What’s stopping you?

Well maybe what’s missing is The Big Idea that is going to

make everything come together and hang together.

A good (social science, arts and humanities and some sciences) thesis depends on
you finding your Big Idea. The one sentence which sums up what it is that you think
you now know that you didn’t when you started. The one sentence that lets you
construct the chapters and say what they add up to.

Le discussion.
Well, we didn’t write this book.

(But a lot of the material can be found in the book we did write for supervisors
Helping doctoral students write.)

Finding the Big Idea isn’t always easy. And of course some people do get away
without one. However, most people do need The Big Idea to make their argument.

The Big Idea is your one minute answer to the question, What did you find in your
research? And you don’t have to wait until someone asks you this question. You can
ask it of yourself, particularly as you are working with your data, what it is that
you think that you can see emerging? And as you get to the point where you start
writing, ask the What did you find? question then – it’s a really helpful start to
planning your thesis structure.

Focussing on Your Big Idea is not as scary as ‘making the contribution’,

‘discussing the results’. The Big Idea is a scaffold to the necessary thinking and
writing. Getting hold of it and saying it in simple straightforward words also
helps you write an abstract or a road map, plan chapters by amassing the pieces
necessary for storyboarding or writing chapter Tiny Texts. That’s because starting
with your problem and working right to the Big Idea – drum roll, Ta Da – gives you
the red thread that will guide the reader through the text.

Do I write like this? Oh yes absolutely. I always sort out my Big Idea when I start
to write a paper or a book.

And it was actually my own PhD supervisor who taught me that The Big Idea was
helpful as a writing process. He once gave me twenty four hours to come back to him
with my thesis chapter outlines. He didn’t suggest I needed a Big Idea, as I
remember it, but I found I had to have one to get my task done within the time
limit he set.

And afterwards I learnt that getting The Big Idea and an outline made my writing go
really quickly. (Thanks Richard.) So I do the same. I always ask for The Big Idea
from the doctoral researchers I work with too.

ShuadcuhBSnvkx;l nUcajdjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj