What are we doing today and Friday?

• Addressing your doubts and concerns about thesis writing

• Discuss common mistakes

• Look at examples for what’s good or less-good

• Share tips

Something about me

• I like Statistics - maybe I am weird

• I like writing - I am definitely weird :)

• I work with CS professor Erik Sudderth on statistical models for network data

Something about you

Your deadlines and your progress

The thesis you are planning to write

Your confidence

Recurring doubts: Sections

[Quotes from survey responses indicating need to know more about what sections are included in a honors thesis.]

(Exact quotes are hidden in public version of workshop for protection of students’ data.)

Sections of a short thesis / paper

• Abstract - overview of the project

• Introduction - what is your project about?

• Background - what has been done before/what is known?

• Methods - what did you do and how?

• Results - what did you find out?

• Discussion - what do your findings mean?

Recurring doubts: Standard Format?

[Quotes from survey responses indicating need to know more about what format/template a honors thesis should follow.]

(Exact quotes are hidden in public version of workshop for protection of students’ data.)

A flexible thesis

It is up to the student and their faculty advisor to determine the most appropriate form for their thesis, including questions such as exact format, page count, word count, headings, etc.

(From UCI honors research and thesis requirements)

Examples of thesis (and formats)

Choosing your format

• Take a look at the examples and see which styles you like!

• If you choose a conference paper, there usually are templates, e.g. NeurIPS (search for others!)

• UCI has Word and LateX templates for a Master’s or PhD thesis, which you can use too

• Ask your advisor if they are on board with your choice

Your challenges with writing

Clarity

What makes for a clear thesis or paper?

Clarity is global clarity + local clarity (e.g. individual sentences, figures etc.)

What affects overall clarity?

• what content is included/not included

  Examples of common problems?

  • Not explicit about what you worked on exactly

  • Not explaining why you chose the method you used

    A good example (highlighted text in Sec 1.2, Sec. 2 and Sec. 3)

  • Good principle: every element in a story must be necessary, and irrelevant elements should be removed

What affects overall clarity?

• how content is organized in your thesis

  • your focus should be clear very soon

    Do not wait until Section 3 - example (highlighted text in Sec 1.2, Sec. 2 and Sec. 3)

  • you should try introduce concepts close to when you first use them

    Define a metric, then use it - example

    (highlighted text in Sec. 4.1 and 4.4)

  • can you tell what the story is?

Ok but.. how do I write a clear thesis

• Generally good idea to work a great deal on the outline, until you see that it does tell a story

  • Sometimes advisors can help you with this, sometimes it is hard..

  • Run the outline by a peer (ideally someone who is also writing a thesis)

  Volunteer needed

  Two people who have made significant progress on your thesis, come share with us your story!

What affects local clarity?

• Individual-sentence clarity

  Common problems:

  • Using terminology or acronyms that you have not defined

    When I was wrong: It does not read as ‘advanced’

    Better to use less terminology, but well defined

    Example

  • Using metrics without defining them

    Define a metric well - example

    (highlighted text in Sec. 4.1)

• Clarity of Figures and Tables

  Common problems:

  • Throwing results at the reader without making sure they can be understood

  • Not referencing and not making use of your Tables and Figures in the text

    These tables have been abandoned - example (Figure 1, 2)

What we covered today

• There is a structure to the thesis, but it’s pretty flexible
• Each of you knows at least one example thesis close to their thesis topic - see Examples of thesis (and formats)
• What makes for a clear thesis, overall
• What makes for clear individual sentences, figures and tables

What we are doing Friday

• What exactly makes for good abstract, introduction, background, methods, results and discussion sections

• Tackle another one of the challenges you mentioned: how to get started