thesis in the book

• Literary Terms
• Definition & Examples
• When & How to Write a Thesis

I. What is a Thesis?

The thesis (pronounced thee -seez), also known as a thesis statement, is the sentence that introduces the main argument or point of view of a composition (formal essay, nonfiction piece, or narrative). It is the main claim that the author is making about that topic and serves to summarize and introduce that writing that will be discussed throughout the entire piece. For this reason, the thesis is typically found within the first introduction paragraph.

II. Examples of Theses

Here are a few examples of theses which may be found in the introductions of a variety of essays :

In “The Mending Wall,” Robert Frost uses imagery, metaphor, and dialogue to argue against the use of fences between neighbors.

In this example, the thesis introduces the main subject (Frost’s poem “The Mending Wall”), aspects of the subject which will be examined (imagery, metaphor, and dialogue) and the writer’s argument (fences should not be used).

While Facebook connects some, overall, the social networking site is negative in that it isolates users, causes jealousy, and becomes an addiction.

This thesis introduces an argumentative essay which argues against the use of Facebook due to three of its negative effects.

During the college application process, I discovered my willingness to work hard to achieve my dreams and just what those dreams were.

In this more personal example, the thesis statement introduces a narrative essay which will focus on personal development in realizing one’s goals and how to achieve them.

III. The Importance of Using a Thesis

Theses are absolutely necessary components in essays because they introduce what an essay will be about. Without a thesis, the essay lacks clear organization and direction. Theses allow writers to organize their ideas by clearly stating them, and they allow readers to be aware from the beginning of a composition’s subject, argument, and course. Thesis statements must precisely express an argument within the introductory paragraph of the piece in order to guide the reader from the very beginning.

IV. Examples of Theses in Literature

For examples of theses in literature, consider these thesis statements from essays about topics in literature:

In William Shakespeare’s “ Sonnet 46,” both physicality and emotion together form powerful romantic love.

This thesis statement clearly states the work and its author as well as the main argument: physicality and emotion create romantic love.

In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne symbolically shows Hester Prynne’s developing identity through the use of the letter A: she moves from adulteress to able community member to angel.

In this example, the work and author are introduced as well as the main argument and supporting points: Prynne’s identity is shown through the letter A in three ways: adulteress, able community member, and angel.

John Keats’ poem “To Autumn” utilizes rhythm, rhyme, and imagery to examine autumn’s simultaneous birth and decay.

This thesis statement introduces the poem and its author along with an argument about the nature of autumn. This argument will be supported by an examination of rhythm, rhyme, and imagery.

V. Examples of Theses in Pop Culture

Sometimes, pop culture attempts to make arguments similar to those of research papers and essays. Here are a few examples of theses in pop culture:

America’s food industry is making a killing and it’s making us sick, but you have the power to turn the tables.

The documentary Food Inc. examines this thesis with evidence throughout the film including video evidence, interviews with experts, and scientific research.

Orca whales should not be kept in captivity, as it is psychologically traumatizing and has caused them to kill their own trainers.

Blackfish uses footage, interviews, and history to argue for the thesis that orca whales should not be held in captivity.

VI. Related Terms

Just as a thesis is introduced in the beginning of a composition, the hypothesis is considered a starting point as well. Whereas a thesis introduces the main point of an essay, the hypothesis introduces a proposed explanation which is being investigated through scientific or mathematical research. Thesis statements present arguments based on evidence which is presented throughout the paper, whereas hypotheses are being tested by scientists and mathematicians who may disprove or prove them through experimentation. Here is an example of a hypothesis versus a thesis:

Hypothesis:

Students skip school more often as summer vacation approaches.

This hypothesis could be tested by examining attendance records and interviewing students. It may or may not be true.

Students skip school due to sickness, boredom with classes, and the urge to rebel.

This thesis presents an argument which will be examined and supported in the paper with detailed evidence and research.

Introduction

A paper’s introduction is its first paragraph which is used to introduce the paper’s main aim and points used to support that aim throughout the paper. The thesis statement is the most important part of the introduction which states all of this information in one concise statement. Typically, introduction paragraphs require a thesis statement which ties together the entire introduction and introduces the rest of the paper.

VII. Conclusion

Theses are necessary components of well-organized and convincing essays, nonfiction pieces, narratives , and documentaries. They allow writers to organize and support arguments to be developed throughout a composition, and they allow readers to understand from the beginning what the aim of the composition is.

List of Terms

• Alliteration
• Amplification
• Anachronism
• Anthropomorphism
• Antonomasia
• APA Citation
• Aposiopesis
• Autobiography
• Bildungsroman
• Characterization
• Circumlocution
• Cliffhanger
• Comic Relief
• Connotation
• Deus ex machina
• Deuteragonist
• Doppelganger
• Double Entendre
• Dramatic irony
• Equivocation
• Extended Metaphor
• Figures of Speech
• Flash-forward
• Foreshadowing
• Intertextuality
• Juxtaposition
• Literary Device
• Malapropism
• Onomatopoeia
• Parallelism
• Pathetic Fallacy
• Personification
• Point of View
• Polysyndeton
• Protagonist
• Red Herring
• Rhetorical Device
• Rhetorical Question
• Science Fiction
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
• Synesthesia
• Turning Point
• Understatement
• Urban Legend
• Verisimilitude
• Essay Guide
• Cite This Website

Thesis Statements

What this handout is about.

This handout describes what a thesis statement is, how thesis statements work in your writing, and how you can craft or refine one for your draft.

Introduction

Writing in college often takes the form of persuasion—convincing others that you have an interesting, logical point of view on the subject you are studying. Persuasion is a skill you practice regularly in your daily life. You persuade your roommate to clean up, your parents to let you borrow the car, your friend to vote for your favorite candidate or policy. In college, course assignments often ask you to make a persuasive case in writing. You are asked to convince your reader of your point of view. This form of persuasion, often called academic argument, follows a predictable pattern in writing. After a brief introduction of your topic, you state your point of view on the topic directly and often in one sentence. This sentence is the thesis statement, and it serves as a summary of the argument you’ll make in the rest of your paper.

