The research thesis in English, Creative Writing, and Australian Studies:

Hints on developing a proposal, setting benchmarks and getting the job done

1 - Practical stuff

• You need first to find your feet in the institution, where the information is, what the networks are. This is where the Postgraduate checklist can be used to remind you of matters which you should sort out at an early stage. At some point you should review the EHLT faculty regulations, so you are not taken by surprise later; more positively, you should take note of sources of funding which you may have access to—for example, to attend conferences where you are giving a paper
  
• You should make some broad decisions about how you are going to conduct and record your research. For example:
  • Reference systems: in English, Creative Writing, and Australian Studies the in-text superscript reference number/footnote (or endnote)/bibliography system is the norm. If necessary you can review it in the English 1 handbook available elsewhere on this site. Consistency and fullness of citation are the main criteria.
  • Decide early on how you are going to take notes / gather data / perform interviews, etc and how and where you are going to store them. The ideal is never to have to type in a piece of information or a reference more than once, from the earliest stage right through to the proofed final copy of your thesis. Get into the habit of taking fully referenced notes right from the start, and make a bibliographic entry for every source you consult, even if you suspect you won't be including it in the end.
  • Develop a method of separating/distinguishing your own notes and draft paragraphs from material copied for possible quotation from other people. It can be fatally easy to forget, after a few months, which is which.
  • Make a pledge with yourself that you will back up and print out to a schedule, including not only your documents but invaluable emails and other kinds of files you can't afford to lose. Store multiple copies somewhere else. Be obsessive about it. We've all read the horror stories, including the recent one of the woman who prepared her unique final draft on a USB drive and then had it stolen from her car.
    
• These days, few postgrads need any training in basic computer skills, as everyone learns all they want at a much earlier stage in their education. However, you will probably want to investigate library and archival resources (both Flinders and many other libraries) more closely and specifically than you have ever done before. You need to be aware that whatever your field there are almost certainly websites and databases which will be essential to you. If you don't know where to start, use one of the vast general Humanities/literature sites first. The long-established Voice of the Shuttle is an old favourite
  
• If you have the skills, setting up a simple research website or blog of your own to advertise in broad terms what you are doing, and checking it has been indexed by Google, will bring in queries/information from people working the same ground elsewhere in the world. Build up your email contacts, join mailing lists, dig out the access details of scholars working in the same field (eg from their university sites) and never hesitate to query them directly: even if they can't or won't help you, they may give access to their own postgrad students who can and will. World-wide, informal digital networks of scholars are now routine in the Humanities, as in every other field of inquiry. At its best, postgraduate research is a lonely activity, and it's unlikely that any of the people around you will be much interested in the minutiae of your subject (except, we hope, your supervisor). Network on the internet from Day One.

2 - Getting a topic moving

A few students (the lucky few) know precisely what they want to do from the start. The rest want to do a thesis and have a vague idea of what it's going to be on. Naturally, it is the majority that need guidance most.

It cannot be stressed too strongly that there is no one 'right' way to complete a thesis project. You will have heard this before, and it is true: it means that any advice you read here, or even that you get from your supervisors, must be taken with a pinch of salt. People have very different working habits, and what is ideal for one might drive another to the edge of suicide. The real difficulty is finding that individual path that really does get results for you. Necessarily, then, what follows is couched in the most general terms.

