Getting Started
Remember a few things:
1. The key to most successful theses is in writing down your hypothesis: What question do you want to answer?
2. Make it very specific and focused. The worst question: What is the purpose of Life? (I actually tried to anwer that! If you are interested: click here.) A better question for a thesis would be: What is the differentiated value in Kevin Rose’s business model for new age, e-newspaper, www.digg.com? (I tried to answer this one too; if you are interested, see pp. 1, 4 and 5 of this University of Ottawa Speech I gave at the School of Management’s 2006 Homecoming. The full transcript of the speech is also available ).
3. Once you know the question, lay out how you are going to answer the hypothesis in terms of: a) readings and research you need to do, b) data collection required, c) methodology needed for any experiments you want to run or analysis you need to do.
4. This is basically the scientific method applied to thesis writing.
My thesis supervisor (Professor Max Neutze) scared the heck out of me. He was brilliant and very demanding. A few days after I got to the ANU (Australian National University) to begin work as a Research Scholar and PhD student, he called me into his office. He asked me what I thought of my recently completed Masters thesis. I was quite proud of it—it was a novel application of dynamic, mixed integer programming models to a large problem of optimization of waste disposal origins and destinations in Sydney. The condition of waste disposal (both liquid and solid) in Sydney at the time (circa the mid 1970s) was abominable with gangsters spilling toxic liquid wastes in deserted canyons at night and over 40 tips (landfill sites) polluting the city everywhere.
We solved the optimization problem and shut down the worst sites. I thought the thesis was marvelous. Max told me: “So, if you write your PhD like you did your Masters, you will not be successful here…”
For the next year, whenever I saw Max coming down a hallway, I found a reason to duck into a classroom or turn around and find something else to occupy myself with.
The next time Max spoke to me he said: “Bruce, remember this—the first million words are the toughest.” What he meant by that was that writing is like anything else—the more you practice, the better you get and it’s true.
When I finished the first draft of my PhD, Max edited every word, all 450 pages of it. He was a master writer and he made me a much better writer. After I successfully completed my PhD, I looked back at my Masters Thesis and, you know what, Max was right.
Professor Neutze has passed away now but I owe him a debt of gratitude. I adore writing and would do much more if I didn’t have to spend 90% of my time earning a living…
Finishing
Another piece of advice about thesis writing—set up your chapter list and then plow through the whole thing. Don’t edit anything. Don’t try to write the perfect introduction or the perfect paragraph. Just keep on writing, no matter how crappy the stuff is. It will get better and when you are done the whole enchilada, you can go back and work on the rough parts.
To write a really good thesis, you need to focus. You can’t write it an hour here and an hour there. It will probably be pretty choppy and you will, in all likelihood, miss out on the incredible creative impulses that flow from a near total focus on your thesis.
After three years of research, I essentially wrote my PhD thesis in eight weeks—I lived alone away from my family during that time. I got up at 6:00 am, seven days a week, ate breakfast and was in the office by 7:15 am. I worked with only two tea beaks until 9:00 pm. In Canberra, circa the early 1980s, there was no place to eat at 9 pm. The city was like the Twilight Zone, completely deserted. But there was one French fry truck and every night I stopped there and ordered the same thing—a real Aussie burger: bun, meat patty, beet root, egg, bacon, lettuce and tomato. I took to my lonely apartment, wolfed it down, slept for eight hours and went back at it again. By the third week, I was in a special place—totally zoned in on the work and, as a result, the thesis turned out alright.
Discovery
Alcohol and drugs don’t make you more creative. Fresh air, exercise and enough sleep along with a vast focus on your topic do.
Lastly, be prepared to change direction as serendipitous things happen on the way to the end of the thesis. Remember some of the greatest work (e.g., the discovery of penicillin) came about because of unexpected events. Be open to new possibilities.
Dr. Bruce M. Firestone, B.Eng.(Civil), M.Eng.-Sci., PhD.