What is a thesis statement?

A thesis statement:

• tells the reader how you will interpret the significance of the subject matter under discussion.
• is a road map for the paper; in other words, it tells the reader what to expect from the rest of the paper.
• directly answers the question asked of you. A thesis is an interpretation of a question or subject, not the subject itself. The subject, or topic, of an essay might be World War II or Moby Dick; a thesis must then offer a way to understand the war or the novel.
• makes a claim that others might dispute.
• is usually a single sentence near the beginning of your paper (most often, at the end of the first paragraph) that presents your argument to the reader. The rest of the paper, the body of the essay, gathers and organizes evidence that will persuade the reader of the logic of your interpretation.

If your assignment asks you to take a position or develop a claim about a subject, you may need to convey that position or claim in a thesis statement near the beginning of your draft. The assignment may not explicitly state that you need a thesis statement because your instructor may assume you will include one. When in doubt, ask your instructor if the assignment requires a thesis statement. When an assignment asks you to analyze, to interpret, to compare and contrast, to demonstrate cause and effect, or to take a stand on an issue, it is likely that you are being asked to develop a thesis and to support it persuasively. (Check out our handout on understanding assignments for more information.)

How do I create a thesis?

A thesis is the result of a lengthy thinking process. Formulating a thesis is not the first thing you do after reading an essay assignment. Before you develop an argument on any topic, you have to collect and organize evidence, look for possible relationships between known facts (such as surprising contrasts or similarities), and think about the significance of these relationships. Once you do this thinking, you will probably have a “working thesis” that presents a basic or main idea and an argument that you think you can support with evidence. Both the argument and your thesis are likely to need adjustment along the way.

Writers use all kinds of techniques to stimulate their thinking and to help them clarify relationships or comprehend the broader significance of a topic and arrive at a thesis statement. For more ideas on how to get started, see our handout on brainstorming .

How do I know if my thesis is strong?

If there’s time, run it by your instructor or make an appointment at the Writing Center to get some feedback. Even if you do not have time to get advice elsewhere, you can do some thesis evaluation of your own. When reviewing your first draft and its working thesis, ask yourself the following :

• Do I answer the question? Re-reading the question prompt after constructing a working thesis can help you fix an argument that misses the focus of the question. If the prompt isn’t phrased as a question, try to rephrase it. For example, “Discuss the effect of X on Y” can be rephrased as “What is the effect of X on Y?”
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? If your thesis simply states facts that no one would, or even could, disagree with, it’s possible that you are simply providing a summary, rather than making an argument.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? Thesis statements that are too vague often do not have a strong argument. If your thesis contains words like “good” or “successful,” see if you could be more specific: why is something “good”; what specifically makes something “successful”?
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? If a reader’s first response is likely to  be “So what?” then you need to clarify, to forge a relationship, or to connect to a larger issue.
• Does my essay support my thesis specifically and without wandering? If your thesis and the body of your essay do not seem to go together, one of them has to change. It’s okay to change your working thesis to reflect things you have figured out in the course of writing your paper. Remember, always reassess and revise your writing as necessary.
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? If a reader’s first response is “how?” or “why?” your thesis may be too open-ended and lack guidance for the reader. See what you can add to give the reader a better take on your position right from the beginning.

Suppose you are taking a course on contemporary communication, and the instructor hands out the following essay assignment: “Discuss the impact of social media on public awareness.” Looking back at your notes, you might start with this working thesis:

Social media impacts public awareness in both positive and negative ways.

You can use the questions above to help you revise this general statement into a stronger thesis.

• Do I answer the question? You can analyze this if you rephrase “discuss the impact” as “what is the impact?” This way, you can see that you’ve answered the question only very generally with the vague “positive and negative ways.”
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? Not likely. Only people who maintain that social media has a solely positive or solely negative impact could disagree.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? No. What are the positive effects? What are the negative effects?
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? No. Why are they positive? How are they positive? What are their causes? Why are they negative? How are they negative? What are their causes?
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? No. Why should anyone care about the positive and/or negative impact of social media?

After thinking about your answers to these questions, you decide to focus on the one impact you feel strongly about and have strong evidence for:

Because not every voice on social media is reliable, people have become much more critical consumers of information, and thus, more informed voters.

This version is a much stronger thesis! It answers the question, takes a specific position that others can challenge, and it gives a sense of why it matters.

Let’s try another. Suppose your literature professor hands out the following assignment in a class on the American novel: Write an analysis of some aspect of Mark Twain’s novel Huckleberry Finn. “This will be easy,” you think. “I loved Huckleberry Finn!” You grab a pad of paper and write:

Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn is a great American novel.

You begin to analyze your thesis:

• Do I answer the question? No. The prompt asks you to analyze some aspect of the novel. Your working thesis is a statement of general appreciation for the entire novel.

Think about aspects of the novel that are important to its structure or meaning—for example, the role of storytelling, the contrasting scenes between the shore and the river, or the relationships between adults and children. Now you write:

In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain develops a contrast between life on the river and life on the shore.

• Do I answer the question? Yes!
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? Not really. This contrast is well-known and accepted.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? It’s getting there–you have highlighted an important aspect of the novel for investigation. However, it’s still not clear what your analysis will reveal.
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? Not yet. Compare scenes from the book and see what you discover. Free write, make lists, jot down Huck’s actions and reactions and anything else that seems interesting.
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? What’s the point of this contrast? What does it signify?”

After examining the evidence and considering your own insights, you write:

Through its contrasting river and shore scenes, Twain’s Huckleberry Finn suggests that to find the true expression of American democratic ideals, one must leave “civilized” society and go back to nature.

