HOW TO WRITE A

THESIS
and survive the process
About me
• Sofia Gomes

• PhD candidate in Computer Science, from Faculdade de

Ciências e Tecnologias, NOVA

• IEEE Volunteer

• wrote a MSc and a PhD thesis

“THE” Thesis

• At least 1 (MSc) or 4 (PhD) years of work

• Developing the work can be fun (at least at first)
• Writing the thesis can be a torture
“THE Thesis” - Why it is so hard
“THE Thesis” - Why it is so hard

• It’s lonely

• It’s a lot of work and it takes time

• Involves a lot of writing

• If the thesis document is not well-written, it does not matter
that much what/how you did
• Most of engineering students are not trained to write properly

• Research means you don’t know the outcome

• and a *lot* of times you can’t reach what you want
In this talk…

• Goal: give you tips for a successful thesis

• Before starting checklist

• Overview of the writing process
• Expected thesis outline
• Writing style rules (english)
Tips before starting

Prepare yourself!

• Choose your advisor(s) carefully

• Choose your topic carefully

• Choose your writing environment

Choose your advisor(s) carefully

• (S)he will be your boss for at least a year

• Check for personality compatibility

• Ask for other colleagues experience

• Check if colleagues are finishing on time

• Very often 1 advisor is better than 2

Choose your topic carefully
Choose your topic carefully

• You will work on that for at least a year

• Make sure you like what you’re doing

• Ask and read background work before committing

• Make sure you’re solving something new

• and if not, make sure it’s still relevant
Choose your writing environment
• LaTeX vs. Word
• learn the right tool
• check how to manage bibliography
• check the document specifications
Choose your writing environment
• LaTeX vs. Word
• learn the right tool
• check how to manage bibliography
• check the document specifications

• Writing English vs. Portuguese

• English is the “science” language
• but make sure you can handle it
• British English vs. American English
• always, always use a spell checker
Most common complaints
Most common complaints
• I don’t know how to start!

• I don’t know what is expected in each section/chapter

• I can’t find that paper

• I don’t understand that work

• I’m not inspired today, I’ll do it tomorrow

The Writing
Tips when starting

“I don’t know how to start”

• Understand writing
• Writing means you have something to say
• Requires a clear knowledge about what your work and
background
• It takes time and practice!

• Writing is hard for everyone

• Don’t try to be Shakespeare
• Stop waiting for “inspiration”
• Start with the middle
Writing Process
• Prewriting (60%)
• Organize and synthetize information
• Define a take-away message
• Outline and road-map

• Write draft (10%)

• Just keep writing

• Rewrite and Revision (30%)

• Read out loud, cut the clutter, check the verbs
• Correct mistakes
• Get feedback
 Outline
Research Paper Thesis

• Abstract • Abstract

• Introduction • Introduction
• Background / Literature Review • Background / Literature Review
• “Real Work” • “Real Work”
• Evaluation and Discussion • Evaluation and Discussion
• Conclusions • Conclusions
 Thesis vs. Research Paper
Research Paper Thesis

• Limited space • “Unlimited” space

• Specialized context • Broad context

• Tackles a specific question • Tackles a large question

Thesis Outline
Recommended Writing order

• Abstract (6)

• Introduction (4/5)
• Background / Literature Review (1)
• “Real Work” - Your Results and Contributions (2)
• Evaluation and Discussion (3)
• Conclusions (4/5)
Background / Literature Review
Background Chapter
• Give the big picture of the field

• Give context and introduce seminal work

• Introduce the works that you will use

• Introduce the limitations of these works, and why they

don’t solve your problem

• Give hints on what your solution will have to address

How to find Related Work

“I can’t find that paper”
• Ask your advisor for the seminal work

• Google Scholar
• Check citations and h-index
• Most cited papers, are in principal more important

• Can’t find that paper?

• Access by your campus internet (use proxies when at home)
• Check the authors webpage / Research Gate / Citeseer
• Ask your advisor for the paper and/or email the author

• Managing references
• Use a proper tool (e.g. BibTex)
Writing about Related Work
“I can’t understand that work”

• Can’t understand what they’re doing?

• Check other papers citing this work
• Read descriptions and comparisons by other people

• Careful with plagiarism

• Never ever ever copy sentences! Use your own words

• Cite correctly!
• A citation should come after the introducing the work
Writing about Related Work
“I can’t understand that work”

• Can’t understand what they’re doing?

• Check other papers citing this work
• Read descriptions and comparisons by other people

• Careful with plagiarism

• Never ever ever copy sentences! Use your own words

• Cite correctly!
• A citation should come after the introducing the work
Your Real Work
Your results and contributions

• Be clear about what are you doing and why

• Don’t assume people are experts in your field

• Write like you were teaching some colleague

• Justify your decisions

• Restate your goals often

Evaluation and Discussion
Evaluation and Discussion
• Show what you’ve done is correct
• Empirical Testing vs. Proofs
• Graphs vs. Theorems

• Discuss and compare your results

• Don’t lie!
• But be positive on what you’ve accomplish
• Compare with related work
• Remember the reader why it is important
• State what you can do and the others can’t
• End with positive take away message
Conclusions
Conclusion Chapter
• Should be understood without reading your whole thesis

