#40 One Thesis, One Story

Read time: 4 min.

Anyone who wrote a PhD thesis knows it’s a big task.

In short, you try to turn several years of research into a single story.

You have so much information that it’s super easy to get lost in the details.

And you lose track of your main message.

Here, I want to go through some strategies to help you find the story of your research.

These steps help you do the following:

- Identify the central theme(s) in your thesis

- Connect multiple studies under a single and clear story

- And create an engaging narrative to present your work

Generally, when you worked so much on various studies, it’s difficult to step back to see the bigger picture. Ask yourself, what’s my story?

A few tips I want to share here.

1. Identify your key themes 

 Start with all your research questions.

List them and look for connections.

What’s common there?

Some questions to help you do so:

- Why did I choose these questions? 

- What bigger issues do they address? 

- How do they impact the field?

2. The context of your research 

 Show why your research matters by placing it within current literature.

Compare your findings to other studies and show how they fill gaps or challenge existing ideas.

 Ask yourself the following:

- What gaps does my research fill? 

- How are my findings unique? 

- What new insights do I add?

- Why are they important?

3. Highlight your Impact and Contribution

 Make it clear how your findings matter, both in your field and beyond.

 Some questions to get started?

 - What problems does my research tackle? 

 - How could my findings be applied? 

 - What future research could my work inspire?

Also, try to zoom out from your niche/research questions and bring a broader context into the story.

4. Multiple projects under one umbrella 

My dissertation was article-based, with 7 chapters:

1 intro, 5 independent studies, 1 conclusion. 

 I had to connect the 5 independent studies. How?

By finding the common themes (region under study), methods (trends and quantitative/qualitative methods), and findings that tie them together.

 Here are some questions that can help you: 

 - What question links all my projects? 

 - How do they build on each other? 

 - What story do they tell as a whole?

5. A clear narrative 

 Structure your thesis like a story.

My projects were varied, so I used an introduction that gives a broad overview.

Guide readers with clear transitions. There needs to be a flow

 Some practical tips: 

 - Open with an engaging intro. 

 - Use transitions to guide readers through each chapter. 

 - Wrap up with a strong conclusion that emphasizes your main contributions and future directions.

6. Get Feedback

Writing takes time. It’s a whole process.

Many drafts/versions to be reviewed as much as possible.

Share them with your supervisor(s), peers, and colleagues.

Get feedback from them on clarity, coherence, and flow.

 Ask them to check the following points: 

 - Clarity of your themes 

 - How well you compare with other studies 

 - Are your arguments impactful enough 

 - Consistency across chapters 

 - Overall engagement and flow

Writing a strong PhD thesis may be challenging.

But if you focus on your research questions, the main themes and impact, you can write a nice story.

Good luck with your writing journey!

Let us know in the comments if you have other suggestions.

As always, if you need clarification or assistance with your research projects, feel free to reach out to me, and I will respond.

See you next Sunday!

Jamal

My favorite things this week

1. 2 Public webinars (English and French) covering the 2024 highlights of Web of Science and InCites

3. A training session with Moroccan researchers in collaboration with IMIST and CNRST on how to use InCites to analyze the impact of researchers and institutions.