Mantex

Tutorials, Study Guides & More

>> Home / Archives for Education

Handwriting of the Twentieth Century

by

history and development of modern graphology

Rosemary Sassoon is a distinguished expert on handwriting, and a typographist celebrated for her font Sassoon Prima, which helps young school pupils learn to read and write. In her latest book, Handwriting of the Twentieth Century, she looks at the effects which various teaching methods and models of good practice have had in the period from 1900 to the present. She charts developments in the teaching and study of handwriting, showing how changing educational policies, economic forces and technological advance have combined to alter the priorities and form of handwriting.

Handwriting of the Twentieth Century Every page is suffused with a love of her subject and a concern for the people she is writing about. This ‘long and sometimes sorry story’ tells also of the sheer pain and hard work of children forced to follow the style of the day, and of the reformers who have sought to simplify the teaching and learning of handwriting.

What emerges very clearly is that handwriting styles pass through various fashions and styles – which is why we can put a rough date on examples – even including our own. The general process she illustrates is one of a gradual move from the ornate copperplate of the Victorian period, to various forms of cursive Italic which are common now.

The book is beautifully illustrated throughout with examples from copybooks and personal handwriting from across the world. She ends with a comparative study of developments in continental Europe and America during the same period – and where the lessons to be learned are exactly the same.

This book is a historical record of techniques, styles and methods. But it also a passionate study of everyday typography, informed by a deep knowledge of her subject. It will be of interest to educationalists, people in teacher training, plus cultural sociologists and historians – as well as typographists and graphologists.

© Roy Johnson 2007

Buy the book at Amazon UK

Buy the book at Amazon US

Rosemary Sassoon, Handwriting of the Twentieth Century, Bristol: Intellect, 2007, pp.208, ISBN: 0415178827

More on typography
More on theory
More on typography
More on digital media

How to be a Student

by

100 great ideas and practical habits on student life

There are lots more guidance books on study skills than there used to be. In the past it was assumed you would pick up the necessary skills as you went along, or by some sort of mystical osmosis. It’s good that educational institutions have been forced to make themselves more transparent – but there’s still a long way to go, which is what makes books like How to be a Student helpful for would-be students. It would be useful for anyone entering further or higher education.

How to be a StudentThis spells out what’s required at a really basic and practical level. Making sure you turn up to your lectures for instance, and what to do when you get there. Learning about the complexities of plagiarism, and how to develop your own voice when writing essays. How to deliver presentations with confidence and style. Everything is spelt out in short, clear manageable chunks, so there is nothing which should overwhelm the people who the book is aimed at.

And it’s not all study skills. The authors also cover topics such as dealing with periods of boredom and knowing when it’s time to teak a break; preventing small problems from growing to become big obstacles; plus dealing with finance and not letting money problems get in the way of your studies.

The good thing about this book is that it’s based on real life and it deals with the actual problems many students face. There’s advice about phoning home, drinking, personal relationships, dealing with boredom, coping with bureaucracy, and even what to eat to feel better.

They cover writing skills, reading skills, revision and exam skills too – but these are taken alongside all the other personal issues as sources of potential worry and uncertainty which these guidance notes seek to dispel.

If you need advice on all these topics written in a manner which is friendly and non-patronising manner, this is a good place to start.

© Roy Johnson 2005

How to be a Student   Buy the book at Amazon UK

How to be a Student   Buy the book at Amazon US

Sarah Moore and Maura Murphy, How to be a Student, Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2005, pp.138, ISBN: 0335216528

More on study skills
More on writing skills
More on online learning

How to Get a Good Degree

by

making the most of your time at university

The quick answer to how to get a good degree is of course to graduate with first class honours from a world class university. But such advice is about as reductively simplistic as Paul Getty’s ironic formula for getting rich: “Rise early. Work late. Strike oil.” Obviously there’s a lot more to it than that, and Phil Race’s guidelines are based on the realistic supposition that most students need support and guidance throughout the whole of their three years as an undergraduate. It’s a supposition that is sadly true more than ever in the current academic climate (in the UK at least). Tutors are under government pressure to produce ‘research’ (which few people read) and many of their original teaching commitments have been sub-contracted to part-time teachers and postgraduate students.

