文献综述的写作流程

一、确定论文的主题

在某种意义上讲，论文选题是最重要的，因为论文的选题不好，论文也不会更好。
学生在选题时常见的五种错误：
1．对选题不感兴趣
许多学生总是在最后期限时才开始考虑选题，仓促决定，以至于在写作中没有兴趣持续下去。其实，有趣的选题不会突然出现在你的脑海中，一定要有充分的时间仔细考虑，慎重选择。
2．选题过于容易或过于保守
学生写论文的目的是为了学习，因此应该选择一个相对不太熟悉的主题（虽然不是完全陌生）是有好处的。但学生有时为了保险（或得到更好的分数）而择熟悉的主题。如果选择背景知识不很充分的选题，学生能学到更多的知识。
3．选题太难
可能学生对某个选题很感兴趣也想做得很好，但有可能会发现选题过难，许多文献都没法看懂。假如其中有许多需要某种高级统计概念，大多数本科生还从未接触，所以很难写出优秀的论文。这种任务难度大，也很耗时间，所以要确定你的选题不需要理解你的背景知识不允许你掌握的概念。
4．没有合适的文献资料
由于各种原因，心理学上许多有趣的选题尚未得到充分研究，有些是因为人们还没有仔细考虑这些问题，也有可能是因为有人考虑过但发现很难进行实验分析或其他类型的分析。这种主题就不适合做文献综述。
5．选题太宽泛
这是学生选题时最常犯的错误。写论文之前，学生对某个选题方面的文献资料的多少只有模糊的概念，教材往往只停留在表面。只有深入钻研主要的原始资料才能知道相关的文献资料的范围。一旦你暂定一个主题，不要急于为写论文做笔记，而应该编辑参考文献目录单，浏览其中的一些参考文献，这样可以避免使你的选题过于宽泛或过于狭隘。不要全盘放弃，而应该考虑如何把选题缩小。可以用以下任意一种方法来缩小你的选题。方法很多，最好根据你的选题、可用的文献及你的兴趣来确定。一定要在论文开头部分说清楚你采用的限制方法，好的标题有助于读者理解你的限定方法。
从年龄上进行限制，如是成人还是儿童或是婴儿。
从物种上进行限制，如是考虑人类还是老鼠。
从病理类型上进行限制，如是针对残疾人还是心理障碍的人。
从心理学观点进行限制，如是成人还是儿童或是婴儿。
从内容上进行限制，如只谈言语、数学或是空间问题。

