Congratulations, CAMBer! Your prelim is passed, your paper is published, and your box has been checked on that Permission to Write form. You’ve been approved to defend your thesis – but where to start? Never fear! The CAMB Newsletter Crew is here to cover the basics.
So, what is a dissertation, anyways?
According to the CAMB website, a dissertation “represents a definitive contribution to scientific knowledge and that demonstrates the student’s ability to perform independent research.” In short, it will serve as a summary of all the hard work you have done throughout your time as a thesis candidate. Much like a paper, a thesis walks the reader through a project – or projects – from hypothesis to data. Unlike a publication, though, your dissertation may include avenues of investigation that didn’t end up getting pursued, data from a rotation project, or even experiments that didn’t quite work. In fact, ‘negative’ data can be quite important to include in a dissertation as a resource for others in your field.
What makes up a thesis?
Title, Abstract, and Other Openers:
According to the PhD Formatting Guide published by the Office of Graduate Studies, a dissertation requires a title page, an abstract, a table of contents, and lists of tables and illustrations. Optional to include are a copyright notice, a dedication and/or acknowledgement, and a short preface as to the topics you’ll be covering. All of these will appear before the main body of your work.
Thesis Body:
The CAMB website outlines five sections for a dissertation:
As one might expect, the general introduction consists of a more in-depth background segment in which you will discuss previous literature relevant to your project or projects. As such, it will bear some similarity to a long review or a textbook chapter, and will be cited accordingly. You will also include your hypothesis in this section.
The material and methods are comprised of a comprehensive and detailed description of each experiment included in your results section. Antibodies, primers, and other reagents are presented as a large table, with notes on the vendor and catalog number.
The bulk of the thesis will be the results, which will likely span several chapters. Each chapter will cover about a paper’s worth of experiments, the resulting data, and, of course, your interpretation of those data. If needed, additional background information or a short discussion can also be included in each part of this section.
Finally, the conclusions and future directions will serve as a summary of all your results – a discussion of all your previous chapter-specific discussions. It will also be a chance to draw broader conclusions about your data’s relevance and importance to your field of research. Take time to speculate on the future – elaborating on where your project can go next and why is a must!
And, of course, you’ll need to cite your sources with your references! Per your preference, the reference section can be broken up by chapter, or put all together after the main text.
Formatting
A thesis is required to have one-inch margins. It is recommended that your thesis be double-spaced, and written in one of the following fonts: Arial (10pt), Calibri (11pt), Georgia (11pt), or Times New Roman (12 pt). There are additional formatting rules around how to number the preliminary pages versus the main body of the text versus the bibliography, so when polishing your draft, make sure to give that some particular attention.
Resources:
If you’re about to start writing, we recommend checking out the CAMB website’s section on Permission to Write and Defend, as well as the PhD Formatting Guide, Dissertation Formatting Checklist, and Dissertation Templates provided by the Office of Graduate Studies.