• Restate what you wanted to accomplish

• Restate have you accomplish
• Defend your results (anticipate criticism)
• Strengths and Limitations
• Future Work
• Open challenges / directions
• What would be interesting to do
• Show how awesome your thesis
• Restate the big picture, and give take away message
Introduction
Introduction
• Written for a general audience
• Clear, concise, non-technical
• Any colleague must be able to understand it
• Even your mom should be able do understand some of it

• The most important part along with the conclusions

• Keep paragraphs short and well-written

• Summarize at high-level.
• Leave details and criticisms of others’ work out
Introduction
• Introduce /define your area in general
• Artificial Intelligence is.. / Network Security aims to…
• What is known
• What is unknown
• Limitations and gaps of current works
• Your question / goal
• How will you solve it
• Why is your approach different and important
• State your contributions concisely
• Roadmap of your thesis (optional but recommended)
Abstract
Abstract

• Completely independent of your thesis

• People read the abstract to know if they will read your

thesis or not

• High-level, but not as in the introduction

• Overview of the main story

• Should fit in one page!
 Abstract
• Why you’re doing it
• Background
• Your question / goal / hypothesis

• How you’re doing it

• Methods and Experiments
• What are your key results

• How it relates to the real world

• Conclusions and implications
 Writing Style Rules *

* Most examples here were taken from the Coursera’s Course:

Writing in the Sciences
https://www.coursera.org/course/sciwrite
Writing Style Rules
• Keep it short and simple
• You’re not writing a novel
• It should be understandable
• Use a spellchecker
• Expand your vocabulary
• Read other people’s work
• Use a dictionary for synonyms

• Avoid negative sentences

• She was not often right vs. She was usually wrong
• They did not believe the drug was harmful vs. They believed the
drug was safe.
Writing Style Rules - after writing
• Read and re-read everything

• Is my sentence/section/chapter understandable?
• Is it enjoyable to read?
• can I make it better?

• Distance yourself from the work

• Wait a few days before re-reading again
• Put yourself in the reader’s shoes
• Ask for feedback
Common English Mistakes (made by portuguese)
• Don’t forget the subject
• Subject is mandatory (Use we, one, they, it)
• Sabemos que é impossível
• We know it is impossible
• One knows it is impossible

• Avoid beginning sentences with “It is…”

• É importante destacar os trabalhos recentes que…
• It is important to highlight the most recent works that…
• The most recent works that…

• Remove unnecessary that

• Os resultados mostraram que muitas pessoas gostam de fruta
• Results showed that many people like fruit
• Results showed many people like fruit
Writing Style Rules (english)
• Cut the clutter
• Conveys the same message, stronger

• Cut dead weight words and phrases

• As it is well known
• As it has been shown
• It can be regarded that
• It should be emphasized that

• Cut adverbs
• very, really, quite, basically, generally, etc.
 Cut the clutter

• A majority of • most
• A number of • many
• Are of the same opinion • agree
• Less frequently occurring • rare
• All three of the • the three
• Give rise to • cause
• Due to the fact that • because
• Have an effect • affect
Writing Style Rules (english)
• Use the active voice
• (subject + verb + object)
• helps direct communication

• It is ok to use “We” or “I”

• A solution was developed to save the world
• We develop a solution to save the world

• Gives clear meaning to what is done

• Makes you responsible for your work

• Unless it’s someone else work

• in [3] a solution was developed
• The authors of [3] developed a solution
Writing Style Rules (english)
• Write with verbs
• avoid turning verbs into nouns
• Provide a review vs. Review
• Offer a confirmation vs. Confirm
• Provide a description vs. Describe
• Take an assessment of vs. Assess

• use strong verbs

• don’t bury the main verb

• keep the subject and main verb close
Avoid turning verbs into nouns

• Compare:
• During DNA damage, recognition of H3K4me3 by ING2
results in recruitment of Sin3/HDAC and repression of
cell proliferation genes.

• With:
• During DNA damage, H3K4me3 recruits ING2 and Sin3/
HDAC, which together repress cell proliferation genes.

• Say exactly who does what to whom!

Use strong verbs
• avoid common verbs

• Compare:
• “Loud music came from speakers embedded in the
walls, and the entire arena moved as the hungry crowd
got to its feet.”

• With:
• “Loud music exploded from speakers embedded in the
walls, and the entire arena shook as the hungry crowd
leaped to its feet.”
Don’t bury the verb
• One study of 930 adults with multiple sclerosis (MS)
receiving care in one of two managed care settings or in a
fee-for-service found that only two-thirds of those needing
to contact a neurologist for a MS-related problem in the
prior 6 months had done so.

• One study found that, of 930 adults with multiple sclerosis

(MS) who were receiving care in one of two managed care
settings or in a fee-for-service setting, only two-thirds of
those needing to contact a neurologist for an MS-related
problem in the prior six months had done so.
Common english mistakes
• That vs. which

• Affect vs. effect

• They’re vs. their

• Who vs. whom

• Assure vs. ensure

Final Tips
Final Tips
• Prepare, and practice writing

• Set realistic goals and do your best to accomplish them

• Stay focus!

• Follow a schedule
• Fix an amount of working hours
• Create work habits
• (whatever works for you)

• Eat, sleep and exercise

Final Tips

• Stay optimist

• Don’t try to make it perfect

• Follow a schedule

• Ask for feedback

QUESTIONS?