How to Get a Good DegreeThe net result is that students need the skills to support themselves through their coursework and assessments. Race starts off by covering issues such as motivation and self-awareness via a series of checklists in which students make a judgement of their current attitudes – with a view to enhancing them to improve their chances. In this way they can come to understand the basic processes of successful learning.

Students are urged to make an audit of their strengths and develop the skills of effective time-management. This is followed by learning to get more out of lectures, plus the significant differences between taking and making notes.

He also covers the skills required to make profitable use of small group tutorials, seminars, field work, laboratory work, and even work-based learning. There’s a whole chapter on learning from feedback on written work, showing students what they can gain in addition to the assessment of quality based on the mark awarded.

Then comes a major section on making the best of ‘learning resources’. These can be anything from lecture handouts, student support services, to the library and making intelligent Internet searches.

But the life of a student isn’t all intellectual work and enquiry. So he also covers personal aspects of student life – such as where to live, how to cope with a part-time job, and how to develop your computer skills.

Finally, though it might well have come first, he deals with the issue of improving your assessed course work. This includes essay writing skills, making presentations, completing projects, and how to do practical work. He tops this off with revision and examination skills, so by the time you come to the end of the book, just about every conceivable aspect of undergraduate life has been covered.

After that, it’s up to any student to apply all this excellent advice. If that’s done as thoroughly as it’s all been explained, the result should be a good degree.

© Roy Johnson 2007

How to Get a Good Degree   Buy the book at Amazon UK

How to Get a Good Degree   Buy the book at Amazon US

Phil Race, How to Get a Good Degree, Open University Press: Maidenhead, 2nd edn, 2007, pp.272, ISBN: 033522265X

More on study skills
More on writing skills
More on online learning

How to get an academic teaching job

by

advice, tips, and templates for humanities PhDs

An academic teaching job is a golden objective, but not an easy goal to achieve. If you’ve made it through your first degree, then a masters or a PhD, the chances are that you would really like a university teaching post. After all, this would mean a light work load; long holidays; free sabbatical terms; conference trips abroad; you’re paid to read and write; and the job carries a little bit of social prestige. It’s an attractive proposition. But everyone knows that the number of available posts is shrinking fast, and the competition to secure them is enormous.

Academic teaching Job It’s increasingly difficult to get your foot even onto the first rung of the ladder. University departments everywhere are packed with young (and not so young) graduate teaching assistants hoping that their few hours of part-time teaching are going to be magically transformed into a full time post.

Kathryn Hume is a professor of English at Penn State University, and she has obviously made a close study of the job application process. This guidance manual is packed with tips to help you succeed or at least survive the many applications you will have to make before you land that appointment.

The American system of application is preliminary (conference) interviews to draw up a shortlist of possible candidates. These are followed by in-depth on-Campus interviews and presentations. UK and European readers can be sure that armed with the suggestions and advice laid out here, they will be well prepared for anything that can be thrown at them.

The first part of the book is concerned with making sure your documentation is in order. You need to present yourself on paper as persuasively as possible – and she explains how maximise your chances of being selected for an interview. There are all sorts of interesting little tips – such as the fact that your curriculum vitae does not need ‘Your Name – Curriculum Vitae’ as a bold heading – because it is obvious that’s what it is, and it will only be looked at along with everybody else’s.

The same goes for the interview. She recommends lots of practice – answering questions out loud to yourself or with friends. You should learn how to describe your own thesis in about ninety seconds without using jargon – because you will be speaking to people from other disciplines. And you should even practise wearing your interview clothes beforehand, so that you don’t feel uncomfortable. But there’s a lot more, thoughtful, and in-depth detail and warnings.

Remove whimsical quotations from the signature in your email. Clean up your online presence. Remove all photos of yourself looking drunk or less than properly clad from Facebook, Flickr, and other such networking sites. Even pictures of you enjoying a beach vacation will suggest that you have not been devoting yourself to serious professional work … committees routinely check out such sites, and deans take seriously any party-animal pictures or blogs that rant (no matter what the subject matter or stance).