二、搜索文献资料
做文献综述时准备两套记笔记的卡片将十分有用。
1．作者卡片
格式：用小的索引卡片（3×5），也可用电脑制作同样功能的虚拟卡片。在卡片上写下以后写论文时编辑资料所需要的全部信息。每一条资料来源都应该作记录。记录的形式因资料来源的特点而定：
⑴期刊文章。包括作者的姓氏、名字第一个单词和中间的单词起首的大写字母；出版年份；文章标题；期刊名称；卷号；文章的页数。卡片样本如下：
Janis, I. L., & King, B. T.(1954). The influence of role-playing on opinion change. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 49, 211-218.
⑵书籍。书的记录应该包括作者的姓氏、名字第一个单词起首的大写字母(不用名字中间的单词起首的大写字母)；出版年份；书的标题；书出版的城市名称；出版商名称。例如：
Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Evanston, Illinois: Row, Peterson.
⑶编辑而成的书。编辑成的书中的文章的记录应包括作者的姓氏、名字第一个单词和中间的单词起首的大写字母；出版年份；文章标题；书的编者；书的标题；文章在书中的页数；书出版的城市名称；出版商名称。例如：
Webb, E. J., & Salancik, J. R. (1970). Supplementing the self-report in attitude research. In G. F. Summers (Ed.), Attitude measurement (pp.317-327). Chicago: Rand McNally.
作者卡片的好处：
⑴你会有一整套参考书，不可能忘记所需要的任何一本参考书。
⑵每一个参考书都有完整的记录。
⑶论文的参考文献部分已经完成了。
2．标题卡片
格式：最好用大的索引卡片（5×7），也可用电脑制作同样功能的虚拟卡片。在每张卡片上记录：文章标题；与标题有关的信息；每条信息的来源及其你的评价。
每张卡片上只记录一个标题。用不同方式表述的标题记在同一张卡片上。每一个标题的笔记应该尽量完整，这样你今后不用再去查阅资料的来源了。要避免不能表示有用信息的与主题无关的的话。如果做论据的笔记时，确信你抓住了论据的要点，以便你今后重新组织作者的观点。
你叙述时，要写清楚资料的来源，写下作者的姓氏和出版时间。如果直接引用或解释时，一定要记清楚你笔记中的内容，写下适当的页码。
当你对信息进行评价时，要先在标题卡片上注明这个不是作者的评价而是你的评价。通常你阅读时是你评价的最好时间，因为那时材料和上下文在你脑海中最清晰，对你今后的写作也最有价值。阅读心理学文献时，通常你应从五个方面来评价作者的观点。
⑴观点的准确性
作者做每个辩论的基础是什么？观点是正确地被证明的吗？如何证明的？几乎所有的心理学家对期刊文章（或学生的论文）进行评论时对准确性问题非常敏感。十分常见的一种方法是作者可能提出一个似是而非的理论，设计一个实验或列举证据来检验另一个似是而非的理论，然后得出结论说原来的理论是正确的。因此，在读一篇文章或一本书时，确保你自己不仅对理论的检验很有说服力，而且评价的是一个正确的理论。
⑵观点的内在的一致性
各个观点互相矛盾吗？各个观点与作者的总论点矛盾吗？在正确性上，要特别注意观点和论据之间的关系；要特别注意观点和其他观点之间一致性问题。
⑶观点的研究假设
作者提出观点时的研究假设是什么，尤其是作者没有告诉读者或自己没有意识到的假设是什么？这些研究假设现实吗？这些研究假设是增强了还使减弱了观点的影响？
⑷观点的推论含义
每个观点的含义是什么，尤其是作者忽略的含义是什么？这些含义增强了还使减弱了观点的影响？这些含义与其他观点的含义一致吗？
文献综述的写作步骤3
⑸观点的重要性
某个观点是重要的吗，是你想在文章中详细描述的那个观点吗？或者这个观点不重要，因此不值得一提，或只需要一带而过？学生论文常见的缺点是强调所有的观点，不管是否重要。这种做法不可避免地会减少论文整体的影响力。
标题卡片的好处：
⑴你开始准备写理论时，就有了你所需要的所有信息。
⑵你可以找到每个观点或每条信息的来源。你不用去记住你想说的话。
⑶你会发现组织论文容易多了。因为标题卡片为你下一步写提纲提供了信息。

