The fact that the above selection of definitions of originality was produced by a group of supervisors gives some idea of what they are looking for. Although both the group and their collection of definitions could be considered random, and therefore limited in relevance to any individual thesis, they do provide a starting point for thesis writers who are beginning to grapple with the concept.
For students with more than one supervisor, things may be more complicated, as it is unlikely that both supervisors will have the same views on everything.
Supervisors look for potential originality in the proposal, for a student’s ability to grasp the scale of the work and produce writing and for a coherent argument in the emerging thesis. If these elements are expected, your writing should make them easy to find. It helps if they are explicitly – i.e. verbally – marked.
Even if you find an answer to ‘what the reader is looking for’, the reader being your supervisor, you cannot be sure that the other reader, the external examiner, will be looking for the same thing(s). However, in terms of writing, we can say that they are looking for appropriate style, correctly used, and strong argument. The task of the thesis writer is to work out what that means in terms of his or her own writing. More information about how these terms will be used to assess a thesis may not be available: ‘The examination process for doctoral theses seems to be based on assumptions which are largely untested and on understandings which are not necessarily open for discussion’ (Johnston 1997: 334).
This quotation is not here to highlight the errors of other systems and other writers in other countries, but to indicate where the lack of definition of cri- teria, and perhaps lack of attention to the power of writing to persuade the reader, may have led writers to weaken their theses. This is, of course, a debat- able interpretation, based on assumptions about causal relationships, but it seems reasonable to assume that secrecy and lack of definition have con- sequences for the quality of writing. If these are not addressed by the thesis writer, they are likely to produce similar weaknesses.
Examiners’ reports on the doctoral examination are not always open to scrutiny, so it is difficult to know what exactly they are looking for. However, this does not mean that you should leave the concept shrouded in mystique;
instead, you should start to define it, as best you can, right away. In fact, your
definition(s) may shape the work to be done, moving you away from areas that are overworked already, to newer territories.
The thesis writer has to do that universal writing task, grab the reader’s attention:
. . . examiners approach the task of reading a thesis with needs very similar to readers of any new piece of work. Enthusiasm to be engaged with new ideas in their field quickly dissipates if confronted with work which is not
‘reader-friendly’.
(Johnston 1997: 333) One answer to the question of what the reader is looking for is therefore
‘reader-friendly’ writing.
Seeing the examiner as a ‘reader’ is an important reminder. While examiners clearly bring the highest standards to their reading of the thesis, we cannot let this somehow release us from the responsibility of making our writing make sense to them:
The notion of an examiner as a reader of a thesis, like a reader of any other piece of writing, may not be obvious to many postgraduate candidates and possibly their supervisors. There is sometimes an assumption that the examiner is an expert in the field and does not have the expectations of a
‘normal’ reader. It is worth remembering that all readers require assistance to understand the work, that they feel distracted and irritated by poorly presented work, and that they appreciate well-written, interesting and logically presented arguments.
(Johnston 1997: 340) This notion – of the external examiner requiring ‘assistance’ from the thesis writer – may be new to many postgraduates. Johnston’s research suggests that it will be. The implication for thesis writers is not that they should write for the examiner as if he or she were a novice, but that they should see themselves as
‘assisting’ readers, by way of persuading them, to see the value of their work.
Specific remarks made by examiners do include the word ‘contribution’, as in contribution to knowledge, but other terms are used too:
Examiners’ remarks on theses
‘well conceptualised’
‘critically analysed review of literature’
‘aims of this piece of research are achieved’
‘thorough . . . study’
‘problem appears . . . worthy of in-depth study’.
(Johnston 1997: 341) WHAT IS THE READER LOOKING FOR? 61
To some readers, and writers, these will seem of a lower order than
‘originality’, yet they would appear to be equally important to examiners. The demonstration of research ‘competence’, rather than, say, ‘excellence’, the achievement of aims, rather than achieving more than the original aims, and the strength of the argument that the subject was ‘worthy of in-depth study’, rather than that this was the newest, most cutting-edge subject for research, do not necessarily indicate a lowering of standards. Quite the reverse. These remarks indicate the need for a raising of standards in writing about the concepts underlying the research. The conceptual links between a new study and existing studies, the justification of new work and the thoroughness of the study of existing literature are repositioned as major achievements in the thesis writing process. This takes work.
Favourable examiners’ reports, Johnston (1997) found, include the terms
‘complexity, originality, critical thinking, scholarly work, significant contribu- tion to a field, novel concepts, innovative ideas and publishable outcomes’
(p. 341). Each of these could be used as a prompt for writing, not only in order to enable thesis writers to begin, and continue, to grasp these concepts in relation to their work, but also to work out the specific style, the specific words, they intend to use in writing about these aspects of their work.
Some writers, for example, will be uncomfortable claiming ‘originality’ in their work and will choose to use some form of impersonal construction, rather than ‘I’. However, while the final thesis style can be always adjusted, the early thinking can sometimes be conducted more fluently in a more direct style. For example, the prompt ‘Where in my thesis will I demonstrate . . .?’
uses the first person, ‘I’, and a direct, informal style, in order to get straight to the point, in order to make the prompt crystal clear. Similarly, writing in response to the prompt ‘I will demonstrate critical thinking in/by . . .’ forces a thesis writer to stay focused on that issue.
It goes without saying, as with any of the writing activities in this book, that if these terms do not seem appropriate, thesis writers can use prompts which
Where in my thesis will I demonstrate . . .
• Complexity?
• Originality?
• Critical thinking?
• Scholarly work?
• Significant contribution to knowledge in the field?
• Novel concepts?
• Innovative ideas?
• Publishable outcomes?
are more relevant to their theses. Similarly, these could be talking points – both the questions and a student’s answers – for peer and student–supervisor discussions.
Johnston’s (1997) paper concludes that there are two types of comments examiners make: one on the ‘intellectual endeavours’ reported and the other on ‘communication aspects’ of the thesis (p. 344). The fact that both types of comments were found strengthens that old, familiar connection we often hear about, but do not always believe, between the quality of the writing and the perceived or actual quality of the work. There are those who argue that if the work is first class, then it does not matter how badly a thesis is written. There are those who argue that ‘there is often a relationship between the quality of presentation and the quality of scientific results’ (Johnston 1997: 340). John- ston provides one of the most useful explanations around of how this effect can occur:
One of the problems with work that is poorly presented is that the examiner tends to lose confidence in the candidate and can become suspicious that there are deeper problems of inadequate and rushed conceptualization.
(1997: 345) We only have to think of students’ presentations we have watched to recognize this attribution pattern in ourselves: what did we think when they seemed to hesitate, or repeated themselves, or failed to define a term, or used a string of long sentences that prevented us from quite grasping what they were saying? Did we think ‘Oh, that’s just a presentation issue’? No, we probably thought that while these were often features of work-in-progress presenta- tions, these students did not quite seem to have worked out what they were doing and what it meant, yet.
Can a thesis be failed for poor research? Definitely. Can it be failed for poor writing? Arguably, that is less likely. However, the research suggests that an examiner may attribute weaknesses in the writing to weaknesses in the research, and that examiners are likely to be prompted to probe more by weaknesses in the writing.
The writer has to influence ‘what the reader is looking for’ by providing a clear pathway through the thesis. As with any piece of writing, thesis writers have to manage the readers’ subjectivity, i.e. make your reader see coherence in your writing. The answer to the question ‘What are readers looking for?’
should therefore be ‘Whatever you told them to look for.’
WHAT IS THE READER LOOKING FOR? 63