1 WRITING UP THE DISSERTATION Mark Philp 2

1 WRITING UP THE DISSERTATION Mark Philp

2 Writing to a deadline • Start at the end! • Work out what you need to do to get there! • Due Thursday week 1 Summer Term - by 12 noon – to be submitted on-line and to Room 342. • What steps will you identify on the way? Eg: • Full penultimate draft 2 -3 weeks before the deadline to allow it to rest and then re-read. • Last chance for a discussion with supervisor before the end of Term 2 • What does that mean for what you do in Reading Week in term 2, and over the Christmas break? • And for this Reading Week? • And for meetings with personal tutors and seminar leaders?

3 Job specification • 9, 000 words excl. bibliog and footnotes • Find out – TNR/12 point/double spaced = c 1, 000 words in three pages A 4 (chk incl. excl notes) • Is 9= 4. 5 x 2? • Journal article length plus c. 1 K • Find models – why are they good? a. org of argument b. evidence c. clarity/coherence/cogency d. experience as a reader e. quality of writing f. interest of the topic

4 “Writing up” – the metaphor • Science based • Kuhn and paradigms • History and ? paradigms discourses fields debates controversies lacunae applying X to Y – models, theories etc. In what are you making an intervention? And, to do that, what must you lay out?

5 2 Models • Identify topic • Identify area • Identify: • Start writing literature/archive/sources • Read literature • Talk to people • Collect more evidence • Write thesis • Talk to people • Identify and work on sources etc • Re-write • Talk to people • Read more literature • Write thesis

6 Organisation • Electronic or physical form for documents, articles, material • • from books, etc. Need a retrieval system – Need a copy if electronic! Where do you keep your notes How do you keep your thinking distinct from what other people have said – ie how to ensure attribution? Periodic restructuring – but go back to the basement! Bibliography – everything you look at – especially everything you ever take notes from – and keep a reference Footnote format – undergraduate style guide http: //www 2. warwick. ac. uk/fac/arts/history/students/referencing/ and read subsection on Bibliography Archival material vs published material.

7 Now • Get a notebook and write down your preliminary ideas. • What question do you want to address? • In relation to what field? • In relation to what existing literature? • Why don’t you like existing work/feel it is inadequate • Who might you talk to? • Why do you care about it? Do you do so enough? And do you do so too much? • What other deadlines do you have and how will you fit them in alongside the dissertation?

8 By the end of this term • Preliminary title • Brief outline of your proposed topic • 50 word version/ 250 -400 word version – need to make sure you’ve registered the related module on e. MR – and if it changes re-register. • 250 -400 word version – need to be able to tell other people (friends, family, personal tutor) what you are working on – in a way that conveys your interest and specific angle. And you need to try it out on them! • Need to have identified core reading and sources you will use and need to have done some of the work on the former – and, ideally, in the first week of the vacation, some on the latter.

9 Before Reading Week term 2 • Over Christmas work out a detailed plan; a contents page or outline of the argument – with some reflections on what needs to be done – think steps and sections of an argument, not discrete chapters • Complete core reading – and identify additional crucial sources • TALK TO PEOPLE • THEN: Draft about half the core of thesis in reading week of term 2 – and work out what else needs to be done!

10 Elements • 1. Introduction • 2. Main body of the evidence and argument • 3. Conclusion • Order of writing: 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1 • There can be other orders, but the core element is 2 - it’s the evidence, and the main argument about the evidence, and its central to get that clear.

11 What works for you? • A room of ones own • Library space • Soaking and poking • Sleeping on it/exercising on it • What stint sizes – build them up now – • What sort of writer are you? • Keep adding to and going back to your notebook

12 Discarding the ladder What you need to get from A to B is not necessarily what you need to get from B to C, or C to D. Writing good academic prose and argument requires that you start on a plateau with other writing in the field. It takes knowledge and a range of skills, conceptual apparatus and control of evidence to get there. You don’t have it to start – so don’t think your first thought are your best – be ready to discard and rethink – but keep a record! Cutting vs writing to length

13 Writing for Readers • Don’t write just for your supervisor – display evidence, don’t assume your reader knows it all. Make sure it makes sense to non-experts. • Who will read it for you – and when? Important to set up self-help group. You are not competing! • Be clear what are asking for • Typos? • Expertise? • Clarity and argument • Two key periods • First block of substantive writing (reading week term 2) • Final proof reading

14 Who will read it to assess it? • Supervisor • Additional examiner – with some expertise • Arbitrating examiner • Dissertations committee So don’t write just for supervisor!

15 What sort of animal is it? • Creative writing? NO! Avoid ‘I believe’, ‘I feel’, ‘I think’ – its not the ‘I’ but the reporting of the subjective state • Act of reasoned communication advancing a claim or set of claims about an existing field of study and defending those claims against competing accounts. • Watch your language – make it crisp, direct, clear, - avoid hyperbole eg: ‘incredible’ ; avoid paras beginning with a conditional – make the substantive point first, then qualify.

16 Reading as a stranger • What do you write on – and what do you read on • De-familiarise it – print it out and read it as a stranger to it. And mark what you think is best, and which bits are central to the way in which the argument develops. • Topic sentence structure • Reading as a copy-editor/ vs as a critic

17 Things not to say • My printer ran out of ink • My hard drive collapsed and wiped my notes/drafts/final version of thesis • I left the only electronic copy on a memory stick on the train • I didn’t know we had other pieces of work to submit after Easter • What’s a dissertation? !