Thesis and Dissertation Writing in a Second Language: a handbook for Supervisors

Application: previews, overviews and reviews
Ask your student to look at their sample thesis for examples of the kind
of previews, overviews and reviews described above. Ask them to think
about how putting these in their text could ‘help their reader’ through
their text.
Overview of the thesis
A further example of metatext often occurs in the first chapter of a thesis
where the writer has a section titled ‘Overview of the thesis’ (or ‘Overview of
the study’, etc.). This section is, at the same time, an example of a preview,
an overview and a review. Thesis writers include this section to help their
reader through their text; that is, as a way of signalling where the thesis is
going and where they can expect to find key information about their project.
As Manalo and Trafford (2004: 93) point out, a thesis ‘is not a mystery
novel’. Students need to provide a clear ‘road map’ for their thesis ‘explain-
ing what it contains and where those contents can be found’ (see Chapter 6
for further discussion of this).