WRITING SKILLS

Writing a thesis

Here are three top tips to help you on your way:

Start in the middle, e.g. the General Methods chapter or your first data chapter.

Avoid finishing a writing session at the end of a section. It is much easier to start again from the middle of a section.

Use computers to make your life easier and save time.

Computers are excellent at performing repetitive tasks. Repetitive tasks can take up a huge amount of your time if you do them yourself and can be prone to errors. It is always best to spend a day or two learning short cuts, because it will save you many hours of boredom. The pay off from learning the short cuts is probably small for a short document. Your thesis is different, you are going to need all the help that is available!

Writing a scientific paper

Definition:

'An acceptable primary scientific publication must be the first disclosure containing sufficient information to enable peers:

to assess observations

to repeat experiments

to evaluate intellectual processes '

(Council of Biology Editors, quoted in Day (1989))

Format of a scientific paper

Most scientific papers are written in sections under the headings:

Title

Abstract

Introduction

Materials and Methods

Results

Discussion

References

Other formats may be used for papers that are primarily descriptive or a review of the literature and many journals publush short 'Notes' or 'Short Communications' that may not adhere strictly to this format.

1. There are many ways of designing a style of text, storing that information and letting a computer switch automatically between styles as necessary. You will want different formats for titles, headings, subheadings and text.

You should obtain details from current pamphlets and manuals produced by the computer centre.

Starting point for Word 5 on a Mac:

Write some text in the style you want;

select it;

go to STYLE under the FORMAT menu and give it a name;

click on OK.

This style is now stored under the second arrow at the top left of the box you are typing in.

2. Use the PARAGRAPH option under FORMAT to standardise your pattern of spacing for each text style. Possibilities include:

All titles to be placed at the top of a fresh page. (Insert page break before title text style.)

Sub headings to be indented. (Just specify the width of the indentation from the left margin.)

The first line of text can be indented, to start the paragraph. (Specify width of indentation for first line.)

3. You can tell the computer to number your sections automatically. You can then easily insert a section at any point and the computer will automatically renumber all subsequent sections.

An added bonus is that this information can be used to create an updated contents page. There will be no need to go through your document painstakingly in order to find out which pages all your sections are on.

Starting point for Word 5 on a Mac: Go to RENUMBER under the TOOLS menu. Note: choosing 1.1 instead of 1 under the RENUMBER section will number by building up numbers according to the indentation level of the text retaining the number at the superior level.

4. Use the FIND and REPLACE functions. (These functions can be found under the EDIT menu in Word 5 on a Mac.) Using REPLACE you can ask the computer to find all the cases where you have written something and change it to something else. For example: change "best of a bad-job strategy" into "bodge-job strategy". Indentation, numerals and symbols can also be selected. You can also delete all cases of your selection instead of replacing them with other things.

5. Similar short cuts can be made in formatting graph and table styles in "Cricket Graph" for instance.

Packages vary and are changing rapidly, but the general rule is: If you find yourself doing something very repetitive make the effort to find out whether the computer can do it for you.

Force yourself to be fairly organised from the beginning and you will save yourself a lot of work at the end (when your motivation may be running short) as you reach the tidying up stage.

Students are warned that the University of Leicester treats plagiarism very seriously

Plagiarism is the deliberate use of someone else's words without attribution.

It is permissible to use ideas and arguments from other people's writing, provided you restate them in your own words.

If you wish to quote another person's work, always indicate that it is a quotation.

No credit is given for plagiarised work.

If in doubt about plagiarism, consult your tutor or supervisor.

Don't plagiarise !

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©University of Leicester, 1997. Writing Skills for Postgraduates and Other Research Scientists, Lucy Birkinshaw and Professor Robert Smith. Based on a pamphlet originally prepared by Robert Ash for the Faculty of Social Sciences. Web-editors: Ted Gaten and Magnus Johnson

Last updated: May 2003
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