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Nathan

Skimming

Daily Post

It’s really tempting to only read the good parts of your thesis.

When you’re done and you’re preparing for your viva, it’ll feel good to read the parts you’re most proud of. The chapter where you reach your amazing conclusions. The masterful description of your methodology. And then within those chapters, you’ll know that there are sections which are superb. You zero in on your favourite paragraphs.

You glance at the rest, because, yeah, you know what’s in your thesis, you wrote it after all. You are in a good position to know what is most important, most valuable, in your thesis. But it’s all necessary. Everything in your thesis has a reason or a purpose or a value, otherwise it wouldn’t be there.

So don’t skip. Don’t skim. Read it all. That could be hard, but read it all at least once after submission – if for no other reason that you can then be sure about what is there. You don’t have a false memory of a chapter or section.

Don’t skip the “bad” stuff because you need to know what’s there. Don’t skip the good stuff because everything can be reinforced and made better.

Nathan

Best Bit

Daily Post

My favourite thing in my thesis is on pages 33 and 34. I struggled for a couple of weeks on a single detail that I needed in order to prove the most important result in my research. I couldn’t get it. I knew what I needed and I knew intuitively it was true, but I couldn’t see the step.

And one day I took a break, and realised that the result I was aiming for was far bigger than what I needed. I was trying to slice bread with a chainsaw, but couldn’t get the damn thing to start.

As I realised that I needed a much smaller result to prove what I needed, I knew exactly how to prove it! It was a huge feeling of elation after a string of disappointed days. As I wrote down my proof, I realised that this tiny result could also be generalised: I’d spotted the blockage on the chainsaw, and now had the stronger result that I’d not been able to get.

I had a brief tug of war between satisfaction and frustration; thankfully satisfaction won out.

Three-and-a-half questions:
What’s the smallest meaningful result in your thesis?
What are you most satisfied or frustrated by in your research?
What’s the best bit of your thesis? Why?

Stepping back when doing research is important. Stepping back afterwards helps you grow.

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