Effectively writing your doctoral thesis in 3 steps

An easy to follow guide to help you actually begin writing

I’ll be honest, my thesis didn’t truly feel like something I could effectively tackle until my third year. Looking back now, there were a few distinct things that started making things feel possible.

1. The Mindset shift

Realising I was telling a story, this wasn’t just an essay to submit for a module but an actual story from start to finish. A thesis story. I was the author. So thinking about it like I would a work of fiction made me think deeper, what “characters” are in here? Have I included enough background knowledge on them? Have I explained their world to the reader? Why should their problems matter to the reader? The “character” here, doesn’t have to be an actual person, but representing your wider research question/problem.

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2. The approach

I started looking at each chapter as though they were an undergraduate dissertation, length wise. On average an undergraduate dissertation is around 12,000 words. Looking at the chapters therefore as mini-dissertations that could be their own standalone works helped me in feeling like it was doable, I’ve written an undergrad and masters dissertation before, so what’s doing it six more times? (She says wishfully).

Approaching it in this way meant I could tackle each portion like its own piece, albeit a piece that should work to form a cohesive whole, but its own piece nonetheless.

3. The writing plan

From this point, it was time for the actual writing plan. Here’s what I found:

Use headings and lots of them!

Breaking each chapter further into headings helped me keep track of what needed to be included into making it a cohesive story. And again turned the chapter into something I could envision because the manageable sections were right in front of me, in turn, creating a thesis story that’ll make it clearer for the examiners to follow.

So what does the thesis structure actually look like, well typically you’ll have the basics of the thesis like

• AIMS & OBJECTIVES

• RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE

• THESIS JUSTIFICATION

• INTRODUCTION

• CONCLUSION

But what comes in the middle?

Your chapter 1 could perhaps be dedicated to could have a unpacking a specific key term or concept/theme central to your thesis, therefore headings in this will likely be geared towards providing a clearer background on the concept, what is the relevant history? what is its modern use and application, fundamental problems? key debates? How I have approached chapter 1 is basically to set the scene, getting the characters ready to take the stage etc, this is ofcourse incredibly subjective but actually mapping out your headings helps you know what content you’ll be putting in. So don’t get hung up on the fact you haven’t written anything underneath them yet. The mapping out exercise gets you started.

The first time I successfully did this I used a pen and paper, I thought about my overall thesis and research problem. Thinking about the examiners who’ll read the work, how could I make this work clearer for them? What background is needed? What problems needed explaining etc. My work is interdisciplinary and so I kept this in mind when thinking of what sections may be beneficial to an examiner who may not necessarily be familiar with my other field.

The Word Count

I then went on to allocate a specific “ballpark” word count for each section in the chapter. This was done with my overall thesis word count in mind. I allocated a further a smaller amount to the other sections before the chapters, such as the thesis significance section etc (see above)

If you remember I mentioned looking at the chapters like an undergrad or masters dissertation in length, each chapter being 12,000 in total, after having the headings and subheadings this is then about distributing the word count between them (the amount you allocate can of course can change over time, and some chapters may have a bit more or less but don’t worry too much about it at this stage)

Here’s an example

Chapter 1: Unpacking contract law (12,000 total word count)¹

INTRODUCTION (1000)

1.1 What makes a contact: Offer, acceptance, consideration (2000)

1.2 The the history of the unilateral and bilateral offer, the Carlill Carbolic Smoke Ball Case (3000)

1.3 Non-monetary consideration in a contract (1500)

1.4 Acceptance of a contract, terms and time of lapse (1500)

1.5 The principle of ‘Meeting of the minds’, mutual agreement in a contract (2000)

CONCLUSION (1000)

Following this type of outline made it easier for to make each chapter full-bodied, breaking it down into manageable parts that then made my goals easier to track.

Goodluck! and remember it’s possible because many others have done it before you, you will too.

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1. This is a made up example merely for illustrative purposes and is not an excerpt of a real thesis