chapter rather than
hoping that the solution would solve itself through more writing
• Seen sooner that a chapter plan wasn’t a substitute for an argument
/thesis
• Intervened more with suggestions of how Vicky could develop her
argument
• Intervened less with suggestions of how Vicky could develop her argument
• Been more directive, less sympathetic
• Been more experienced (i.e. had seen this before!)
• Nothing? This is Vicky’s PhD, her apprenticeship, and sometimes it’s
simply necessary to learn things the hard way.
SESSION THREE: Audiences
EXERCISE THREE:
• How many different ‘readers’ or ‘audiences’
are typically addressed in a PhD?
• What types of ‘address’ does each audience
require?
• How can we negotiate multiple readers /
audiences when writing our PhDs?
Audiences: ‘Answers’
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Your supervisor
Your PhD Examiners
Specialists in your field (‘the wider academic community’)
Potential publishers
Student readers
Non-specialists (‘the general reader’)
Other PhD students
Sympathetic readers
Hostile readers (e.g., potential reviewers, critics)
‘Ideal’ readers (i.e., those who both know the field and are
sympathetic
• Competitors (e.g., other academics working in the field)
Audiences
EXERCISE FOUR:
Read through the sample extracts from x3 PhDs
quickly, focusing not on the content as such but the
way in which the authors have positioned themselves
in relation to their audiences;
- Who is the text addressing?
- What is the power dynamic between author and the
audience(s)?
- What is the power dynamic between the author and
her primary / secondary sources?
DISCUSS IN YOUR GROUPS WHEN READY
Audiences: ‘Answers’
• Mike Greaney
• Remarkably confident and assured for a PhD student
• Appears to be writing for his peers / experts in the field rather than either
his supervisor or his examiners
• Not obviously a piece of student writing or a PhD
• Elegant but quite colloquial writing style: reads easily.
• Dismisses other critics / commentators with remarkable confidence.
• Possibly over-confident / casual in the way in which others are dismissed
(e.g. Ian Watt!)
• Stylistic cues signal confidence – e.g., use of word ‘clearly’ to enforce
argument / point of view
• No obvious tension between different audiences
• No visible pandering to examiners
Audiences: ‘Answers’
Sally Bushell
• A rather more ‘defensive’ piece of writing (though this
is the ‘Introduction’ rather than the conclusion).
• The examiners are very present in Bushell’s extract (as
are other experts in the field)
• The discussion focuses on all the things the PhD isn’t
going to do – presumably to pre-empt criticism / attack
• The tone is nevertheless confident and authoritative
Audiences: ‘Answers’
• Linguistics PhD # 1
• The extract reveals the student to be defensive – perhaps
even apologetic? – about all that his / her thesis hasn’t
done
• The extract has far less visible confidence / authority than
the Bushell and Greaney extracts
• The text engages with experts in the field, but rather more
in the sense of a literature review; there is less sense of the
author taking her place amongst them as an equal, even
though s/he identifies the contribution the thesis has made
• The reference to future research could, in this case, be read
as a sign of lack of confidence in the present thesis
Final Words
• There is evidently no single, ‘correct’ way of writing a PhD thesis or
developing your skills
• Some floundering and ‘wrong directions’ are an unavoidable feature of
research – and true learning
• Evidence nevertheless suggests that as long as you keep writing –regularly
– your skills and confidence (empowerment) will improve
• Learn to make the most of the different types of writing associated with
PhD research (notes, literature review, diaries as well as chapters)
• Learn to share your work with supervisors and friends in an ‘unfinished’
state
• Identify some friends / colleagues as ‘sympathetic readers’ with whom
you can share your work before you show it to your supervisor (you might
even form a thesis writing group)
• Remember that writing is a ‘means’ and well as an ‘end’: think of it as a
tool to help you conduct your research as well as the means of presenting
it to your examiners – and the world!