The overall shape
of theses and dissertations
71
research articles, although native-speaker students tended to be doing this more
than second-language students.
She found, however, that this type of thesis was
more common at one of the universities, a comprehensive research university,
than at the other, a technical and engineering university. The compilation of
research articles presented for the PhD in dental science summarized in Box 5.4
(on p. 72) is very similar to the type of thesis Dong (1998) reports is now com-
mon in science PhDs in the United States. This thesis was based on three
discrete but related research articles, one of which had already been published at
the time of submission and was included as an appendix to the thesis.
A study carried out by Paltridge (2002) found that more than half the the-
ses written in the collection of texts he examined at his university were
traditional in their format
and reported on a single study; that is, they repre-
sented the ‘traditional: simple’ kind of thesis. Nonetheless, a good number of
theses did not follow this pattern. There were, for example, equal numbers of
‘traditional: complex’ type theses and ‘topic-based’ theses. Further, there was
one thesis in the collection of texts he examined which was made up of a col-
lection of research articles, each presented as an individual chapter and framed
by a number of introductory and concluding chapters.
Box 5.3 A topic-based thesis
Degree: MA
Study area: Cultural
studies
Title: Unworldly places: Myth, memory and the Pink and White Terraces
Chapter 1: Introduction
Disappearing wonders
Chapter 2: Plotting
Travels of colonial science
Plotting destinations
Chapter 3: Sightseeing
Topophilic tourism
Site specifics
Painting the place and myth
Souvenering the site
Chapter 4: Astral travel
Mnemonic tours in the ‘new wonderland’
Memory tours
The buried village: Embalmed history
Living out the past
Museumising the past: Sanctioned memory
Chapter 5: Postscript
Source: Paltridge 2002: 140
72
The overall shape of theses and dissertations
Box 5.5 is a summary of the thesis types found in this study and their typical
structure. This is presented in very general terms as a statement of what typ-
ically occurs in each of these thesis types. Sections in brackets indicate that
they occurred in some of the theses but not in all of them. In a way, both the
‘traditional: complex’ and compilations of research articles are a variation of
Box 5.4 A compilation of research articles
presented as a PhD thesis
Degree: PhD
Study area: Dental science
Title: Vertical root fracture and fracture-related properties of dentine
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Background and literature review
Chapter 3: Aims of the study
Chapter 4: Load and strain during lateral condensation and vertical root fracture
Introduction
Literature
review
Materials
and methods
Results
Discussion
Summary and conclusions
Chapter 5: Mechanism of vertical root fracture by finite element analysis and
strain gauge technique
Introduction
Literature review
Materials and methods
Results
Discussion
Summary and conclusions
Chapter 6: The effects of dentine location and tubule orientation on selected
physical properties of dentine
Introduction
Literature review
Materials and methods
Results
Discussion
Summary and conclusions
Chapter 7: Additional finite element analysis and general discussion
Chapter 8: Further work and investigations
Source: Paltridge 2002: 140
74
The overall shape of theses and dissertations
the ‘traditional: simple’ type thesis. One difference between these two types
of thesis, however, seems to be the place of the review of the literature which
is presented in more detail and earlier on in the ‘traditional: complex’ type
thesis and more within each of the articles in the compilation type format.
The research article chapters of the compilation type thesis are also much
more ‘stand alone’ than the individual study chapters of the ‘traditional: com-
plex’ type thesis.
Also the intended audience, level of detail and display of
knowledge presented in these two types of thesis, as mentioned above, are
substantially different. The topic-based format is, however, of a very different
kind. Often, these types of thesis do not have what might be considered a
materials and methods type section and often do not have separate results and
discussion sections. Starfield and Ravelli (2006) found in their study of
humanities and social science theses that the majority of the theses they
looked at (18 out of 20) were of this kind.
All of this may seem somewhat unremarkable to someone who has read or
supervised many theses or dissertations. Few second-language students
Research article 1
Introduction
Literature review
Materials and methods
Results
Discussion
Conclusions
Research article 2
Introduction
Literature review
Materials and methods
Results
Discussion
Conclusions
Research article 3 etc
Introduction
Literature review
Materials and methods
Results
Discussion
Conclusions
Discussion
Conclusions
Source: Paltridge 2002: 130
The overall shape of theses and dissertations
75
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