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Thesis Editing: A Step-Wise To Edit Your Own Thesis

This entry was posted in Category Dissertation , Editor , on March 01 , 2016.

Editing your own thesis can be a tiresome process; however it can be simplified to a great extent by following this stepwise guide. Editing an entire thesis can be seen as a combination of 3 essential steps:


1. Reviewing the structure:


This consists of the following checklist:


i. Reviewing the entire structure of the thesis and tallying it with the structure you intend to present it in.


ii. Every section should logically follow from the previous section.


iii. Each paragraph should belong to its section and must not be out of place. There can be no ambiguity as to whether a particular paragraph belongs to the thesis or not.


iv. Each Paragraph should logically follow from the previous paragraph


v. All chapters and sections must be adhering to the prescribed order according to the thesis format.


vi. There must not be any abrupt arguments or facts. In other words, there should be smooth sailing among various sections and paragraphs.


vii. The Conclusion should be able to briefly conclude all findings and observations of the thesis.


viii. Referencing must be according to the format prescribed and no text that has been picked up from another researcher’s work should be left uncited.


ix. References in the end and the text extracted must be linked to each other such that if one clicks on the reference, it automatically takes them to the extracted text.


x. Bibliography page must be present and all references must be in alphabetical order. If there are any other guidelines stated then it should adhere to them.


xi. Additional Pages such as the title page, appendices and lists must be in the required order.


2. Reviewing the language: This step ensures that a thesis has effective use of English language.


i. Language used must be formal and academic in nature


ii. Each paragraph must open with a sentence that best describes its content and its relevance to the thesis topic. Opening phrases such as ‘therefore’, ‘wherein’, ‘on the other hand’ can help in formulating a logical sequence between paragraphs.


iii. The sentences that follow in a paragraph must develop on the idea stated in the first one.


iv. Every sentence must be grammatically correct


v. You should take care of the pronouns you are using, since a lot of schools do not approve of first person representation of thesis. i.e. Using the word “I”.


3. Proofreading: This is the final step that makes your thesis presentable to the reader before they actually go through it.


i. Check borders and margins. Insert according to the prescribed format.


ii. Check indentations of all lines and first line of every paragraph. According to a few formats, the first line of every paragraph must be more indented than the rest.


iii. Check font, font color and font size. At times you may not notice that the whole document is not of the same font or the same font size. You must ensure uniformity in your thesis.


iv. Check line spacing, bulleting and numbering in the text.


v. Go through the whole thesis sentence by sentence and remove any spelling errors, unnecessary words and phrases. There are times when these unnecessary words or phrases annoy the reader.


vi. Numbering of pages, Headers and Footers must all be checked.


vii. The Title page must have the title in one line, if it is longer then it must be broken to logical pieces.


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