Even if you succeed at the interview, it’s not all over. Because there’s the very delicate yet crucial issue of the job offer. You are in a very vulnerable position – because you want the job. The crucial piece of advice here is – don’t accept any offer until it’s in writing. The grounds for this argument are that the head of the interview panel might make you a verbal offer, the conditions and salary of which are changed when the head gets back to ratify matters with the budget-holding dean of the faculty.

Whilst searching for a job, you will also need to be converting your dissertation (or preferably thesis) into a book. This too is immeasurably more difficult than it used to be – because of cutbacks in educational funding and the cost of producing academic publications, which are only likely to sell to a small audience. You need to know quite a lot about how specialist and academic presses work to even secure a chance of being considered, let alone published. And – brace yourself! – you may even need to secure funding to generate a ‘subsidy’ for the publisher.

She even covers the worst case of what do you do if you don’t manage to secure a job. The main options are visiting professorship; postdoc work; an appointment in further education or a community college; a non-teaching post in administration or publishing; and the somewhat dangerous option of teaching abroad. It’s dangerous because you may never get back.

The advice doesn’t stop there. She even continues on the assumption that you manage to secure an untenured appointment, where you will be on probation for quite some time. Here you need to become aware of what she calls ‘academic politics’. Her advice is essentially a very cautious ‘keep your head down and stay out of trouble’ approach – but I enjoyed her accounts of departmental in-fighting and the secret codes and booby-traps of staff meetings.

The book also has a huge set of appendices offering multiple practical examples of CVs, letters of application, thesis descriptions, pedagogic philosophies, teaching portfolios, and evidence of teaching effectiveness. All of these cover a wide range of humanities subjects, including English, Rhetoric, Communication Skills, History, Art History, Comparative Literature, and French.

Buy the book at Amazon UK

Buy the book at Amazon US

© Roy Johnson 2011

Kathryn Hume, Surviving your Academic Job Hunt: Advice for Humanities PhDs, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2nd edition, 2010, pp.227, ISBN: 0230109462

More on study skills
More on writing skills
More on online learning

How to give seminar presentations

by

tips for effective communication skills

1. Seminar presentations are short informal talks giving the results of your researches into a topic on the course. You are sharing your ideas or discoveries in a way that gives seminar participants an opportunity for discussion. These seminar presentations form a normal part of the teaching and learning process in postgraduate studies.

2. The person who will learn most from this exercise is you. The act of investigating sources, digesting information, and summarising other people’s work will help to clarify these matters in your mind.

3. You will also develop your confidence in handling information, making useful notes, and presenting an argument.

4. Unles the topic has been given to you by the course requirements, you can usually choose your own. Select something which reflects your own particular interests. If you are in any doubt, check with your tutor.

5. Topics will vary from one discipline to another. They might be:

  • a ‘reading’ of a set text from the course, applying one critical theory
  • the report of an investigation or an experiment
  • a ‘literature’ review which surveys existing knowledge
  • a response to one of the tutorial topics from the course materials

6. A seminar presentation should not try to imitate an academic essay. It is better to offer a presentation on something smaller and more specific, rather than the type of general question posed in a coursework essay.

7. Don’t write down the presentation verbatim. Make outline notes, then speak to these notes using the set text(s), any critical theory, and your own extended notes as backup material.

8. If you have the resources, it is a nice courtesy to provide other members of the group with a copy of your outline notes.

9. Overhead projection facilities will often be available if you wish to show transparencies. Otherwise, photocopies of any illustrative material will be perfectly acceptable.

10. In more formal, public settings, PowerPoint presentations are now the expected norm – possibly with embedded web links and video clips.

Suggested Headings

The general headings for your notes may vary according to the topic of your choice and the approach you adopt. Here’s an example for a presentation in literary studies at post-graduate level. The following may be used – from which you should be able to see that some form of logical progression is required.

The set text
Explain which edition you are using, and any special considerations. You might indicate which different editions exist, and what led to your choice. In other words, you are explaining your selection of source materials.

The course topic or seminar question
You might say why you have chosen the seminar topic, or why it seems significant. If possible, you should relate it to the other major issues of the course. You are explaining why this issue or topic is worthy of consideration.

