Thesis Writing Guide
Welcome
Class times and Venue
Course outline
Before you start
Text books
How to write a PhD in Biological Sciences: A guide for the uninitiated
How to publish in Biological Sciences: A guide for the uninitiated
You can contribute
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Disclaimer
I Part I: Week 1
1
The philosophy of science
1.1
The philosophy of science
1.2
Conducting a literature review
2
Keywords
2.1
Becoming familiar with the literature in your topic
2.2
Turning your topic into keywords
2.2.1
Identify keywords for your study
2.3
Exercise 1: Finding your keywords
2.3.1
Curating your keyword database
2.3.2
Learning about Boolean operators
2.3.3
Wildcards
2.3.4
Polishing your choice of keywords
2.4
Exercise 2: Visualising your keywords
2.4.1
Export your results:
2.4.2
Making a visualisation network
2.4.3
Answer the following questions:
2.5
Exercise 3: Setting up an alert
2.6
Summing up the keywords workshop
Topics
Topic 1
Topic 2
Topic 3
II Part I: Week 2
3
The Hypothetical-deductive model in science
3.1
How to use citations
4
Hypothesis Building
4.1
Aims of this workshop
4.1.1
What is a hypothesis?
4.1.2
How your hypothesis fits into the greater scientific community
4.1.3
What a hypothesis isn’t
4.2
Exercise 1
: Spotting the hypothesis in a paper
4.3
A formulaic way to start writing your hypothesis:
4.3.1
Dependent and independent variables
4.3.2
What kind of mechanism are you using?
4.3.3
Teleological versus causal hypotheses
4.3.4
Tinbergen’s
(1963)
four questions
4.4
Exercise 2
: Breaking down a hypothesis
4.4.1
The problem of independence
4.5
Exercise 3
: evaluating a hypothesis
4.6
Summing up this hypothesis workshop
III Part I: Week 3
5
A formula for writing
5.1
Planning a thesis chapter
6
Using a formula to write a chapter
6.1
So what is the formula?
6.1.1
The hypothesis at the heart of the formula
6.2
Exercise 1
: Spotting the formula in others’ introduction writing
6.3
Exercise 2
: Where are the different aspects introduced?
6.4
Starting to write with an outline
6.4.1
Next flesh out the outline with citations
6.5
Exercise 3
: Where are the different aspects discussed?
6.6
Writing the text
6.7
Summing up the formula workshop
IV Part I: Week 4
7
Nuts and bolts of writing
7.1
From sentences to paragraphs
8
Writing paragraphs
8.1
The stages of writing
8.1.1
Get over yourself
8.2
Paragraph aim
8.3
Paragraph plan
8.3.1
Paragraph structure
8.4
Exercise 1
: Writing a Paragraph
8.5
Construct a logical argument in your writing
8.5.1
Thesis, antithesis and synthesis
8.6
Exercise 2
: Your logical argument
8.7
Using the academic phrasebank
8.8
Exercise 3
: Using the academic phrasebank as your guide
8.9
Summing up the workshop on writing paragraphs
V Part I: Week 5
9
When science goes wrong
9.1
What we can do to correct bad science
10
A formula for your discussion
10.1
Introduction vs Discussion
10.2
Your discussion formula
10.2.1
Responding to your hypothesis as the first paragraph
10.2.2
Evidence toward the best theory as the last paragraph
10.2.3
The inbetween paragraphs
10.2.4
Ensuring that your discussion is balanced
10.2.5
Inflating claims
10.2.6
Acknowledging the limitations
10.2.7
Avoid re-writing your results
10.2.8
Other discussion issues
10.3
Exercise 1
: Spotting the formula in others’ discsussion writing
10.4
Exercise 2
: Where are the different aspects discussed?
10.5
Starting to write with an outline
10.5.1
Subheadings for important points
10.6
Exercise 3
: Where are the different aspects discussed?
10.7
Writing the text
VI Part I: Week 6
11
Open Science
11.1
Open Science
12
Critical Reading: an approach for biological sciences
12.1
Positive as well as negative aspects
12.2
How to start reading critically
12.3
Exercise 1: What are you reading this for?
12.3.1
What aspects do we make notes on?
12.4
Exercise 2: Active reading
12.4.1
Not all papers are equal
12.4.2
Reflection
12.5
Exercise 3: Writing the summary
12.6
Summing up the workshop on critical reading
VII Part I: Week 7
13
Time management & Mental Health
13.1
Mental health
14
Writing your abstract
14.1
The challenge
14.2
The abstract formula
14.3
Exercise 1
: De-constructing a published abstract
14.4
Abstracts & Key-words
14.5
Exercise 2: Which key-words are already in the abstract
14.6
Abstract names and formats
14.7
Exercise 3
: Making your abstract concise
14.8
Avoiding ‘spin’
14.9
Summing up the workshop on writing your abstract
VIII Part I: Week 8
15
Submitting your work to a journal & peer review
15.1
Problems with Peer Review
16
Conducting Peer Review
16.1
Who are the peers in Peer Review?
16.2
The first read
16.3
The second read
16.3.1
Introduction
16.3.2
Materials and Methods
16.3.3
Results
16.3.4
Discussion
16.4
Deciding between Major and Minor comments
16.4.1
Minor comments
16.4.2
Major comments
16.5
Writing the review
16.5.1
Summary paragraph
16.5.2
A paragraph for each major comment
16.5.3
A list of minor comments
16.5.4
Signing off
16.6
The spirit of peer review
16.7
Exercise 1: Conducting peer review on a preprint article
16.8
Exercise 2: The second read and writing the review
16.9
Further help with conducting peer review
16.10
Summing up the workshop on conducting peer review
17
Building your
Curriculum Vitae
(CV)
17.1
Understanding the use of CVs from the employers standpoint
17.1.1
The chain of events that lead up to the job advertisement
17.1.2
You will need a new CV for every job
17.1.3
Think of your CV as a checklist
17.1.4
Getting onto the short-list
17.1.5
From the short-list to the interview
17.2
Exercise 1
: Identify the candidate requirements for your ideal job
17.2.1
Requirements for a CV template
17.2.2
Writing your personal statement
17.3
Exercise 2
: Constructing your CV
17.4
What to omit from your CV
17.4.1
If your CV is getting too long
17.5
Building your CV
17.6
Summing up this
Curriculum Vitae
workshop
IX Part I: Week 9
18
Your future in science
18.1
Writing and publishing in science
19
End of course assignment
19.1
Course Assignment
19.1.1
Don’t
19.1.2
Do
19.1.3
You will fail the course if:
19.1.4
Marks deducted for:
References
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Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0
The Thesis Writing Guide: a course for postgraduate students at Yunnan University
Chapter 5
A formula for writing
FIGURE 5.1: Please find here the video for the lecture at Week 3. View
on Bilibili
.
5.1
Planning a thesis chapter