This final thesis statement presents an interpretation of a literary work based on an analysis of its content. Of course, for the essay itself to be successful, you must now present evidence from the novel that will convince the reader of your interpretation.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Anson, Chris M., and Robert A. Schwegler. 2010. The Longman Handbook for Writers and Readers , 6th ed. New York: Longman.

Lunsford, Andrea A. 2015. The St. Martin’s Handbook , 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Ramage, John D., John C. Bean, and June Johnson. 2018. The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing , 8th ed. New York: Pearson.

Ruszkiewicz, John J., Christy Friend, Daniel Seward, and Maxine Hairston. 2010. The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers , 9th ed. Boston: Pearson Education.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Developing a Thesis

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Once you've read the story or novel closely, look back over your notes for patterns of questions or ideas that interest you. Have most of your questions been about the characters, how they develop or change?

For example: If you are reading Conrad's The Secret Agent , do you seem to be most interested in what the author has to say about society? Choose a pattern of ideas and express it in the form of a question and an answer such as the following: Question: What does Conrad seem to be suggesting about early twentieth-century London society in his novel The Secret Agent ? Answer: Conrad suggests that all classes of society are corrupt. Pitfalls: Choosing too many ideas. Choosing an idea without any support.

Once you have some general points to focus on, write your possible ideas and answer the questions that they suggest.

For example: Question: How does Conrad develop the idea that all classes of society are corrupt? Answer: He uses images of beasts and cannibalism whether he's describing socialites, policemen or secret agents.

To write your thesis statement, all you have to do is turn the question and answer around. You've already given the answer, now just put it in a sentence (or a couple of sentences) so that the thesis of your paper is clear.

For example: In his novel, The Secret Agent , Conrad uses beast and cannibal imagery to describe the characters and their relationships to each other. This pattern of images suggests that Conrad saw corruption in every level of early twentieth-century London society.

Now that you're familiar with the story or novel and have developed a thesis statement, you're ready to choose the evidence you'll use to support your thesis. There are a lot of good ways to do this, but all of them depend on a strong thesis for their direction.

For example: Here's a student's thesis about Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent . In his novel, The Secret Agent , Conrad uses beast and cannibal imagery to describe the characters and their relationships to each other. This pattern of images suggests that Conrad saw corruption in every level of early twentieth-century London society. This thesis focuses on the idea of social corruption and the device of imagery. To support this thesis, you would need to find images of beasts and cannibalism within the text.

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A Guide to Thesis Writing That Is a Guide to Life

“How to Write a Thesis,” by Umberto Eco, first appeared on Italian bookshelves in 1977. For Eco, the playful philosopher and novelist best known for his work on semiotics, there was a practical reason for writing it. Up until 1999, a thesis of original research was required of every student pursuing the Italian equivalent of a bachelor’s degree. Collecting his thoughts on the thesis process would save him the trouble of reciting the same advice to students each year. Since its publication, “How to Write a Thesis” has gone through twenty-three editions in Italy and has been translated into at least seventeen languages. Its first English edition is only now available, in a translation by Caterina Mongiat Farina and Geoff Farina.

We in the English-speaking world have survived thirty-seven years without “How to Write a Thesis.” Why bother with it now? After all, Eco wrote his thesis-writing manual before the advent of widespread word processing and the Internet. There are long passages devoted to quaint technologies such as note cards and address books, careful strategies for how to overcome the limitations of your local library. But the book’s enduring appeal—the reason it might interest someone whose life no longer demands the writing of anything longer than an e-mail—has little to do with the rigors of undergraduate honors requirements. Instead, it’s about what, in Eco’s rhapsodic and often funny book, the thesis represents: a magical process of self-realization, a kind of careful, curious engagement with the world that need not end in one’s early twenties. “Your thesis,” Eco foretells, “is like your first love: it will be difficult to forget.” By mastering the demands and protocols of the fusty old thesis, Eco passionately demonstrates, we become equipped for a world outside ourselves—a world of ideas, philosophies, and debates.

Eco’s career has been defined by a desire to share the rarefied concerns of academia with a broader reading public. He wrote a novel that enacted literary theory (“The Name of the Rose”) and a children’s book about atoms conscientiously objecting to their fate as war machines (“The Bomb and the General”). “How to Write a Thesis” is sparked by the wish to give any student with the desire and a respect for the process the tools for producing a rigorous and meaningful piece of writing. “A more just society,” Eco writes at the book’s outset, would be one where anyone with “true aspirations” would be supported by the state, regardless of their background or resources. Our society does not quite work that way. It is the students of privilege, the beneficiaries of the best training available, who tend to initiate and then breeze through the thesis process.

Eco walks students through the craft and rewards of sustained research, the nuances of outlining, different systems for collating one’s research notes, what to do if—per Eco’s invocation of thesis-as-first-love—you fear that someone’s made all these moves before. There are broad strategies for laying out the project’s “center” and “periphery” as well as philosophical asides about originality and attribution. “Work on a contemporary author as if he were ancient, and an ancient one as if he were contemporary,” Eco wisely advises. “You will have more fun and write a better thesis.” Other suggestions may strike the modern student as anachronistic, such as the novel idea of using an address book to keep a log of one’s sources.

But there are also old-fashioned approaches that seem more useful than ever: he recommends, for instance, a system of sortable index cards to explore a project’s potential trajectories. Moments like these make “How to Write a Thesis” feel like an instruction manual for finding one’s center in a dizzying era of information overload. Consider Eco’s caution against “the alibi of photocopies”: “A student makes hundreds of pages of photocopies and takes them home, and the manual labor he exercises in doing so gives him the impression that he possesses the work. Owning the photocopies exempts the student from actually reading them. This sort of vertigo of accumulation, a neocapitalism of information, happens to many.” Many of us suffer from an accelerated version of this nowadays, as we effortlessly bookmark links or save articles to Instapaper, satisfied with our aspiration to hoard all this new information, unsure if we will ever get around to actually dealing with it. (Eco’s not-entirely-helpful solution: read everything as soon as possible.)

