ThinkWrite

All PhD students need to place their work in a thesis. This document will contain original research, with data that the world has never seen before. However the document itself has many components that occur almost every time.

• A title page
  
  Your university will give you a list of all the details that need adding here.
  
  
• Contents  
  
  A list of the chapters, heading and subheadings. If you choose these carefully, the contents page acts as a summary of your work.
  
  
• An introduction
  
  This takes 2-5 pages to set the scene, and often finishes with a breakdown of the chapter sequence.
  
  
• A literature review
  
  This is sometimes combined with the introduction, but it’s function is to pull together all pre-existing information and knowledge that gives a foundation to your research.
  
  
• 3-6 research chapters
  
  These explain what you did, and what you discovered.
  
  
• Discussion and Conclusion
  
  Often a short chapter emphasizing what is newly known as a result of your research.
  
  
  

So that sets a generalized pattern – but how can you tailor that to fit your research?

To begin structuring your thesis, first think about how much is already prescribed and how much is creative.

Your university will have rules about submission, and in some cases your department may have refined the rules to meet specific academic demands. These rules will set maximum word counts and indicate whether these counts include footnotes, references, etc. 

So get hold of a recent copy and make sure you understand these prescribed boundaries. In many cases, though, candidates will regularly write much less than the legal maximum.

1. Grab at least three theses from past candidates in your department and do a rough word count (how many words on an average page x how many pages of text). Now you will have an idea of how they have used their creative freedom within the rules.
   
   
2. Look at the macro structure of these existing theses – what is their chapter sequence? By the time you have scanned three or more, you will see regular patterns, but also a range of options. Again, the rules may well prescribe structural elements like introductions, or references etc… while the rest is open to more creativity.
   
   
3. Think through how you are going to divide your word-count through the chapters. Make sure that you are planning to give appropriate weight to the key chapters, at the same time as not starving the less important areas.

If a typical thesis in your department has 70,000 words shared between 6 chapters, this generated around six 12,000-word essays, each of which is linked to your central theme. That will be around 60 paragraphs. It’s not a huge number. 

If they are clustered five to a subheading, then you will have 12 subheadings - which probably means something like three or four headings. Now we are down to manageable numbers that feel much less daunting.