{"id":552,"date":"2016-11-12T05:10:45","date_gmt":"2016-11-11T21:10:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.neuro-memento-mori.com\/teaching\/?p=552"},"modified":"2016-11-18T05:57:25","modified_gmt":"2016-11-17T21:57:25","slug":"the-first-30-pages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.neuro-memento-mori.com\/teaching\/the-first-30-pages\/","title":{"rendered":"Set the tone: the first 30 pages"},"content":{"rendered":"

Image credit. This file was created by freevector.com and is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0<\/a> license<\/em><\/p>\n

How do you convince the examiners that all is well, that this IS a PhD? First, it is crucial that you write a good Abstract<\/a> to\u00a0set the tone for success. Then make sure the Introduction\u00a0reinforces your professionalism and does not send up red flags.\u00a0Remember, we examiners are only human. We are reading the thesis on top of a full academic workload. Don’t make it harder on the reader than it needs to be. We are all prepared\u00a0to be intellectually stretched (it is\u00a0a PhD) but don’t be obscure, especially when you write the introduction.<\/p>\n

As Prof. of Systems and Computer Engineering, John Chinneck \u00a0Writes, “Usually [the examiner is]\u00a0pretty knowledgeable about the\u00a0general problem”. However,\u00a0explain\u00a0difficult new concepts clearly.<\/strong>\u00a0In my experience this is especially important if you are doing interdisciplinary research as\u00a0your examiners are likely to be drawn from a range of specialist areas and will probably not be expert across all areas that you cover in your thesis.<\/p>\n

Chinneck also says, “Don’t make the readers work too hard<\/strong>! This is fundamentally important.\u00a0Choose section titles and wordings to clearly give them information. The\u00a0harder they have to work to ferret out your problem, your defence of the\u00a0problem, your answer to the problem, your conclusions and contributions,\u00a0the worse mood they will be in, and the more likely that your thesis will need\u00a0major revisions.” This is also why\u00a0the Abstract<\/a> should be carefully drafted as it will address each of these points briefly.<\/p>\n

The first 30 pages set the tone<\/strong>
\nLike most examiners, I schedule time to read the PhD thesis to make sure that\u00a0I won’t be distracted. I don’t start reading\u00a0at the end of a work day. Even so, it can be a daunting task, especially if the thesis is very long<\/a>. I start at the beginning. But not all examiners do. However, even if they start at the references and conclusion, which\u00a0some examiners do, they are likely to read the first section in one sitting. So make sure that the first 30 pages or so set the right tone.<\/p>\n

Steve Wilbur,Emeritus Professor of Distributed Systems at University College London, writing\u00a0in 1997\u00a0made this comment<\/a>, “I often find that the first 20-30 pages are a strong indicator of the <\/span>strength of the candidate. \u00a0If they understand the context and they analyse <\/span>the SoA well, the following work will usually be strongly focussed and well <\/span>executed.<\/span>“<\/span><\/p>\n

Some Examiners do not start at the beginning…<\/strong>
\nWhen examining, I block chunks of time in my schedule to read a PhD thesis. I use the pomodoro technique for reading in 25 minute session with short breaks to keep fresh. I make notes and highlight typos as I go. The Abstract and Introduction are very important indicators of what is coming next\u00a0and I read them a couple of times before progressing. Some examiners will then jump to the Conclusion. This is often the last thing you write as a PhD researcher and it’s easy to rush that writing as you strive to finish and get on with your life. Slow down, make sure that the Conclusion works hard for you. More posts to follow soon on that.<\/p>\n

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Image credit. This file was created by freevector.com and is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license How do you convince the examiners that all is well, that this IS a PhD? First, it is crucial that you write a good Abstract to\u00a0set the tone for success. Then make sure the Introduction\u00a0reinforces your professionalism … Continue reading Set the tone: the first 30 pages<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-thesis-structure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neuro-memento-mori.com\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neuro-memento-mori.com\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neuro-memento-mori.com\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neuro-memento-mori.com\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neuro-memento-mori.com\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.neuro-memento-mori.com\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":677,"href":"https:\/\/www.neuro-memento-mori.com\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions\/677"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neuro-memento-mori.com\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neuro-memento-mori.com\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neuro-memento-mori.com\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neuro-memento-mori.com\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}