There are different ways of approaching the thesis as a document. Should you write your thesis
... in one document?
... as separate chapters?
... format it before you start?
... write it, then format it?
... as separate chapters?
... format it before you start?
... write it, then format it?
I've heard of postgrads using all of the above strategies. It seems to come down to personal choice as to which approach you prefer and there is certainly a lot of conflicting advice. The U of Otago library and ITS advise writing your thesis as separate chapters, then merging and formatting at the end. This seems a good approach if using a reference manager such as Endnote and the Cite-while-U-write function. Between large Word documents and clunky reference software most of the uni computers give up, freeze, or worse still, crash and potentially lose your work. Which is why you should have multiple back-ups of your work - when it comes to your thesis, I'm a firm believer there's no such thing as too paranoid. :-)
On the other hand, some postgrads seem to have few problems using the same combination of Word and Endnote as long as they observe a few tricks - such as not moving around text containing links to references. If you want to see your computer freeze for what feels like a lifetime, try moving a block of text with multiple cite-while-u-write reference links!
At some point however, you will have to get all that work into a structured format. As well as the links on the Otago uni sites, there are many other resources online.
One I found helpful was this site at the University of Michigan Library (at the time, the Otago library guide was not that great) - and it's up to date with tips for Word 2013 as well.
[Talking of Word 2013 - did you realise you can get a 4 year licence as a uni student for a better price than the one year standard licence?]
Another helpful site for setting up numbered and linked chapters, table of contents etc., was http://shaunakelly.com/word
There will of course be plenty more resources out there on the internet.
I'd be keen to hear about your experiences - Do you have any favourite resources you'd like to share? How did you approach your thesis formatting? Did you have any problems merging chapters? Got any warnings, or tips for the rest of us?
No comments:
Post a Comment