三、列提纲
1．使用标题卡片
做好笔记之后，你可以准备列提纲了。标题卡片上的标题就是提纲的基础，因为它们可以用来作标题或副标题。把所有的标题写在纸上。然后剪成小条，每个条上留一个标题。如果你用电脑，你可以使用文字处理程序中的”提纲”功能。你现在的工作是把纸条上的标题按陈述的逻辑顺序重新排列。各个标题不需要也不应该在同一水平上。其中一些标题构成主标题，一些构成小标题，另外一些套入这些小标题下。你需要在提纲中加入一些引言部分和结论部分，以及使文章流畅的过渡性标题。每个标题下最低水平的副标题应该代表论文终稿中的一个句子。
2．提纲的类型
主要有三中种类型的提纲。一旦你把提纲的标题排好顺序之后，你就必须决定你用哪种类型来完成提纲。下面以TAT和MMPI两个人格测验的比较为例来讨论这三种类型的提纲。
（1）关键词提纲（在每个描述水平上都要限制在关键词范围内）
I． 引言
II． 内容
A． TAT：图片
B． MMPI：文字
III． 施测
A． TAT：口头
B． MMPI：书面
IV． 计分
A． TAT：主观
B． MMPI：客观
V． 结论
（2）标题提纲（在每个描述水平上都要用短语和从句）
I． TAT和MMPI的比较
II． 内容的类型
A． TAT：各种情境下人的图片，一些是真实的，一些不是。
B． MMPI：描述行为或信仰的描述，被试标记对与错来描述自己。
III． 施测的方式
A． TAT：主试按顺序向被试呈现图片，被试叙述图片上的事件产生的原因、当时发生的事以及随后要发生的事。
B． MMPI：给被试装有一整套描述性的小册子，被试可以按自己的速度进行。
IV． 计分方式
A． TAT：通常采用默瑞”需要–压力”分类法主观计分
文献综述的写作步骤4
B． MMPI：通过每个诊断量表独立的答案的方式客观计分
V． 区别：内容、施测和计分
（3）句子提纲（在每个描述水平上都要用完整的句子）
I． 本提纲分别从内容、施测和计分几个方面对TAT和MMPI进行比较。
II． 这两个测验的内容不同。
A． TAT包括许多人在不同情境中的图片，一些是真实的，一些不是。
B． 而MMPI包括许多描述行为或信仰的描述，被试标记对与错来描述自己。
III． 这两个测验的内容施测方式也不同。
A． 在TAT施测时，主试按顺序向被试呈现图片，被试叙述图片上的事件产生的原因、当时发生的事以及随后要发生的事。
B． 在MMPI施测时，给被试装有一整套描述性的小册子，被试按自己的速度进行。
IV． 最后，这两个测验用不同的方式计分。
A． TAT通常采用默瑞”需要–压力”分类法主观计分。
B． MMPI通过每个诊断量表独立的答案的方式客观计分
V． 可以得出结论，这两个测验在内容、施测和计分几个方面都有很大的不同。
选择一种提纲这三种类型的提纲各有特点，关键词提纲可以留给你写论文时最大程度的灵活度，但内容很少；句子提纲基本可以用于论文写作，但很浪费时间。因此你应该尝试这三种类型的提纲，然后根据你的经验选择最适合自己的提纲。
3．组织提纲组织提纲的方法多种多样，依具体情况而定。但有五种常见的原则：
（1） 提纲应该包括开头、中间和结尾。给读者一个大概的描述，告诉他们你的论文的内容，你是如何组织的。当读者读完论文的主体，你需要把主要意思进行总结以及你的最终评论。
（2） 一旦决定了组织的原则，就要坚持下去。如果改变文章的组织方式，会使读者感到迷惑。如果一定要改变其组织方式，一定要告诉读者。但尽量不要改。
（3） 有主题地组织文章。这一原则有两种例外情况。一是你要进行综述的文章没有形成一个主题，如不同的理论家处理不同的问题。二是当你要强调的是对对象的比较，如你想描述的是每个人格理论家的理论观点时不一定要有主题。
（4） 分级组织文章。论文往往有很多个观点，读者很难理解这些观点，更难记住这些观点。一定要把这些观点进行分级，这样可以提高你和读者交流的效率。
（5） 为你的听众组织文章。写提纲时一定要记住你的听众是谁。在提纲中每个标题描述的程度应该适合你的目标听众。
4．列提纲的好处
（1） 有助于你组织写作。
（2） 防止删掉相关的话题。在做研究或编辑标题卡片时，你可能无意中删掉你本来在文章中要用到的一个相关的内容。在开始写论文之前通过列提纲就可以很容易地改正。
（3） 防止包含不相关的话题。有时候你会发现一开始觉得相关的内容在组织文章时觉得与你的主题不相关了，就可以放弃，这样写论文时就不要分散精力了。
本章的这一部分很简短，因为适应文献综述的大部分原则同样也适合研究报告的写作，后面的章节将详细讨论。写文献综述是，要记住前面提到的评价作者观点的五个标准。读者也会以同样的或相似的方式评价你的论文。

文献综述和论文的撰写（英文）

Finding, formulating and exploring your topic.
Different topic creations
Many students have in mind something that they want to work on; others want to work with a particular scholar or research centre. In the first case, students search for a compatible supervisor. In the second, for a topic. Regardless of these preliminary circumstances, the topic is very likely only roughly formulated at this stage. This is usually enough to have your enrolment accepted.

Reading the literature
Once you have a general idea, you could start by talking to your supervisor and other scholars. But, most importantly, you have to think why you would like to work on it, or why anyone would want to do so. Ask yourself, “Why is it important? What is interesting about this? Suppose I solve it, or find it, or pull it all together, what use is it? What is its significance?” Then, with some questions such as these in mind, go and read more about it to see what is there and find out what aspects of it have been exhausted, what neglected, what the main ideas, issues and controversies are in the area. It is regarded as your supervisor’s role to direct you to the most fruitful starting point in reading and surveying the literature.

