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Writing the Final Version

"A friend told me his advisory committee turned down the first version of his dissertation because they said it was badly written. What precisely is the difference between a well written and a badly written dissertation?" This chapter offers suggestions about how to produce the ultimate document that will earn your graduate degree. The chapter addresses two sets of issues:

•	Meeting the university's thesis or dissertation requirements as well as accommodating your supervising committee's preferences.
•	Writing a skillfully crafted, readable document.

FULFILLING REQUIREMENTS AND PREFERENCES

Two sources of expectations that your final work is expected to meet are (a) your university's or department's standards and (b) the preferences of your major advisor and members of your supervising committee.

University and Department Requirements

Graduate students sometimes are unaware of the requirements set by their university or department regarding (a) deadlines for submitting theses and dissertations and (b) the form in which theses and dissertations must be written. Therefore, early in the process of conducting your research--and certainly before writing the final version--you'll profit from inspecting those requirements. How you find such information can vary from one institution to another. A place to start hunting is the university's graduate school catalog or bulletin, where guidance about such matters may be found in the index under the words thesis and dissertation. The catalog may mention a Guide for Preparation of Theses and Dissertations which you can obtain from the graduate school office, the central library, or the campus bookstore.

Deadline dates usually identify the final day for submitting your application for graduation, the final date for an oral examination (if required), the last day for filing one or more signed copies of your study, and the final date for the clearance of candidates for degrees, including the last day for depositing copies of your document with the graduate school or central library. You may find it wise to keep a careful record of the occasions when you spoke with graduate school personnel, to whom you spoke, and the outcome of your conversation. You may need this record in case you are later obliged to resolve misunderstandings about your case.Among the requirements that warrant your attention are the guidebook's specifications about such matters as the proper sizes of margins, acceptable bibliographic styles, footnotes, how to cite references within the body of the work, the quality of paper to use, type size, how to have the final version bound, the number of copies of the document to submit, and more.Here is a sampling of requirements from a typical guide pamphlet for theses and dissertations.

	The body of the work should be printed double-spaced on one side of a sheet. The reverse side of the sheet should be left blank.
	Use the same type face and type size consistently throughout the body of the work. Section headings should be in bold-face type.
	Paragraphs should be indented five spaces. A new paragraph should not begin at the bottom of a page unless there is adequate space for at least two lines.
	Limited use of quotations and extracts is permitted. Usually, material from professional journals and books that does not exceed several hundred words may be quoted without requiring the permission of the copyright owner. However, copies of pictures, charts, tables, tests, and questionnaires should not be reproduced without permission.
	Quotations that exceed three lines in length can be inserted within quotation marks in the paragraph to which they apply. However, quotations that exceed three lines should be inserted in a block (indented five spaces from the left and right margins) beneath the paragraph that introduces them. Such quotations are separated from the text by a triple space before and after.
	References listed at the end of the thesis or dissertation must include all work cited in the main body of the document.
	Appendices must be clearly titled, with references to those appendices offered at appropriate locations in the body of the work.
	An abstract, no longer than 350 words or 35 lines, should precede the title page. The abstract is a brief summary of the body of the work. The abstract is an important part of the thesis or dissertation as other scholars will peruse it in order to see if they wish to read the entire work.
	An acknowledgments page is optional. It should be brief, simple, and free of sentimentality or trivia. It is customary to acknowledge the work of the advisor and committee members. Help offered by others may also be recognized. Credit for financial assistance should be given if such assistance made this study possible.
The document should be printed on 100% rag bond paper.
Any duplicating process (such as printing from a computer or photocopier) must produce sharp, high-contrast, black images suitable for mocrofilming. No smudges, spots, inadvertent lines, or other blemishes are acceptable.
For binding purposes, the center of the page should be three spaces to the right of the exact center of the page. Backs of pages are to be left blank. Each page should have a uniform margin of one-and-one-half inches at the top and left, and one inch at the right and bottom. However, the first page of a chapter should have a two-inch top margin.

Advisors' Standards and Preferences

In addition to fulfilling institutional requirements, you are also obliged to satisfy the standards and preferences of your major advisor and other members of the committee that must approve of your work. As explained in Chapter 2, faculty members can differ markedly from each other in their conceptions of proper research topics, suitable methods of collecting information, and ways of interpreting the results. They can also disagree about how the research project can best be described in its final version. Therefore, it's helpful if, during the final writing process, you can receive feedback from your advisors regarding the way you are presenting your work. This may involve your asking them to review a chapter or two early in the final writing process so they can comment on your writing style. However, some professors refuse to inspect a candidate's work bit by bit. They are willing to judge the document only when a completed draft is available. In this event, you are compelled to wait until a final corrected version is ready.

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