The critical theory
Give a brief summary of the origin and principles of any critical theory you will be applying. This will help to ‘situate’ your remarks. This is almost the equivalent of describing the experimental method in a scientific report.

Your own argument
Give a general summary of what you have to say, and its relation to the course as a whole. Make the stages of your argument clear, and indicate the conclusion to which they lead.

Scholarly details
You should provide full bibliographical details of any texts you use during the course of the presentation.

Topics for discussion
A good presentation should lead to questions or further issues raised by the subject of your enquiry. Including these issues as part of your conclusion should lead naturally into a discussion amongst the seminar participants.

© Roy Johnson 2009

How to Survive your Viva

by

defending a thesis in an oral examination

This is the first book of its type (in the UK) to focus entirely on this one short but vital part of the PhD process. It’s a vital stage in gaining your degree, yet most people make surprisingly little preparation for it. Rowena Murray starts off with a look over research on the viva in an attempt to learn what we know about what goes on ‘behind closed doors’. The answer is that we don’t know a lot, which is her justification for writing the book. How to Survive your Viva gets straight down to defining the viva and its purpose – which is not as easy as it might seem, because practice varies from one institution to another, and the process is often shrouded in secrecy.

How to Survive your VivaShe makes this even more scary by pointing to the reason: there isn’t even a set of universally agreed criteria for what constitutes a successful PhD. Her advice is grounded in experience, and is perfectly sound. For instance, on the common occurrence of ‘pass subject to revisions’ which often seems so disappointing when candidates hear the words spoken, she offers this reassurance:

The viva is built up to be ‘the end’ of the doctoral process, but in reality the doctorate does not end with the viva. There is almost always some more work to do… Since the most common outcome is a pass with revisions and/or corrections, then you are not quite finished. Nor is it the end of the world if you have to do some more work; most people do. Do not, therefore, let the stakes get too high, so that it will seem like the end of the world if you have more work to do. Do not do that to yourself.

When it comes to preparing for the viva, she offers an amazingly thorough checklist of questions to ask your institution. These range from ‘Can I have a copy of the university’s code of practice on the conduct of the doctoral examination?’ to ‘Can I have a copy of the examiner’s form to be used in my viva?’

Students have far more extensive ‘consumer powers’ these days, and you have every right to ask for such information. You will certainly be much better prepared with it in your possession.

Her next chapter offers a timetable of what to do in the last few weeks leading up to the event, followed by how to handle the different types of questions likely to be raised in the interview, including what to do if you get stuck or flummoxed.

There is even a whole chapter on answering questions, striking the right attitude, responding to challenges, and even doing presentations. She also recommends mock vivas, shows you how to cope with the revisions, and how to recover from the whole experience afterwards.

My own PhD viva had some bad moments because I invited an extra examiner who didn’t really need to be there – and he decided to make waves (because he had no personal investment in the process). If I had read this book first, I wouldn’t have made that mistake. It’s a crucial moment in your academic career. The price of a book like this will repay itself a hundredfold in your first year of subsequent employment.

© Roy Johnson 2009

How to Survive your Viva   Buy the book at Amazon UK

How to Survive your Viva   Buy the book at Amazon US

Rowena Murray, How to Survive your Viva, Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2009, pp.208, ISBN: 0335233821

More on study skills
More on writing skills
More on online learning

How to Win as a Final-year Student

by

writing, study, and life skills for undergraduates

This is a book of skills and strategies for students facing their last year of undergraduate studies. It covers the problems of writing longer essays, reports, and dissertations, passing exams, and preparing for future employment. A final-year student faces a particular set of challenges. What you do in your final year is critical to your future. You must cope with revision for final exams, as well as completing course-work and sometimes working on extended dissertations or projects. At the same time you need to be taking strategic decisions about your future career. You might also be handling job applications and interviews, or going though the selection process for entry into postgraduate study.

Final-year StudentPhil Race has produced a guide which covers all these problems. His basic approach is very practical. The book is packed with checklists, action plans, and self-assessment exercises. All the advice is sensible and realistic, and it is geared to help you work out your best solutions. What I particularly liked was the fact that it recognises the uncertainties of the final year. You often need to plan for two or three different eventualities, depending on the outcome of your exam results. This is very stressful – and Race recognises the fact, then provides solutions for coping.

