PhD Dissertation

Prof. Douglas E. Comer has some excellent advice about dissertation writing. He has also precisely stated the requirements of a dissertation:

A PhD dissertation is a lengthy, formal document that argues in defense of a particular thesis…Two important adjectives used to describe a dissertation are “original” and “substantial.” The research performed to support a thesis must be both, and the dissertation must show it to be so. In particular, a dissertation highlights original contributions… The essence of a dissertation is critical thinking, not experimental data. Analysis and concepts form the heart of the work… In general, every statement in a dissertation must be supported either by a reference to published scientific literature or by original work.

Although a dissertation does not have to follow rigid organization rules, the article gives a canonical organization of a dissertation: “Introduction”, “Definitions”, “Conceptual Model”, “Experimental Measurements”, “Corollaries and Consequences”, “Conclusions” and “Abstract”.

Among other things, Comer has listed certain things which should be avoided in a thesis:

• Adverbs (overused and weak)
• Jokes or puns (They have no place in a formal document.)
• Moral or qualitative judgments such as “bad”, “good”, “nice”, “terrible”, “stupid”, “ideal solutions” and “perfect”
• Inexact words such as “soon”, “seems”, “different”, “few, most, all, any, every”.
• Vague terms such as “in terms of”, “based on”, “number of”, “due to”
• Colloquial terms such as “in light of”, “lots of”, “kind of”, “type of”, “something like”
• “This” and “that”.
• Writing in the first person “I have done…”
• Writing in the second person such as “you will read about…”
• Using “prove” or “show” if there is no mathematical proof.
• Self assessment