Cycle of literature review
All of this is not a once only activity, but is a cycle you go through again and again. So you read, think, and discuss it with your supervisor and then, as a result, come closer to the formulation of the topic. And then with each cycle of reading, thinking and discussing your topic becomes more specific and focussed. This is not the final formulation and the last time you will focus your topic. But you could probably let go of this round of general exploration and embark on the next stage. Your supervisor by this time should have enough of an idea of your topic to judge whether or not what you propose to do is feasible within the time available and has the potential to meet the required standards for a PhD. To see the full potential of your topic or, to the contrary, see that it is not going to deliver what you wanted, you do need to begin doing your research. This, of course, is why pilot studies are often undertaken.
Making sense of the literature
We do truly wish we could tell you about a reliable or simple way to make sense of the literature. We can say, however, that you need to attend to things at two levels:
? One is establishing a system that will allow you to organise the hard copies of the articles etc., and develop a data base for references, so you have easy access under relevant categories and don’t chase the same references repeatedly.
? The other is the more demanding task of understanding and using the literature for your purposes.
Without attending to the first task, you could easily become inefficient and frustrated. However, although it is necessary to have some way of keeping track, don’t spend all your energies on perfecting your system. It may be a good idea to attend a course for researchers on handling information. Check whether your university’s library or computer centre offers such a course.

The other task ahead of you – of understanding, reviewing and using the literature for your purposes – goes to the heart of your thesis. We consider this in three stages.

Making sense of the literature – first pass
When you first come to an area of research, you are filling in the background in a general way, getting a feel for the whole area, an idea of its scope, starting to appreciate the controversies, to see the high points, and to become more familiar with the major players. You need a starting point. This may come out of previous work you’ve done. If you’re new to the area, your supervisor could suggest fruitful starting points. Or you could pursue some recent review articles to begin.

Too much to handle
At this stage there seems to be masses of literature relevant to your research. Or you may worry that there seems to be hardly anything. As you read, think about and discuss articles and isolate the issues you’re more interested in. In this way, you focus your topic more and more. The more you can close in on what your research question actually is, the more you will be able to have a basis for selecting the relevant areas of the literature. This is the only way to bring it down to a manageable size.

Very little there
If initially you can’t seem to find much at all on your research area – and you are sure that you’ve exploited all avenues for searching that the library can present you with – then there are a few possibilities:
? You could be right at the cutting edge of something new and it’s not surprising there’s little around.
? You could be limiting yourself to too narrow an area and not appreciating that relevant material could be just around the corner in a closely related field.
? Unfortunately there’s another possibility and this is that there’s nothing in the literature because it is not a worthwhile area of research. In this case, you need to look closely with your supervisor at what it is you plan to do.
Quality of the Literature
This begins your first step in making sense of the literature. You are not necessarily closely evaluating it now; you are mostly learning through it. But, sometimes at this stage students do ask us how they can judge the quality of the literature they’re reading, as they’re not experts.

You learn to judge, evaluate, and look critically at the literature by judging, evaluating and looking critically at it. That is, you learn to do so by practising. There is no quick recipe for doing this but there are some questions you could find useful and, with practice, you will develop many others:
? Is the problem clearly spelled out?
? Are the results presented new?
? Was the research influential in that others picked up the threads and pursued them?
? How large a sample was used?
? How convincing is the argument made?
? How were the results analysed?
? What perspective are they coming from?
? Are the generalisations justified by the evidence on which they are made?
? What is the significance of this research?
? What are the assumptions behind the research?
? Is the methodology well justified as the most appropriate to study the problem?
? Is the theoretical basis transparent?
In critically evaluating, you are looking for the strengths of certain studies and the significance and contributions made by researchers. You are also looking for limitations, flaws and weaknesses of particular studies, or of whole lines of enquiry.

Indeed, if you take this critical approach to looking at previous research in your field, your final literature review will not be a compilation of summaries but an evaluation. It will then reflect your capacity for critical analysis.

Making sense of the literature – second pass
You continue the process of making sense of the literature by gaining more expertise which allows you to become more confident, and by being much more focused on your specific research.