In the latter part of the book, Race even looks ahead to preparing you for job interviews. How to assemble a curriculum vitae; how to prepare for interviews; and how to get through tests. However, not all final year students want to go into business, so he also covers what should be taken into account if you are contemplating post-graduate research.

This is a good addition to the excellent series of study skills guides from Open University Press. I only wish books like this had been available when I was in my final year.

© Roy Johnson 2005

How to Win as a Final-year Student   Buy the book at Amazon UK

How to Win as a Final-year Student   Buy the book at Amazon US

Phil Race, How to win as a final-year student: essays, exams and employment, Buckingham, UK: Open University Press, 2005, pp.181, ISBN: 0335205119

More on study skills
More on writing skills
More on online learning

How to write a personal statement

by

making a good impression on paper

What is a personal statement?

A personal statement is an account of your own qualities, skills, and ambitions which is made to accompany job applications, funding bids, sponsorship requests, and applications for a place in further or higher education.

Think of it as being like a personal introduction, presenting yourself to an individual or an organization, and putting a human personality to a formal request.

Personal Statement

do yours with a word-processor

A personal statement is separate from your curriculum vitae (CV) which lists your formal qualifications and your previous experience.

A personal statement is most commonly required in the UK by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) when you are applying for a place at a university.

The personal statement is where you can tell your preferred universities why they should offer you a place on the course you have chosen.

Who will read a personal statement?

The reader of your statement will be a potential employer, a personnel manager, or an admissions tutor in your chosen faculty of study – arts, science, or technology.

The admissions tutor might be a lecturer on your chosen course (if you are lucky). He or she will decide whether to offer you a place on the course or an interview, based on the information you have written on the form.

First they will look at your academic achievements and decide whether you seem capable of completing their course.

Then they will read your personal statement, and judge whether you are the kind of person who has the motivation and personality to complete the course successfully.

First impressions

Your personal statement is an opportunity to make a positive impression. You will need to convince them that you are also a person who should be accepted on the course or considered for employment.

You need to show the reader that you are:

  • able to express the reasons for your choice of course
  • motivated, and committed to your subject
  • aware of your career options and have some clear ambitions
  • somebody who has outside interests, apart from your studies

You may be applying to several different universities in the hope of securing a place. But your personal statement should not be identical in each case. You need to tailor the statement to your chosen subject of study, or the ethos of the institution.

The same would be true of a personal statement made in conjunction with a job application. You’re trying to convince that particular employer that you are suitable for the position and interested in working for the company.

The same would be true if you were applying for a bursary, a grant, or funding of some kind. Your personal statement confirms that there is a fully rounded human being making the application. It is also an opportunity to say what you would do with the funding if it were granted.

Interviews

If the university or the employer does not interview prospective applicants, then a personal statement is your only chance to convince them to accept you.

Many institutions and employers no longer conduct interviews with all prospective applicants, because of the costs involved. They make a preliminary choice by skim reading through written applications, and only interview the few they select on written evidence.

If you are offered an interview, the interviewers will use the personal statement as a starting point for the questions they ask you. So it’s important for your statement to be interesting, fresh, and honest.

If you’ve written something which isn’t true, you’re likely to become confused if you’re asked a question about it at the interview.

Warning

There are lots of web sites that show you examples of personal statements. Many of them ask you to pay for this service. You should avoid using these services because they may encourage you to do two things:

  • pay to see other people’s personal statements
  • copy parts of other peoples statements instead of writing your own original words

It’s far better to write your own statement, honestly and imaginatively. Everyone is different, and you should be proud of your achievements and aspirations, and pleased to express them.

You can apply online using the UCAS Apply system – but you should prepare all your information in advance.

Use the UCAS guidelines if necessary.

How to write the personal statement

Don’t imagine you can sit down and write your personal statement in one attempt. First you need to plan the structure of the statement, and then generate its content in several drafts.

Planning

Sit down and make a list of all the general areas you might wish to cover in your statement. The list might include items such as:

  • hobbies
  • personal achievements
  • part-time jobs
  • life skills
  • social activities
  • special interests

If the personal statement is to accompany a curriculum vitae (CV) do not list your formal educational qualifications or a record of your employment.