• Finding a topic
  • Here consultation with supervisors is paramount. For a few weeks (but not much longer, if you are really getting into your subject) they will know your field better than you, and they should for some time retain a clearer sense of the feasibility of your project.
  • Almost every thesis starts with a grander plan than eventually comes to fruition. Three years of work, and 100 000 words of space, sound room enough for any size of endeavour.
  • But be warned: theses tend to be quite narrow in scope—detailed and careful investigations of some small scholarly area to which you are contributing something new and original. Usually, 'survey' or 'synthesis' topics are not acceptable because, in the language of the medieval apprenticeship system, a thesis is a masterpiece: a difficult task specifically designed to show that you have the mastery of a craft or discipline, and that your apprenticeship is over. Few theses are ever rejected on the grounds that they deal with too tiny an area. But theses are regularly rejected for superficiality of treatment, which is often a consequence of handling too broad a topic.
  • Be prepared, therefore, especially in your first half-year or so, regularly to push material out and off the sides; to recentre and refocus your project. Read broadly in this early period; don't be too keen to tie yourself down, and try not to think of your thesis in terms of its 'title'. But remember also that you are writing a thesis, not the thesis, and that eventually you are going to have to make decisions about your scope. Unfortunately, it is much more common for people to wander too long than to wander too short.
  • Be certain that you are able to make yourself master of your material. That means, in the present academic world, that you must convince the examiners that you have a full command of the relevant literature and that, in the pages that follow, you are capable of adding something new and useful to it. That is why nearly all theses start with a 'literature review' or 'the story so far' chapter, which is equivalent to an athlete's warming-up exercises.
  • At the doctoral level, theses are expected to embody 'original' research. Originality can be misunderstood, however. Originality, in literature theses, does not necessarily mean coming up with new facts, although of course it may do. It may mean producing a new perspective on an old debate, or interpreting the evidence for a contested proposition in a new way. Editing a text poses its own difficulties, but that can offer another slant on achieving originality. Even theses which are essentially historical accounts (eg Ruth Starke's history of Writers' Week) can be highly original, when they are critical and evaluative as well as descriptive.
    
• Make your proposal/presentation (see below) useful for your own purposes. It should clarify your ideas at the point where your topic should be solidifying, and having to describe it to others who know little or nothing about it is a good exercise. It and the annual reporting process are not rigorously binding, but they are useful opportunities to make a record of where you have reached.
  
• Whatever your topic, you will probably have to be prepared to learn about matters which may seem more peripheral and less interesting but are actually unavoidable. For example:
  • You may need to learn more about literary theory than you did as an undergraduate, to work with the most current scholarship.
  • Many topics require some historical perspective, in a period you may not be familiar with: it may be social history, the history of a genre, scientific history, publication history, biography and so on.
  • Or you may need to learn a bit about an adjacent discipline: literature in another language, some sociology or statistical analysis, the graphical presentation of data, etc.
    
• Develop a sense of how best to work with your supervisors, of what their strengths and weaknesses are. If incompatibilities arise which are likely to affect your progress, address them sooner rather than later, through the appropriate channels.
  
• Most students find collecting data or notes much easier and more pleasant than formulating a workable conceptual approach to their topic. A thesis is not a ragbag of information: it is, or should be, a thesis, that is, it should embody a formal argument that will stand up to criticism and can be summarised in a few paragraphs if necessary.
  
• One way of not becoming daunted by the need to produce up to 100 000 words is to think of the work as a series of essays, or embryonic chapters. Many writers find it encouraging to separate their notes into, say, ten 'piles' at a very early stage.

3 - Monitoring progress

You should find our document on progress benchmarks a convenient reference.

• In English, Creative Writing, and Australian Studies and in similar disciplines, 'progress' usually means accumulating pages of draft material at various stages of completeness, because the very process of writing helps to evolve the argument. The student who said: 'How can I know what I think until I see what I say?' was stating a common attitude. However, the balance between building up a collection of data (particularly if it involves interviews) and 'writing up' may vary greatly.
  
• Every thesis will take its own form. You need to make the systems work for you, and should never let guidelines distort your progress.
  
• Among other things, a research thesis is an implicit 'application' to join the club of scholars. Learn, or revise, the conventions of academic discourse at this level: etiquette, appropriate style, informed use of jargon, English usage and all the rest. The best way is to review a sample of English, Creative Writing, and Australian Studies theses held in the library (a list is available on this site). Look through them not for content but for manner of presentation, style, tone and so on. Remember that a much higher standard of physical presentation is expected now than used to be the case in the typewriter era. If your supervisor raises any questions of English usage, grammar, etc (and they may do it hesitatingly, because it is embarrassing), be certain to review them and fix them up. There will be very little tolerance of error at this level.
  
• Since 30 July 2004, all postgrad students have had to submit a written topic proposal and make a presentation of it in a forum of staff and students. If you are full-time, it should be submitted at a point after your first six months and before completing your first year. If you are part-time, submit it within two years of your first enrolment. Consult this page for more information on how the topic proposals are handled.