You’re still reading and perhaps needing to re-read some of the literature. You’re thinking about it as you are doing your experiments, conducting your studies, analysing texts or other data. You are able to talk about it easily and discuss it. In other words, it’s becoming part of you.

At a deeper level than before,
? you are now not only looking at findings but are looking at how others have arrived at their findings;
? you’re looking at what assumptions are leading to the way something is investigated;
? you’re looking for genuine differences in theories as opposed to semantic differences;
? you also are gaining an understanding of why the field developed in the way it did;
? you have a sense for where it might be going.
First of all you probably thought something like, “I just have to get a handle on this”. But now you see that this ‘handle’ which you discovered for yourself turns out to be the key to what is important. You are very likely getting to this level of understanding by taking things to pieces and putting them back together.

For example, you may need to set up alongside one another four or five different definitions of the same concept, versions of the same theory, or different theories proposed to account for the same phenomenon. You may need to unpack them thoroughly, even at the very basic level of what is the implied understanding of key words (for example ‘concept’, ‘model’, ‘principles’ etc.), before you can confidently compare them, which you need to do before synthesis is possible.

Or, for example, you may be trying to sort through specific discoveries which have been variously and concurrently described by different researchers in different countries. You need to ask questions such as whether they are the same discoveries being given different names or, if they are not the same, whether they are related. In other words, you may need to embark on very detailed analyses of parts of the literature while maintaining the general picture.

Making sense of the literature – final pass
You make sense of the literature finally when you are looking back to place your own research within the field. At the final pass, you really see how your research has grown out of previous work. So now you may be able to identify points or issues that lead directly to your research. You may see points whose significance didn’t strike you at first but which now you can highlight. Or you may realise that some aspect of your research has incidentally provided evidence to lend weight to one view of a controversy. Having finished your own research, you are now much better equipped to evaluate previous research in your field.

From this point when you have finished your own research and you look back and fill in the picture, it is not only that you understand the literature and can handle it better, but you could also see how it motivates your own research. When you conceptualise the literature in this way, it becomes an integral part of your research.

Writing the literature review
What we are talking about here is the writing of the review. We assume that you have made sense of the literature, and that you know the role of the literature and its place in your thesis. Below are links to other sections covering these aspects.
You will doubtless write your literature review several times. Since each version will serve a different purpose, you should not think you are writing the same thing over and over and getting nowhere. Where you may strike trouble is if you just try to take whole sections out of an earlier version and paste them into the final version which, by now, has to be differently conceived.
In practical terms, it is necessary to have an overall picture of how the thread runs through your analysis of the literature before you can get down to actually writing a particular section. The strategy which writers use as a way to begin the literature review is to proceed from the general, wider view of the research you are reviewing to the specific problem. This is not a formula but is a common pattern and may be worth trying.
Let’s look at an example taken from the first pages of a literature review. This shows us the progression from general to specific and the beginning of that thread which then continues through the text leading to the aims.
Despite the undisputed success of quantum mechanics, many important fundamental problems and questions remain unanswered (see for example X, 1973): the measuring process cannot be satisfactorily described in QM formalism; there are great mathematical stumbling blocks to attempt to make QM consistent with the assumptions of special relativity; ……….., just to name a few.

[This is basically an introductory section, which starts with a statement of the problem in very broad terms, alerting us to the fact that not everything is rosy, and proceeds to sketch in specific aspects.]
Without doubt, one of the most widely discussed of these… is …[this closes in on what the focus of the problem is] Like most fundamental issues in physics, this question leads to challenges at several levels of thought. At the philosophical level this issue poses questions about …. At the physical level we are forced to examine …. At the mathematical level many questions are raised about the completeness and logical consistency ….

[The text moves on to specify issues at various levels. Although the focus is sharper, the coverage at the same time opens out.]
An important instance in which all of these challenges converge occurs with the concept of ‘angle’ in the description of quantum systems…
[Thus the text has set up the situation where all aspects of the problem–theoretical, practical, etc.–are brought together.]
Whatever the pattern which fits your work best, you need to keep in mind that what you are doing is writing about what was done before. But, you are not simply reporting on previous research. You have to write about it in terms of how well it was done and what it achieved. This has to be organised and presented in such a way that it inevitably leads to what you want to do and shows it is worth doing. You are setting up the stage for your work.

