How to write a PhD Thesis

It has been roughly five months since I re-entered the world of academia to pursue my doctorate and as intrepid as I felt initially that fearlessness quickly began to wane and the fear of writing kicked in. Below is a thesis guide which can help to ease much of the fear of writing.

Writing a Phd thesis can feel very solitary and daunting. 

Introduction

This parts seems straight-forward enough. Here, you want to introduce your audience to the issues and concerns which you research will focus on. At this point it is ok to NOT have a fully realised hypothesis, what is necessary is that you have questions...plenty of questions. However YOU MUST ensure that these questions are within a particular discourse/debate. Answer yourself the following:

What is the specific question you seek to answer?

What are the areas/topics/literatures that this engages with question?

The broader “so what” question – why is this topic/question/issue important? Why should anyone be bothered to read this?

What is your core argument or hypothesis [This comes the more you read; don't panic]

What are the steps you take to develop your argument? E.g. signposts: First, I do this, then I do that.

Literature review

A lit review is first and foremost NOT a review of the literature. You are constantly reviewing literature for ALL sections of your thesis.

Rather, in the “lit review” section you will outline the contours of a (set of) debate(s) about specific issue(s) within the academic literature that is directly related to the question you seek to answer and the argument/hypothesis you seek to defend. The purpose of this section is to place your voice within these debates such that your contribution moves the debate(s) on. How you make the space for yourself in the literature will inform, and be informed by, the questions you start with in the intro as well as the importance you attribute to your findings in the conclusion.

Making a space for your voice might include:

- Finding gaps or “lacunae” in the literature, e.g. they’ve never talked about this

- Finding shared or dominant assumptions/theories that, if questioned, might provide different viewpoints and explanations of the same phenomenon.  E.g. is institutional cooperation driven by self-interest, or is it rather driven by modes of appropriateness related to identity?

-Finding an argument - already put forward - that you want to strengthen, by developing new considerations, or taking into new empirical arenas. e.g. what do Eskimos think of environmental security?

Methodology

Here you lay out the “research design”, the broad approaches, methods (including data collection), concepts and/or theories that will inform your treatment of the case studies. E.g. here is where you explain to the reader how you are not just reporting or describing but explaining.

Case study chapters

Here you demonstrate your argument. Note:

-It must be argumentative and not descriptive.

-It must deploy the methodologies you’ve identified above.

-It must actually speak to the core argument of the thesis.

-Only include empirical details that are necessary in order to make the argument.

Conclusion

-Sum-up your findings, what you have argued and/or proved

-Relate their importance back to the lit review – e.g. tell the reader how they move the particular debate(s) on.

-Conjecture on the general importance of these findings 

 [Thanks to my supervisor Robbie for providing me with this guide.]