These items should be arranged to create a clear structure. Show your first ideas to family and friends. They might think of skills or advantages that you possess but have taken for granted or forgotten.

Here are some general points about generating ideas for writing your personal statement.

Multiple drafts

Do it all your preliminary writing in rough first, and be prepared to do two or three versions before you get the right combination of words.

Do not be tempted to cut and paste materials off the Internet. There are now plagiarism checkers which will spot text that has been copied from somewhere else.

If you are applying to university, try to link your hobbies and experience(s) to the courses you are applying for. You need to show why you are interested in your chosen subject.

Write the final draft in short clear sentences, and use short paragraphs that make the content easy to read. Use sub-titles that indicate clearly what each section is about.

When you have produced your final draft – no matter how long it has taken – always check your spelling, grammar, and punctuation before submitting the final document.

© Roy Johnson 2014

More on How-To
More on literary studies
More on writing skills

How to write a thesis abstract

by

tutorial – guidance notes – example – tips

A thesis abstract – definition

A thesis abstract is a digest or a shorter version of the whole thesis. The abstract draws out in summary what’s in the complete thesis. It might also be known as a précis or a synopsis. The term abstract derives from the Latin ab— (away from) and tract— (to draw).

Purpose of an abstract

The original purpose of an abstract is to give an overview of the whole work. This enables a reader to determine the relevance of the thesis for their own purposes.

For instance, a librarian might read the abstract in order to know how to catalogue the thesis. Specialist researchers would read the abstract to see if the work as a whole covered the same topic on which they were working.

The function of the abstract is to prepare the reader for the full document. This is why the substance of the abstract must reflect the essence of the research in terms of —

  1. topic
  2. focus of the hypothesis
  3. methodology
  4. results
  5. rationale

For a supervisor, it sets the work in a useful context of overview. For a fellow student it facilitates research by indicating the content in summary and therefore making selection of resources more efficient.

Form

The abstract is a detachable, unbound section of the thesis normally comprising a single A4 page.

Length

The abstract should be very concise – maybe as little as a single paragraph of (say) 500 words. That’s why an abstract is quite difficult to write. You need to compress the whole of the thesis into an abbreviated series of statements, omitting illustrative details. There is no room for any padding. It requires good summarizing skills.

Example

Here’s an example of an abstract from a study of fire in plant-mammal interactions. Below it is an edited version showing that the abstract follows the criteria enumerated above.

The Latitudinal Defense Hypothesis predicts that levels of defense are highest near the equator and decrease toward the poles. This hypothesis is based mainly on insect herbivory that occurs during the summer. Mammilian herbivory in the winter is a more likely driver of plant defense levels in northern latitudes. Early successional trees such as birches are favored by fire and provide an important food source for mammals like snowshoe hares. In order to test the Latitudinal Defense Hypothesis, we collected birch seeds from eight locations in northwestern Canada and grew seedlings in a common garden. We assessed levels of defense by counting resin glands because resin glands are negatively correlated with snowshoe hare preference. This research will provide valuable information regarding the biogeography of defense and address the role of fire in plant-mammal interactions on a continental scale.

Analysis of an example abstract

1. Initial statement of the overall topic.

The Latitudinal Defense Hypothesis predicts that levels of defense are highest near the equator and decrease toward the poles. This hypothesis is based mainly on insect herbivory that occurs during the summer.

2. Brief statement of the specific focus of the hypothesis.

Mammilian herbivory in the winter is a more likely driver of plant defense levels in northern latitudes. Early successional trees such as birches are favored by fire and provide an important food source for mammals like snowshoe hares.

3. Explanation of the methodology

In order to test the Latitudinal Defense Hypothesis, we collected birch seeds from eight locations in northwestern Canada and grew seedlings in a common garden. We assessed levels of defense by counting resin glands because resin glands are negatively correlated with snowshoe hare preference.

4. Indication of the results

We found that the number of resin glands from the seedlings raised in a common garden was less than those collected in the eight locations chosen for our study….

