Pro tips for writing your PhD thesis

Are you about to embark on the Promethean task of writing your PhD thesis? Or maybe you have already started, but you are lacking motivation and guidance? I’m here to help! Here is my list of tips for writing your thesis.

Earlier this year I undertook the challenge of writing my PhD thesis in 3 months. I had external deadlines which cut the writing time that short, and frankly before commencing I just thought that would be an appropriate amount of time for the task. By that time, I had just finished 4 years of PhD research (in quantum physics), during which I had written 2 first-author papers. I had also written scientific reports and more informal short reports for my project milestones. “I should be able to write a physics thesis!”, I thought. And yet, upon beginning to write, I found myself swimming underwater, with very few occasions to catch a breath.

Thankfully, I had an amazing supervisor, who spent a lot of time correcting over and over my first chapter, until I had it just right. This meant that I spent the first out of three months rewriting chapter 1 about 3 times, and the last two months sprinting to write up the other 8 chapters I wanted to write! Those three months were by far the most exhausting of the entire PhD. My schedule looked like this: wake up, write till lunch, have a quick lunch, write till late evening, have dinner, go to sleep, repeat. For the entire 3 months. The days started to melt into each other, weekends were no different than Wednesdays or Fridays, and the dust started to pile in the living room. I was basically either writing, or thinking about what to write. Not to mention that my husband was also writing up, and had the same schedule. Not something I’d recommend trying…

But, somehow, I survived, and I am here to tell you how! This list includes my personal writing habits, as well as habits I wish I had developed before starting to write.

Before the write-up

• Write out a very detailed outline of your thesis. This outline should include every chapter with its sections and subsections that you want to include. You are free to change this as you write, but doing this before starting will give you a sense of 1) the length of the thesis and the time it will require to write up, 2) the overall story tying the chapters, 3) the type of information you will need to look up in your lab-books and notes (if you know some of that is harder to find, don’t leave it last!). Once you have your full outline, put it into a table in your favourite editor as in the example below, and use it to track your progress:

table of writing progress

• Think long and hard about your story. A PhD thesis is a document that contains 4 or more years of scientific work. It is so so easy to get lost in the details and technical aspects, forgetting what is the main message you want to pass along. To help you in finding your story you can think about: 1) what is the central question that you have tackled? If there is more than one, list them all. 2) how does your work compare with the previous work and state of the art? 3) what is the impact of your work? what avenues does it open? If you have carried out several projects, you can think about: 1) is there anything that is common to the projects and can be used to tie them into a coherent story? 2) are those alternative ways to do the same thing? And if your projects are all very unrelated, don’t worry, that’s fine! (you may want to give a broader introduction so that all the theoretical aspects are covered, take that into account in your outline!).
• Clean up your reference manager, if you have been using one during the PhD, good for you! If you are reading this and you are still doing research and don’t have a reference manager: get one immediately! I have used mendeley desktop: https://www.mendeley.com/reference-management/reference-manager, and found it very simple to use and link directly to my bibliography on overleaf.
• Take a look at several theses from the same group or field. Pick at least 3 theses that you enjoy particularly and use those as your matrix and inspiration. Read various parts of those theses to absorb the writing style. What are they doing that you like? Note this down and incorporate it into your writing later on. Is it their images style, or the way they introduce each chapter, or maybe their footnotes?
• Discuss your outline with your supervisor and co-examiners, clarify how they like to give you corrections, is it chapter by chapter, or once the whole thesis is done? Ask how long it will take them to go through your thesis and a rough timeline.
• Think about who are you writing the thesis for. I always kept in mind my thesis was for someone in their first year of the PhD trying to repeat my work. At the same time, don’t forget you will be examined on this document, therefore you should make it airtight. A recommendation from my supervisor was the following: “write the thesis for your most annoying and pedantic colleague, the one that will dig and dig until you’ve very clearly and completely explained the stuff”.

During the write-up

• The first week: take the first week to settle into your writing routine and rhythm, you can use this time to find out what’s your writing pace and this will help you to get a rough sense of timing. You can use this to come up with goals for your writing (which can of course be adjusted as you go along), for example, you could dedicate 2 weeks for each of the introductory and theoretical background chapters. Don’t forget you will need time to implement your supervisor’s corrections.
• Send your drafts to your supervisor as early as possible. You can send him any chapter that you’ve decided to start with. Getting his/her feedback is precious, it will help you to align with a good writing style and to learn as you write. The earlier you do this process, the more you will improve and the fewer corrections you will need on your later chapters.
• Do not exhaust yourself (especially at the beginning!). Writing a thesis is like running a long long marathon, you will need all the energy, you don’t want to use it all up in the first month! Make sure you incorporate breaks into your day, and do some activity. I learnt this the hard way, I did not take enough breaks, nor did I move enough. By the end of the second month my health was a mess, and I was trying to power through. I had to take steps back and listen to my body more carefully. So take your time, and take care of yourself during this period more than you would normally!
• Some chapters are easier to write than others, leave the easy chapters for the end, you will be quite tired by then and be thankful for this decision.
• Pick a LateX template you like that allows you to compile each chapter separately, and keep compilations errors to zero.
• Select your favourite data analysis and plotting program and stick with it. This may be Python or Mathematica, make up a nice plot template and use the same for all your plots. You may want to select the program you are most familiar with and the one you can create lots of plots with the fastest.
• Writing up is not really the time to come up with new things, it should rather be a snapshot of what’s happened till now and what’s already in your head. Of course, if your timing is flexible (many many months), you can take some time to go into more depth into a couple of topics, but I would not recommend working your whole thesis out during the write-up (particularly if you are short on time).
• Do your referencing as you are writing up (i.e. do not leave referencing for the end).
• Do your image captions as you are writing up. Captions should fit in with the text.
• Set yourself daily goals and reward yourself! You may give yourself a 1 or 2 pages daily goal, and reward with a dinner out, or watching your fav tv-series, treat-yoself!
• Be consistent. This goes for both writing style (tenses, style) and for visuals (images, plots).
• Avoid vague words and sentences (the distance is around 300 mm -> the distance is 280 mm), try to be as precise as possible and to explain everything in detail.
• Ask your colleagues and peers to go through your chapters once you’ve included your supervisor’s corrections. They might have interesting comments or questions to add. Even just one extra pair of eyes is very useful!
• And of course, keep going and keep your eyes on the prize! Writing a thesis is a though task, but you have all the skill and knowledge to accomplish it! Believe in yourself and your skills!

I hope this list of tips for writing a PhD thesis is useful to you! Did I miss something? Do get in touch or add your thoughts in the comments!