FOR YOUR DPhil

Ed Steinmueller
28 May 2008
Plan of the Talk

I. Reading
1. Finding, Filtering, Digesting, Relating
2. Authority and Structure
3. Mechanics

II. Writing
4. Why is writing difficult?
5. Before Your Write
6. Two Approaches – Building Up and Down
7. Habits and Style
8. Motivating Your Text
9. Editing
10. Seeking and Using Feedback
11. Revising Structure and Integrating Dissertation
1. Finding, Filtering, Digesting, Relating Reading

Finding
The vocabulary of your subject
Key authors who you identify with
Key authors that others will think are relevant

Filtering
Identifying what is ‘relevant’
Making conceptual maps – centre and periphery, links and
relations

Digesting
What are the assumptions needed
What are the key steps in argument
What drives the conclusion

Relating
What would X think about Y – X, Y people and ideas
What are the departure points for different paths of argument
What are the lines of development – following up and
downstream
2. Authority and Structure Reading

Examiners look at the literature that you cite as a signal or

indicator of your grasp of your field of study – WHO ARE THE
AUTHORITIES?

This means that you need a clear idea of who is identified

with a particular idea
Published writers are often idiosyncratic – sometimes in a
useful way and mostly not – hence many authors not
authoritative

Structuring your reading means actively working to address

the issue of relationships

This is a particularly useful area to engage with others – e.g.

Is there any relation between x and y?
Is x part of the y literature or discipline?
When you arrive at the point where a new article or author
seems clearly to be variant or special case of other
reading you are getting to diminishing returns and it is
time to stop
3. Mechanics Reading

Taking notes is good – everyone does it differently!

Note taking habits you may have learned related to

regurgitation are not very useful at the DPhil level – the aim is
to capture the assumption, structure of argument, and what
drives the conclusion
Details and facts matter but are usually secondary

A DPhil involve managing a large bibliography that eventually

becomes your references
EndNote or Zetoc are key resources
Page references are vitally important
Citations that you intend to follow should be copied in
full

For most people paper has better random access properties

than computer files – unless you have a very clear plan of
organisation for compiling information on screen work in
paper – it is also safer – more hard disks break than
notebooks vanish
4. Why is writing difficult? Writing

There's nothing to writing. All you do

is sit down at a typewriter and open a
vein. American sports journalist --
Walter Wellesley "Red" Smith (1905 – 1982)

1. Fear of judgement

2. Unclear vision of audience – Who are you talking to?

3. You don’t yet know what you want to say

4. Your can’t stay on the rails or get lost in the forest

5. You can’t get started

6. You don’t know when to stop

Robert Graves, The Reader Over Your Shoulder, London, MacMillan, 1944

Howard S. Becker, Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your
Thesis, Book, or Article: Second Edition (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and
Publishing), University of Chicago Press, 2nd Edition, 2007.
5. Before Your Write Writing

Writing and thinking are intimately connected

It is very difficult to write if your thoughts are
unsettled or confused
It is often very difficult to clarify your thoughts
without trying to express them

What people use to break this cycle is very personal.

Nonetheless, you cannot ‘will’ even a draft text into

being without some idea of what you are trying to say.

The proper ‘voice’ to choose is probably explanatory.

Many academic pieces seem to be written as
lectures – slightly more formal and dry, and not
necessarily to their benefit.
One can always edit to that style.

No interruptions and avoid getting distracted!

6. Two Approaches – Building Up and Down Writing

Building Up

• Start by explaining your reading

• Then explain what is missing/wrong/needing extension
• Then explain what you want to add and how you will
gather the evidence for making this addition
• Then what your evidence shows, what could be
alternative interpretations of your evidence and what
conclusions the reader should draw

Building Down

• Start with the above elements as an outline

• Elaborate the outline (but not too much)
• Explain the outline – what each elements says and how it
is related to those elements the preceded and follow it

In both cases, it sometimes helps to frame what you are

saying in terms of a question and relate your answer to
this question with the framing of the next question
7. Habits and Style Writing

Writing something every ‘working day’ is good.

Some days will be better than others -- routine helps
Decide explicitly that you will have non-working days and
don’t work on them

Writing without stopping to chase bunny trails is good if you

can do it
Flag up the bits you want to check or pursue further with a
note in brackets [ ] which makes it easy to find with a
search

As Einstein said --
“It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the
irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to
surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.”

• You will have to give up some ‘datum of experience’ and this

is often the hardest task you have to undertake.
• Focus on the make the elements simple bit.
8. Motivating Your Text Writing

The single most important message about writing a

dissertation
EXPLAIN WHY WE ARE HERE

Your reader is your silent companion on a journey

You have to tell them your intentions – where you are going,
how you are going to get there, and why every part of what
you are doing advances the journey.

It won’t do to run off the road and into the woods – your
companion will be annoyed or frightened

You want to keep your companion along, so you don’t want to

bore them with details that they don’t need to know – but you
do want them to be comfortable that you have, in fact, planned
well, and are carrying out this plan as you have explained

Ultimately this influences what you write down to the level of

the paragraph
9. Editing Writing

My average number of re-writes is 6 and 9 is not unusual. I am

not atypical.

Editing is how we interrogate our own writing:

How do I know this?
Does this follow or is something missing?
Am I maintaining the pace, is my reader awake?

Editing is how we find ways to state sentences more directly

Editing is where we pay most attention to the details

What is the page number for this direct quote?
Have I really used that word three times in one sentence?
Does this word really mean what I think it does?

Let it rest! Editing shortly after writing may help clarify the
argument but some aging (10-14 days) is needed for a fresh look
and a final edit

Copy-editing and content editing are two different things. Don’t

expect a focus on content to produce a copy-edited text.
10. Seeking and Using Feedback Writing

Supervisors differ in their degree of engagement with the

text
Some will intervene heavily – others will focus only on
key issues or questions
Even if you write well, you need someone to look
closely at a significant block of your text in detail

Questioning the feedback you get is important – the less

the feedback the more questions you should ask (within
reason)
a) To make sure there was a careful reading
b) To test your understanding
c) To try on other ways you could proceed

Keeping a detailed record of the feedback and transferring

it to ‘to do’ lists is essential

Finding a peer who is willing to trade careful reading can be

very helpful
11. Revising Structure and Integrating Dissertation

The entire thesis and every part within it has

An introduction setting the plan
A body implementing the plan
A conclusion that follows from the body and
recapitulates the plan

To keep this all from being tedious you need to have overlap
but not ‘cut and paste’

Every part of the thesis is motivated both internally and with

respect to what precedes and what follows

When you get to the first draft of the thesis you need a paper
copy to help keep track of revisions and to make more
tangible the weight and balance of different chapter and
sections

Work towards ‘closure’ meaning. A ‘-2’ draft of chapters and

a penultimate draft of the entire dissertation