Umair - my advice would be the same for most PhD students - regardless of discipline.
There is nothing that I would have done differently - except what I learnt with hindsight. Every time I submitted a thesis chapter draft (including the first one) to my supervisors I always thought 'this will be the final draft'. It most often was not. That would demotivate me for a little while. Now that I supervise a large number of PhD students, I warn them of them of what I now know.
My tips for good writing is to choose an early chapter i.e. chapter 2 literature review and keep working on that single chapter until you and your supervisors are happy with the overall structure - especially issues such as grammar, formatting etc - and may include professional editing (if allowed). This chapter then serves as a 'shiny' benchmark for all the other chapters. This allows you to cross-reference to ensure that you don't keep repeating mistakes - which is frustrating for you and your supervisors. I encourage students to write two thesis chapter versions. One is the full 'bloated' chapter - the other is a much more summary version. The summary version serves as a potential publication and avoids the dilemma of turning a whole 100,000 word plus thesis into publications.
The attached chapter relates to writing for publication - but the process and tips can also be applied to thesis writing and also assist in the accompanying process of submitting chapters/whole thesis for publication.
I would recommend reading guidelines/comments/guidance from the examiners/reviewers/journal editors for improvement. In this regard, the following publications should be helpful.
- Cochrane, J. H. (2005) Writing Tips for Ph.D Students: Booth School of Business, University of Chiago. Available at: https://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/john.cochrane/teaching/writing/.
- Golding, C., Sharmini, S. and Lazarovitch, A. (2014) What examiners do: What thesis students should know, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 39, 5, pp. 563-576.
- Mullins, G. and Kiley, M. (2002) 'It's a PhD, not a Nobel Prize': how experienced examiners assess research theses, Studies in higher education, 27, 4, pp. 369-386.
- Ortinau, D. J. (2011) Writing and publishing important scientific articles: A reviewer's perspective, Journal of Business Research, 64, 2, pp. 150-156.
- Perry, C. (1998) A structured approach to presenting phd theses: notes for candidates and their supervisors, Australasian Marketing Journal, 6, 1, pp. 1-57.
- Ragins, B. R. (2012) Editor's comments: Reflections on the craft of clear writing, Academy of Management Review, 37, 4, pp. 493-501.
- Varadarajan, P. R. (1996) From the editor: Reflections on research and publishing, Journal of Marketing, 60, 4, pp. 3-6.
Sir,
I agree with Dr Dean,
The first impression is last long.
Should focus on abstract and initial chapters.
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