But the most alluring aspect of Eco’s book is the way he imagines the community that results from any honest intellectual endeavor—the conversations you enter into across time and space, across age or hierarchy, in the spirit of free-flowing, democratic conversation. He cautions students against losing themselves down a narcissistic rabbit hole: you are not a “defrauded genius” simply because someone else has happened upon the same set of research questions. “You must overcome any shyness and have a conversation with the librarian,” he writes, “because he can offer you reliable advice that will save you much time. You must consider that the librarian (if not overworked or neurotic) is happy when he can demonstrate two things: the quality of his memory and erudition and the richness of his library, especially if it is small. The more isolated and disregarded the library, the more the librarian is consumed with sorrow for its underestimation.”

Eco captures a basic set of experiences and anxieties familiar to anyone who has written a thesis, from finding a mentor (“How to Avoid Being Exploited By Your Advisor”) to fighting through episodes of self-doubt. Ultimately, it’s the process and struggle that make a thesis a formative experience. When everything else you learned in college is marooned in the past—when you happen upon an old notebook and wonder what you spent all your time doing, since you have no recollection whatsoever of a senior-year postmodernism seminar—it is the thesis that remains, providing the once-mastered scholarly foundation that continues to authorize, decades-later, barroom observations about the late-career works of William Faulker or the Hotelling effect. (Full disclosure: I doubt that anyone on Earth can rival my mastery of John Travolta’s White Man’s Burden, owing to an idyllic Berkeley spring spent studying awful movies about race.)

In his foreword to Eco’s book, the scholar Francesco Erspamer contends that “How to Write a Thesis” continues to resonate with readers because it gets at “the very essence of the humanities.” There are certainly reasons to believe that the current crisis of the humanities owes partly to the poor job they do of explaining and justifying themselves. As critics continue to assail the prohibitive cost and possible uselessness of college—and at a time when anything that takes more than a few minutes to skim is called a “longread”—it’s understandable that devoting a small chunk of one’s frisky twenties to writing a thesis can seem a waste of time, outlandishly quaint, maybe even selfish. And, as higher education continues to bend to the logic of consumption and marketable skills, platitudes about pursuing knowledge for its own sake can seem certifiably bananas. Even from the perspective of the collegiate bureaucracy, the thesis is useful primarily as another mode of assessment, a benchmark of student achievement that’s legible and quantifiable. It’s also a great parting reminder to parents that your senior learned and achieved something.

But “How to Write a Thesis” is ultimately about much more than the leisurely pursuits of college students. Writing and research manuals such as “The Elements of Style,” “The Craft of Research,” and Turabian offer a vision of our best selves. They are exacting and exhaustive, full of protocols and standards that might seem pretentious, even strange. Acknowledging these rules, Eco would argue, allows the average person entry into a veritable universe of argument and discussion. “How to Write a Thesis,” then, isn’t just about fulfilling a degree requirement. It’s also about engaging difference and attempting a project that is seemingly impossible, humbly reckoning with “the knowledge that anyone can teach us something.” It models a kind of self-actualization, a belief in the integrity of one’s own voice.

A thesis represents an investment with an uncertain return, mostly because its life-changing aspects have to do with process. Maybe it’s the last time your most harebrained ideas will be taken seriously. Everyone deserves to feel this way. This is especially true given the stories from many college campuses about the comparatively lower number of women, first-generation students, and students of color who pursue optional thesis work. For these students, part of the challenge involves taking oneself seriously enough to ask for an unfamiliar and potentially path-altering kind of mentorship.

It’s worth thinking through Eco’s evocation of a “just society.” We might even think of the thesis, as Eco envisions it, as a formal version of the open-mindedness, care, rigor, and gusto with which we should greet every new day. It’s about committing oneself to a task that seems big and impossible. In the end, you won’t remember much beyond those final all-nighters, the gauche inside joke that sullies an acknowledgments page that only four human beings will ever read, the awkward photograph with your advisor at graduation. All that remains might be the sensation of handing your thesis to someone in the departmental office and then walking into a possibility-rich, almost-summer afternoon. It will be difficult to forget.

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How to Write a Thesis

by Umberto Eco

Translated by Caterina Mongiat Farina and Geoff Farina

Introduction by Francesco Erspamer

ISBN: 9780262527132

Pub date: March 6, 2015

• Publisher: The MIT Press

256 pp. , 5 x 8 in , 27 tables

ISBN: 9780262328760

Pub date: February 27, 2015

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• Published: March 2015
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• Published: February 2015
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Umberto Eco's wise and witty guide to researching and writing a thesis, published in English for the first time.

By the time Umberto Eco published his best-selling novel The Name of the Rose , he was one of Italy's most celebrated intellectuals, a distinguished academic and the author of influential works on semiotics. Some years before that, in 1977, Eco published a little book for his students, How to Write a Thesis , in which he offered useful advice on all the steps involved in researching and writing a thesis—from choosing a topic to organizing a work schedule to writing the final draft. Now in its twenty-third edition in Italy and translated into seventeen languages, How to Write a Thesis has become a classic. Remarkably, this is its first, long overdue publication in English.

Eco's approach is anything but dry and academic. He not only offers practical advice but also considers larger questions about the value of the thesis-writing exercise. How to Write a Thesis is unlike any other writing manual. It reads like a novel. It is opinionated. It is frequently irreverent, sometimes polemical, and often hilarious. Eco advises students how to avoid “thesis neurosis” and he answers the important question “Must You Read Books?” He reminds students “You are not Proust” and “Write everything that comes into your head, but only in the first draft.” Of course, there was no Internet in 1977, but Eco's index card research system offers important lessons about critical thinking and information curating for students of today who may be burdened by Big Data.