4. Rationale of research

This research will provide valuable information regarding the biogeography of defense and address the role of fire in plant-mammal interactions on a continental scale.

Structure of the abstract

The chronological structure of the abstract is not as important as the crucial need to include the four topics exemplified in the example given above.

In some cases, ‘Rationale’ might precede ‘Results’. But it does make obvious sense to begin with the ‘Initial statement of the topic’.

How to write the abstract

Your abstract should be written after you’ve finished your thesis. The difficult part is to summarise in one page a substantial research project which might have taken up to two years to complete.

Preparation

  1. Tell one of your enlightened peers what your thesis is about
  2. Ask if they’ve understood your account
  3. If they have understood, write down what you said as quickly as possible in rough draft
  4. If they haven’t understood, tell them again in a different way
  5. Write down that version in rough draft form

Writing process

  • Write the title of your thesis then add the word ‘abstract’
  • Type the numbered headings shown above.
  • Use your notes to fill in the content in each case.
  • Read the abstract through.
  • Remove the headings but keep the separate paragraphs
  • Tidy up the expression so that the prose is fluent
Notes

Make sure that you –

  • Write your abstract in the same style and tone as the thesis
  • Remember it’s just a taster to the main event – but like a menu it has to show what’s there
  • Include all four elements shown in the sample
  • Don’t boast about your research or your achievements in the abstract. Let the work speak for itself.
  • Don’t be tempted to rush the abstract, thinking it’s less important than the thesis. It’s all part of the same project
  • Don’t use personal references or colloquial expressions. This is a professional document.
  • Don’t include sentimental acknowledgements in the abstract.
Details

The abstract is normally written in the past tense. That’s because it is written when the research has been completed and the thesis has already been written. The abstract should also be written last.

Do not use headings in an abstract. For instance – Introduction, Objectives, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. Your explanation of the thesis should be written in continuous prose.

The abstract should be written using the third person passive mode. ‘Samples of the oxides were analysed by …’. It’s possible that the thesis itself is written using the first person – ‘I (or we) collected samples using …’ – but the abstract needs to be more impersonal and objective.

Don’t use abbreviations, contractions, and acronyms in the abstract. If this is unavoidable, you should write out the term in full the first time it is used, followed by the abbreviation in brackets. For example – “Magnetic Photo-Scanning (MPS) was used to …”

© Roy Johnson 2012

More on How-To
More on literary studies
More on writing skills

Learning from Research

by

guidance and case studies in research techniques

This is an excellent companion volume to Judith Bell’s best-selling Doing Your Research Project. Here she teams up with Clive Opie to present detailed case studies of several types of research. In Learning from Research they cover the descriptive study, the evaluative and experimental study, the ethnographic study, and the survey – as well as research skills in general. Each section of the book contains instructions on how to tackle the project, the scope of the work involved, and how to review the literature.

Learning from ResearchThere’s also a checklist of what to look for and a thoughtful bibliography, with notes on the significance of the items recommended. If you are embarking on research in the humanities or social sciences, this is offers a supportive and well-informed account of the approaches you might take. The book is based on case studies of five postgraduate students who were completing Master of Education or PhD degrees. They were researching part-time – and at a distance. All five faced sharp learning curves, and they discuss openly some of the mistakes they made, the lessons they learnt and how they might have done things differently.

They cover some of the standard tasks in research – defining the limits of a project, making a review of the literature, and obtaining permissions. The most interesting feature of this guidance manual is that it takes into account the fact that most postgraduates these days are part-time, and are often people holding down jobs.

They describe practical examples of collecting data, constructing questionnaires, and how to deal with the results. There’s also a realistic approach to the use of IT in research. Many people mistakenly believe that IT skills are highly developed in higher education – which is not true. So there is straightforward advice on data collection and analysis.

There are also plenty of suggestions for further reading, a helpful series of checklists, and a glossary of terms.

© Roy Johnson 2003

Buy the book at Amazon UK

Buy the book at Amazon US

Judith Bell and Clive Opie, Learning from Research, Buckingham: Open University Press, 2002, pp.261, ISBN 0335206603

More on study skills
More on writing skills
More on online learning

Get in touch

info@mantex.co.uk

Content © Mantex 2016