For example, a series of paragraphs of the kind:
“Green (1975) discovered ….”;
“In 1978, Black conducted experiments and discovered that ….”;
“Later Brown (1980) illustrated this in ……”;
demonstrates neither your understanding of the literature nor your ability to evaluate other people’s work.

Maybe at an earlier stage, or in your first version of your literature review, you needed a summary of who did what. But in your final version, you have to show that you’ve thought about it, can synthesise the work and can succinctly pass judgement on the relative merits of research conducted in your field. So, to take the above example, it would be better to say something like:
“There seems to be general agreement on x, (for example, White 1987, Brown 1980, Black 1978, Green 1975) but Green (1975) sees x as a consequence of y, while Black(1978) puts x and y as …. While Green’s work has some limitations in that it …., its main value lies in ….”
Approaching it in this way forces you to make judgements and, furthermore, to distinguish your thoughts from assessments made by others. It is this whole process of revealing limitations or recognising the possibility of taking research further which allows you to formulate and justify your aims.

Keep your research focused
It is always important to keep your research focused, but this is especially so at two points. First when you have settled into the topic and the time for wider exploration has to end. And then again at a later stage when you may have gathered lots of data and are starting to wonder how you are going to deal with it all.
Focus after literature review
First, it is a common temptation to prolong the exploration phase by finding more and more interesting things and straying away from what was once regarded as the possible focus. Either you or your supervisor could be guilty of this. In some cases, it might be you who is putting off having to make a commitment to one line of enquiry because exploration and realising possibilities is enjoyable and you’re always learning more. In other cases, it could be your supervisor who, at every meeting, becomes enthusiastic about other possibilities and keeps on suggesting alternatives. You might not be sure if this is just sharing excitement with you or if you are supposed to follow them all up.

Either way you need to stop the proliferation of lines of enquiry, sift through what you have, settle on one area, and keep that focus before you. It could even be a good idea to write it up on a poster in front of your desk. Unless you have this really specified in the first place, with the major question and its sub-questions, and you know exactly what you have to find out to answer these, you will never be focused and everything you find will seem to be ‘sort of’ relevant.

You have to close off some lines of enquiry and you can do so only once you decide they are not relevant to your question. We continually meet students who, when we ask, “So what is the question you’re researching?”, will answer, “My topic is such and such and I’m going to look at x, y and z”. Sometimes further probing from us will reveal that they do indeed have a focus, but many times this is not so. Thinking in terms of your topic is too broad. You need to think, rather, of what it is you are investigating about the topic.
? Questions force you to find answers; topics invite you to talk about things.
Focus after data collection
Then, at a later stage, you could find yourself surrounded by lots of data which you know are somewhat relevant to your project, but finding the ways of showing this relevance and using the data to answer your question could be a difficult task. Now you have to re-find your focus to bring it all together.
Again, it is your research question and sub-questions which will help you to do this because your whole thesis is basically the answer to these questions, that is, the solution to the problem you presented at the beginning. This may strike you as a very simplistic way to view it. However, approaching it in this way does help to bring the parts together as a whole and get the whole to work. We even recommend that, to relate the parts to each other and keep yourself focussed , you could tell yourself the story of the thesis.
Making a deliberate attempt to keep focused will help you to shape your research and keep you motivated.
Apparently I have to write a research proposal. What do I need to do?
The main purpose of a research proposal is to show that the problem you propose to investigate is significant enough to warrant the investigation, the method you plan to use is suitable and feasible, and the results are likely to prove fruitful and will make an original contribution. In short, what you are answering is ‘will it work?’