How to Write a Thesis belongs on the bookshelves of students, teachers, writers, and Eco fans everywhere. Already a classic, it would fit nicely between two other classics: Strunk and White and The Name of the Rose .

Contents The Definition and Purpose of a Thesis • Choosing the Topic • Conducting Research • The Work Plan and the Index Cards • Writing the Thesis • The Final Draft

Umberto Eco was an Italian semiotician, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist. He is the author of The Name of the Rose, Foucault's Pendulum , and The Prague Cemetery , all bestsellers in many languages, as well as a number of influential scholarly works.

Although first published in Italian in 1977, before Eco ( The Name of the Rose ) became an internationally renowned novelist, this guide to writing a thesis—originally aimed at Italian humanities undergraduates—brims with practical advice useful for writing research papers.... His advocacy of index card files to organize data seems quaintly nostalgic in the age of laptops and online databases, but it only underscores the importance of applying these more sophisticated tools to achieve the thoroughness of the results that he advocates. Publishers Weekly

How to Write a Thesis is full of friendly, no-bullshit, entry-level advice on what to do and how to do it, illustrated with lucid examples and—significantly—explanations of why, by one of the great researchers and writers in the post-war humanities … Best of all, the absolutely superb chapter on how to write is worth triple the price of admission on its own. Robert Eaglestone Times Higher Education

How to Write a Thesis remains valuable after all this time largely thanks to the spirit of Eco's advice. It is witty but sober, genial but demanding—and remarkably uncynical about the rewards of the thesis, both for the person writing it and for the enterprise of scholarship itself.... Some of Eco's advice is, if anything, even more valuable now, given the ubiquity and seeming omniscience of our digital tools.... Eco's humor never detracts from his serious intent. And anyway, even the sardonic pointers on cheating are instructive in their way. Scott McLemee Inside Higher Education

Eco is a first-rate storyteller and unpretentious instructor who thrives on describing the twists and turns of research projects as well as how to avoid accusations of plagiarism. Jan Gardner Boston Globe

The book's enduring appeal—the reason it might interest someone whose life no longer demands the writing of anything longer than an e-mail—has little to do with the rigors of undergraduate honors requirements. Instead, it's about what, in Eco's rhapsodic and often funny book, the thesis represents: a magical process of self-realization, a kind of careful, curious engagement with the world that need not end in one's early twenties. 'Your thesis,' Eco foretells, 'is like your first love: it will be difficult to forget.' By mastering the demands and protocols of the fusty old thesis, Eco passionately demonstrates, we become equipped for a world outside ourselves—a world of ideas, philosophies, and debates. Hua Hsu The New Yorker

Well beyond the completion of the thesis, Eco's manual makes for pleasant reading and is deserving of a place on the desks of scholars and professional writers. Even sections such as that recommending the combinatory system of handwritten index cards, while outdated in the digital age, can propose a helpful exercise in critical thinking, and add a certain vintage appeal to the book. Times Literary Supplement

How to Write a Thesis has become a classic. LSE Review of Books

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How to Write a Master's Thesis

• Yvonne N. Bui - San Francisco State University, USA
• Description

See what’s new to this edition by selecting the Features tab on this page. Should you need additional information or have questions regarding the HEOA information provided for this title, including what is new to this edition, please email [email protected] . Please include your name, contact information, and the name of the title for which you would like more information. For information on the HEOA, please go to http://ed.gov/policy/highered/leg/hea08/index.html .

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“Yvonne Bui’s How to Write a Master’s Thesis should be mandatory for all thesis track master’s students.  It steers students away from the shortcuts students may be tempted to use that would be costly in the long run. The step by step intentional approach is what I like best about this book.”

“This is the best textbook about writing an M.A. thesis available in the market.” 

“This is the type of textbook that students keep and refer to after the class.”

Excellent book. Thorough, yet concise, information for students writing their Master's Thesis who may not have had a strong background in research.

Clear, Concise, easy for students to access and understand. Contains all the elements for a successful thesis.

I loved the ease of this book. It was clear without extra nonsense that would just confuse the students.

Clear, concise, easily accessible. Students find it of great value.

NEW TO THIS EDITION:             

• Concrete instruction and guides for conceptualizing the literature review help students navigate through the most challenging topics.        
• Step-by-step instructions and more screenshots give students the guidance they need to write the foundational chapter, along with the latest online resources and general library information.          
• Additional coverage of single case designs and mixed methods help students gain a more comprehensive understanding of research methods.           
• Expanded explanation of unintentional plagiarism within the ethics chapter shows students the path to successful and professional writing.       
• Detailed information on conference presentation as a way to disseminate research , in addition to getting published, help students understand all of the tools needed to write a master’s thesis.    

KEY FEATURES:  

• An advanced chapter organizer provides an up-front checklist of what to expect in the chapter and serves as a project planner, so that students can immediately prepare and work alongside the chapter as they begin to develop their thesis.
• Full guidance on conducting successful literature reviews includes up-to-date information on electronic databases and Internet tools complete with numerous figures and captured screen shots from relevant web sites, electronic databases, and SPSS software, all integrated with the text.
• Excerpts from research articles and samples from exemplary students' master's theses relate specifically to the content of each chapter and provide the reader with a real-world context.
• Detailed explanations of the various components of the master's thesis and concrete strategies on how to conduct a literature review help students write each chapter of the master's thesis, and apply the American Psychological Association (APA) editorial style.
• A comprehensive Resources section features "Try It!" boxes which lead students through a sample problem or writing exercise based on a piece of the thesis to reinforce prior course learning and the writing objectives at hand. Reflection/discussion questions in the same section are designed to help students work through the thesis process.

Sample Materials & Chapters

1: Overview of the Master's Degree and Thesis

3: Using the Literature to Research Your Problem

For instructors

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How To Write Your First Thesis

• © 2017
• Paul Gruba 0 ,
• Justin Zobel 1

School of Languages & Linguistics, University of Melbourne SLL, Babel Bldg 608, Melbourne, Australia

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

School of Computing & Information Systems, University of Melbourne Comp. Science & Software Engg., Carlton, VIC, Australia

• A practical guide for the entire process of producing a thesis for the first time
• Written by authors with many years of experience advising students
• Provides grounded advice to students who are new to writing extended original research, either undergraduate or graduate coursework

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Table of contents (9 chapters)

Front matter, transition to your first thesis.

• Paul Gruba, Justin Zobel

Getting Organized

The structure of a thesis, a strong beginning: the introduction, situating the study: the background, explaining the investigation: methods and innovations, presenting the outcome: the results, wrapping it up: discussion and conclusion, before you submit, back matter.

• research writing
• thesis preparation
• dissertation writing
• final project preparation
• thesis structure
• learning and instruction

About this book

Many courses and degrees require that students write a short thesis. This book guides students through their first experience of producing a thesis and undertaking original research. Written by experienced researchers and advisors, the book sets out signposts and tasks to help students to understand what is needed to succeed, including scoping a topic, managing references, interpreting data, and successful completion.

For students, the task of writing a thesis is a transition from structured coursework to becoming a researcher. The book provides advice on:

• What to expect from research and how to work with a supervisor
• Getting organized and approaching the work in a productive way
• Developing an overall thesis structure and avoidance of mistakes such as inadvertent plagiarism
• Producing each major component: a strong introduction, background chapters that are situated in the discipline, and an explanation ofmethods and results that are crucial to successful original research
• How to wrap up a complex project with an extended checklist of the many details needed to be checked before a final submission

Authors and Affiliations

School of languages & linguistics, university of melbourne sll, babel bldg 608, melbourne, australia, school of computing & information systems, university of melbourne comp. science & software engg., carlton, vic, australia.

Justin Zobel

About the authors

Paul Gruba  is Associate Professor in the School of Languages and Linguistics, University of Melbourne.

Justin Zobel  is Professor in the School of Computing & Information Systems, University of Melbourne.

Bibliographic Information

Book Title : How To Write Your First Thesis

Authors : Paul Gruba, Justin Zobel

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61854-8

Publisher : Springer Cham

eBook Packages : Computer Science , Computer Science (R0)

Copyright Information : Springer International Publishing AG 2017

Softcover ISBN : 978-3-319-61853-1 Published: 06 September 2017

eBook ISBN : 978-3-319-61854-8 Published: 24 August 2017

Edition Number : 1

Number of Pages : XIII, 95

Number of Illustrations : 8 b/w illustrations

Topics : Computer Science, general , Learning & Instruction , Natural Language Processing (NLP) , Popular Social Sciences , Science, Humanities and Social Sciences, multidisciplinary

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The Thesis and the Book: A Guide for First-Time Academic Authors

Edited by Eleanor Harman , Ian Montagnes , Siobhan McMenemy and Chris Bucci

Ebook - ePub

Ebook - PDF

Published: May 2003

Product Details

Imprint: University of Toronto Press

Page Count: 176 Pages

Dimensions: 5.40 x 8.40

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176 Pages , 5.40 x 8.40 x 0.40 in

ISBN: 9780802085887

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• Description

The academic caveat Publish or Perish is not a new one, and for over a quarter of a century, The Thesis and the Book has come to the aid of graduate students in their quest for publication. The doctoral dissertation, usually the first book-length study completed by a scholar, is, however, only rarely publishable as a book. Understanding the differences between the two forms is a crucial part of one's education as a scholar and is equally important in appreciating the endeavours of scholarly publishers. The Thesis and the Book: A Guide for First-Time Academic Authors , revised and expanded in this second edition, will continue to provide the best overview of the process of revising a dissertation for publication.

Drawing on the expertise of the contributors, all of whom are editors, publishers, and scholars themselves, the chapters present the rudimentary differences between a thesis and a book (including matters of purpose and audience), give guidance on the necessary stylistic, technical, and structural revisions to the dissertation, and offer advice to first-time authors who must not only revise their work to satisfy prospective publishers, but also learn a good deal of the ins and outs of scholarly publishing.

The Thesis and the Book will continue to be of great value to graduating doctoral students seeking publication and to the faculty members who supervise these students. It will also be of value to acquisitions editors at scholarly presses, who must contend with the submission of revised dissertations for publication.

Eleanor Harman was the founding editor of Scholarly Publishing: A Journal for Authors and Publishers .

Ian Montagnes was formerly Editor-in-Chief of University of Toronto Press.

Siobhan McMenemy is an acquisitions editor at University of Toronto Press.

Chris Bucci was formerly an acquisitions editor at University of Toronto Press.

Finding the Thesis

You have plucked one idea (or closely related group of ideas) out of all of your possible ideas to focus on. Congratulations! Now what? Well, now you might write about that topic to explore what you want to say about it. Or, you might already have some idea about what point you want to make about it. If you are in the latter position, you may want to develop a working thesis to guide your drafting process.

What Is a Working Thesis?

A thesis is the controlling idea of a text (often an arguable idea—you will learn more about this in a bit). Depending on the type of text you are creating, all of the discussion in that text will serve to develop, explore multiple angles of, and/or support that thesis.

But how can we know, before getting any of the paper written, exactly what thesis the sources we find and the conversations we have will support? Often, we can’t. The closest we can get in these cases is a working thesis, which is a best guess at what the thesis is likely to be based on the information we are working with at this time. The main idea of it may not change, but the specifics are probably going to be tweaked a bit as you complete a draft and do research.