The level of sophistication or amount of detail included in your proposal will depend on the stage you are at with your PhD and the requirements of your department and University.
? In initial stages, the document you need to write will probably be three to five pages long. It will give a general idea of what you are proposing to do but it isn’t a binding contract. Often it serves as a starting point for discussions with your supervisor to firm up the topic, methodology and mechanics of your research.
? Some of you will be required to write a proposal at the time of confirming your candidature (usually at the end of the first year). In some instances, this is a document of four to five pages and may be viewed as a mere formality. In other cases a much more substantial document of 30 – 40 pages is expected. Therefore it is essential for you to check the requirements with your department.
Regardless of the above distinctions you should never see writing a proposal as a worthless chore. Indeed, if it isn’t formally required, it is a very good idea to write one anyway. You can use it to your advantage. It always forces you to think about your topic, to see the scope of your research, and to review the suitability of your methodology. Having something in writing also gives an opportunity to your supervisor to judge the feasibility of the project (whether it is possible to finish in time, costs, the equipment needed and other practicalities, time needed for supervision), to assess its likelihood of success, and its ability to meet the academic standard required of a PhD thesis.

While there are no hard and fast rules governing the structure of a proposal, a typical one would include: aims and objectives, significance, review of previous research in the area showing the need for conducting the proposed research, proposed methods, expected outcomes and their importance. In experimentally based research it often includes detailed requirements for equipment, materials, field trips, technical assistance and an estimation of the costs. It could also include an approximate time by which each stage is to be completed.
write a abstract
. Indeed, the final version of the abstract will need to be written after you have finished reading your thesis for the last time.
However, if you think about what it has to contain, you realise that the abstract is really a mini thesis. Both have to answer the following specific questions:
1. What was done?
2. Why was it done?
3. How was it done?
4. What was found?
5. What is the significance of the findings?
Therefore, an abstract written at different stages of your work will help you to carry a short version of your thesis in your head. This will focus your thinking on what it is you are really doing , help you to see the relevance of what you are currently working on within the bigger picture, and help to keep the links which will eventually unify your thesis.
Process
The actual process of writing an abstract will force you to justify and clearly state your aims, to show how your methodology fits the aims, to highlight the major findings and to determine the significance of what you have done. The beauty of it is that you can talk about this in very short paragraphs and see if the whole works. But when you do all of these things in separate chapters you can easily lose the thread or not make it explicit enough.

If you have trouble writing an abstract at these different stages, then this could show that the parts with which you are having a problem are not well conceptualised yet.
We often hear that writing an abstract can’t be done until the results are known and analysed. But the point we are stressing is that it is a working tool that will help to get you there.

Before you know what you’ve found, you have to have some expectation of what you are going to find as this expectation is part of what is leading you to investigate the problem. In writing your abstract at different stages, any part you haven’t done you could word as a prediction. For example, at one stage you could write, “The analysis is expected to show that …”. Then, at the next stage, you would be able to write “The analysis showed that ….” or “Contrary to expectation, the analysis showed that …..”.

The final, finished abstract has to be as good as you can make it. It is the first thing your reader will turn to and therefore controls what the first impression of your work will be. The abstract has
? to be short-no more than about 700 words;
? to say what was done and why, how it was done, the major things that were found, and what is the significance of the findings (remembering that the thesis could have contributed to methodology and theory as well).
In short, the abstract has to be able to stand alone and be understood separately from the thesis itself.
Is there a particular thesis structure I have to follow?
There are certain conventions specific to certain disciplines. However, these structures are not imposed on a piece of work. There are logical reasons why there is a conventional way of structuring the thesis, which is after all the account of what you’ve achieved through your research. Research is of course not conducted in the step-by-step way this structure suggests, but it gives the reader the most accessible way of seeing why this research was done, how it was done and, most importantly, what has been achieved. If you put side by side all the questions you had to answer to finish your research and what is often proposed as a typical structure of a thesis, then you see the logic of the arrangement. That does not mean, however, that you have to name your chapters in this way. In some disciplines, it very often is like this; in others, this structure is implied. For example, in many science theses, the following basically is the structure; in many humanities theses, the final structure looks very different, although all of these questions are answered one way or another.
Why am I doing it? Introduction
Significance
What is known?
What is unknown? Review of research
Identifying gaps
What do I hope to discover? Aims
How am I going to discover it? Methodology
What have I found? Results
What does it mean? Discussion
So what? What are the possible applications or recommendations?
What contribution does it make to knowledge? What next? Conclusions

Occasionally a thesis is written which does not in any way comply with this structure. Generally the reasons you want to have a recognised, transparent structure are that, to some extent, it is expected and the conventional structure allows readers ready access to the information. If, however, you want to publish a book based on the thesis, it is likely the structure would need to be altered for the different genre and audience.

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