So, let’s look at one of the examples from “ Strategies for Getting Started ” from the “Prewriting—Generating Ideas” section of this book: the cluster about the broad central idea of danger. If the main idea is “danger,” maybe the conversation you decide you want to have about it after clustering is that sometimes people step into danger intentionally in order to prove ourselves in some way. Next, you might make a list of possible thesis statements. For the sake of example, let’s say this is for an assignment in response to the film The Hunger Games . Some thesis statements that fit this situation might look like this:

• Ultimately, The Hunger Games is a film about facing fears.
• In the 2012 film The Hunger Games , the main character’s fear of losing her sister drives her to face a different set of dangers.
• Katniss Everdeen, the heroine of The Hunger Games , creates as much danger for herself as she faces from others over the course of the film.

If you were writing a summary, the first example in that list might be a good thesis to work with. If you were writing a review, the second one might be the better option. Let’s say, though, that you’ve been assigned to write a more traditional college essay, something a little more focused on analysis. In that case, the final example in this list looks like a good working thesis. It might not be quite the same as the thesis you end up with in later drafts, but it looks like a strong idea to focus your ideas around while you’re first getting them on the page.

The Word on College Reading and Writing Copyright © by Carol Burnell, Jaime Wood, Monique Babin, Susan Pesznecker, and Nicole Rosevear is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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The Thesis and the Book: A Guide for First-Time Academic Authors 2nd Edition

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The academic caveat Publish or Perish is not a new one, and for over a quarter of a century, The Thesis and the Book has come to the aid of graduate students in their quest for publication. The doctoral dissertation, usually the first book-length study completed by a scholar, is, however, only rarely publishable as a book. Understanding the differences between the two forms is a crucial part of one's education as a scholar and is equally important in appreciating the endeavours of scholarly publishers. The Thesis and the Book: A Guide for First-Time Academic Authors , revised and expanded in this second edition, will continue to provide the best overview of the process of revising a dissertation for publication.

Drawing on the expertise of the contributors, all of whom are editors, publishers, and scholars themselves, the chapters present the rudimentary differences between a thesis and a book (including matters of purpose and audience), give guidance on the necessary stylistic, technical, and structural revisions to the dissertation, and offer advice to first-time authors who must not only revise their work to satisfy prospective publishers, but also learn a good deal of the ins and outs of scholarly publishing.

The Thesis and the Book will continue to be of great value to graduating doctoral students seeking publication and to the faculty members who supervise these students. It will also be of value to acquisitions editors at scholarly presses, who must contend with the submission of revised dissertations for publication.

• ISBN-10 0802085881
• ISBN-13 978-0802085887
• Edition 2nd
• Publisher University of Toronto Press
• Publication date May 31, 2003
• Language English
• Dimensions 5.4 x 0.4 x 8.4 inches
• Print length 176 pages
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' The Thesis and the Book is to be welcomed for the contribution it can make to improved academic writing, for the more publishable books it may stimulate, and for its saving of editorial time and scholarly frustration.'

'A book easily recommended for all academics and university libraries.'

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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Toronto Press; 2nd edition (May 31, 2003)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 176 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0802085881
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0802085887
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6.3 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.4 x 0.4 x 8.4 inches
• #2,232 in Authorship Reference
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• v.12(3); Jul-Sep 2022

Thesis Writing: The T, H, E, S, I, S Approach – Review of the Book

Vijendra devisingh chauhan.

1 Pro Vice Chancellor, Swami Rama Himalayan University, Himalayan Institute of Medical Sciences, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India

2 Professor and Head, Department of Orthopedics, Himalayan Institute of Medical Sciences, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India

Dr. Rajiv Mahajan, Dr. Tejinder Singh, editors. 2022. 1st ed. Jaypee Brothers, Medical Publishers (P) Ltd.354. Rs. 795/-. ISBN: 978-93-5465-131-1.

After a long time, I am seeing a book on thesis writing which would be of a great use for the medical fraternity and especially, the postgraduates (PGs).

I recapitulate my residency days when I did my thesis project. I had no clue from where to begin; I was fortunate to have a good mentor who mentored me but every PG resident is not so lucky. This book will definitely supplement the efforts being made by PG thesis supervisors in guiding the PGs.

After going through the book, it inspired me to write a review. The title of the book is so catchy “THESIS WRITING ‒ the T, H, E, S, I, S. Approach.” It compelled me to peep into the book and explore the acronym ‒ T: Tickling, H: Hologram, E: Expansion, S: Scenarios, I: Improvisation, and S: Summary. I found that every chapter is crafted using this philosophy. The second reason which stimulated me to go through this book is that it has been authored by well-known medical educationists who could appreciate the real need of the PGs of this country.

I have no hesitation in saying that not only fresh PGs but even many of their guides may be ignorant of what constitutes writing/guiding a quality thesis. J. Frank Dobi once said “ The average PhD thesis is nothing but transference of bones from one graveyard to another .” Moreover, this is true even for PG medical thesis produced in this country every year. I quote Prof. Vivek A Saoji, Vice-Chancellor, KLE Academy of Higher Education of Research, Belgaum, Karnataka, who has appropriately mentioned in his foreword of this book, “ Proper guidance and training will go a long way in improving the quality of research the postgraduates do and in turn the quality of thesis .”

Usually, in a multiauthored book, style changes with every chapter. Credit goes to the editors, Dr. Rajiv Mahajan and Dr. Tejinder Singh for keeping the uniform language, writing style, and format for each chapter. Hence, one finds continuity and connectivity between the chapters. The editors have ensured that the reader remains hooked to the book till the end. The flowcharts and boxes have been provided for easy remembrance and recapitulation of the salient features of the chapters. I personally feel that these tables, boxes, and flowcharts must be printed and hanged in the seminar room of the departments. I would suggest authors to prepare a small booklet so that these flowcharts are available to the students in their pockets when they are embarking on their thesis.

The book begins with a chapter on “Role and importance of thesis in PG training.” It talks about the statutory and mandatory requirements of the training and how research and publication can open new vistas and opportunities for a PG student. The author has supplemented the list of funding agencies and the nature of support extended for research. The chapter ends with a beautiful inspiring story of Dr. Althesis, tips for conducting a research – a self-checklist to facilitate writing a PG thesis and tips for writing a high-quality thesis.

Chapter 2 deals with the basic concepts of research. It describes lucidly what makes good research and different types of research, i.e., quantitative, qualitative, basic and applied research, and prominent features of each. The author has nicely depicted commonly employed sampling strategies. Stress has been laid on collecting tools for data collection and establishing ethical considerations. Simple examples of quantitative and qualitative research make things simplified for readers.

Chapter 3 is on research design. I need to congratulate the editors for providing a separate chapter on research design. Yes, this is a big confusion for the teacher as well as for the students. A nice pictorial classification has been provided and each design has been explained in a Lucid language with examples so that the PGs can choose the right design for the thesis. I liked the flowcharts and boxes provided, particularly ‒ criteria to choose research design and ‒ choosing study design. The author has used an analogy to explain certain difficult terminology. It made things so simple, both for teachers as well as students.

Chapter 4 ‒ how to start a research describes the importance of the research problem, how to identify the broad problem, and develop a research question. It reflects on types of research questions and explains beautifully what constitutes a good research question using PICO-T and C-Re FINERS criteria. The author has done a creditable job of explaining the concept of hypothesis and various steps involved in writing a good hypothesis; and has rightly cautioned the readers about the errors in hypothesis testing.

Chapter 5 deals with aims and objectives. I am sure after reading this chapter, the students would be able to frame the aim and objectives for their research with great ease. Every chapter provides you with the scenario for easy and better understanding, followed by tips.

Chapter 6 deals with a review of the literature. This is the most difficult and tedious part of a thesis, but one of the most important parts. The author has demonstrated how to use various commonly used search engines, how to develop strategies for literature search, identify the keywords, and the use of Boolean operators. Emphasis is on how to critically analyze the searched material and write the literature review.

A full chapter has been devoted to writing a synopsis which every PG has to submit within the 1 st semester of the PG program. The chapter on materials and methods (M&M) has been prepared like a recipe in a cookbook. A lot of stress is on how to write M&M. The tips provided are worth remembering.

I have seen students and their mentors frequently rushing to the statistician for the calculation of the sample size. Chapter 9 has touched this subject beautifully. It starts with why we need an adequate sample size for any research. It then goes on to ingrain the recipe of sample size, calculation, effect size, standard deviation, type 1 error, power, direction of the effect, expected attrition, and statistical test and each is explained with examples.

Chapter 10 is on results and inferences; the authors have given very practical tips for the presentation of the results. There are general tips on preparing tables, graphs, pie charts, bar graphs, line graphs, and scatter plots. The authors have nicely described P value and its utility in deriving scientific inferences.

Managing the timeline is a very important aspect in the life of the resident. The resident is busy in clinics, patient care, operation theaters, and teaching and at the same time, he has to conduct a research. Managing time is an art. The editors have devoted a separate chapter on this subject. Concepts of the time management matrix, the Gantt chart, and the backward planning have been adequately explained in this chapter.

Ethics and plagiarism are a buzz word now. A separate chapter has been devoted to cover various ethical aspects involved in thesis writing and publications. The authors have discussed in detail about autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, justice, informed consent, the consent process and plagiarism, and how to avoid plagiarism. I am happy to note the topic of plagiarism has been touched and the penalties described by University Grant Commission have been included. Tools to be used for detection have been mentioned. In fact, without a plagiarism check, thesis should not be submitted. A small mention about the availability of various platforms for uploading thesis could have been added. A checklist to avoid plagiarism is appreciated.

A student of medicine is afraid of “biostatistics” and always confused which test needs to be used for his thesis. The authors have provided a nice table on how to choose the appropriate statistical tests. The authors have nicely defined various variables, data collection, data entry and cleaning, assessing the distribution of data, approach to data analysis, and application of post hoc tests. A separate chapter has been devoted to IBM Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS, IBM Corp. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp) for data validation and analysis and how to make good use of this tool.

Compilation of thesis is very important. Majority of the universities provide templates of the title page and the certificates to be annexed. The authors have lucidly and in a systematic manner described what needs to be done under each heading. They also discussed about research and ethics committee approval letters, pro forma of study, consent forms, master charts, photos, permission letter from other institution if applicable, conflict of interest form (for funded projects), disclosure of the source of funding (if applicable), Gantt chart, certificate of clinical trials registry-India registration (if applicable), and above all are very useful tips for writing the thesis draft and binding of thesis document.

Handling revision is a big issue. The movement the student hears this, he becomes disturbed. The authors have nicely discussed about the reasons for thesis revisions in a tabular form. I liked the tables ‒ how to communicate to the examiners after making revisions. The authors also provided useful tips for preventing rejection and revisions.

Chapters 18 and 19 talk about disseminating thesis research through quality poster and publication of the paper. These two chapters are very practical chapters and I am sure the students would definitely be benefited. I am sure if these practical tips are followed, we would see quality posters and publications from our PGs. A separate chapter devoted to a manuscript-based thesis introduces the readers to a different approach of thesis writing – like a manuscript.

The book ends with chapters on translation education research. It talks about how a student can place his research into “a knowledge to action cycle” and how can PG students strive to achieve translation of their research to standard practice.

All good medical institutions in the country are running 2–3 days’ workshop on research methodology. I think if we can design these workshops based on the basic principles illustrated in this book, it would ensure consistency in the research component in the PG curriculum and second, things would become easy for students to comprehend.

I would like to end with the quote of Mortimer J. Adler: “ In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.” Yes, “Thesis Writing: The T, H, E, S, I, S Approach” gets through to you and I am sure it would inspire you to revisit it again and again.