Authoring a PhD

parts linked by a common theme. It is similarly difficult for
readers to follow your argument without the cues provided by
‘organizers’, especially the sections of the chapter and their
associated armoury of headings, which should convey in con-
densed form a sense of the argument being made. Fixing the
sections to be used in any one chapter is normally straightfor-
ward, since chapters are much shorter and simpler than whole
theses. But the scheme which you adopt has to work not just
for this chapter but across all your chapters in a recognizably
similar way, unless readers are to start anew in understanding 
a new scheme of organizers with each fresh chapter.
Whenever you are chunking up text, it is a basic principle to
try and make sure that the sections you create are similarly
sized. Dividing the text as evenly as possible generates consis-
tent and hence more accurate expectations amongst readers
about how long each section will be. Just as thesis chapters
should be around 10,000 words (plus or minus 2000 words), so
the sections inside chapters should all be approximately the
same length and have the same importance for your argument.
How many sections you need depends on the precise length of
your chapter, but a rough rule of thumb is that you will need a
major heading to break up the text every 2000 to 2500 words,
or every seven to eight pages of A4 paper typed double-spaced.
Both you as the author and readers will be able to hold this
much information in the forefront of their attention at any one
time, but will quickly lose track if sections get larger. And with
only four or at most five main headings to keep track of in each
chapter readers should have a clear idea of its internal structure.
If you have more than (say) seven sections then readers will def-
initely find it harder to keep track of how the whole chapter is
structured. And main sections shorter than around 2000 words
will often seem bitty or insubstantial.
So in a standard-length chapter of 10,000 words you need
four main sections. The titles for these sections are called ‘first
order’ headings, because they are the top organizers, the ones
including most text within each chapter. You can show their
importance to readers graphically in three ways: by numbering
them (for instance, 3.1, 3.2, and so on); by using a large font
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size and format that makes them stand out clearly from the sur-
rounding text; and by locating them prominently, for instance
on an otherwise blank line of their own and centred on the
page. For the smaller subsections inside each main part of the
chapter you will also need a set of ‘second order’ headings. You
can signal them as less important than first-order headings, but
more important than ordinary text, by: using an intermediate-
sized font; using a less prominent font format; locating them
less conspicuously (for instance on an otherwise blank line, but
placed at the left-hand margin); and by not numbering them.
In some cases you may also need some ‘third order’ subhead-
ings, which are really only groupings of paragraphs. They are
signalled by using a less prominent font and emphasis than the
second-order headings; of course with no numbers; and located
so that they are less conspicuous (for instance, at the left-hand
margin, but with a main text paragraph starting adjacent to it
on the same line). Overall, the size, emphasis and location of
subheadings should be most prominent for first-order headings
(which are the only numbered ones), less for second-order sub-
heads, and less again for third-order subheads (when they are
present). Of course, all headings should be more noticeable
than the ordinary text. In this way readers are given a clear
visual signal of where each section stands in the overall argu-
ment structure of the chapter.
It is worth trying to avoid regularly using four orders of sub-
heading, which could be complex for readers to follow and hard
for you to manage. It is also best to let the headings express the
hierarchy of ideas, rather than to try frequently indenting text
from the left-hand margin, as some organizer programs on
word-processing packages will routinely do. Start each new para-
graph which comes immediately after a subheading at the left-
hand margin, and thereafter use a tab to make paragraph starts
stand out. Short indented passages of text are used for lists of
points, with bullets or dashes in front of them. They can also
occasionally allow you to avoid introducing fourth-order sub-
headings, where it is convenient so to do. In this use, you can
flexibly group together sets of paragraphs in an 
ad hoc
way into
indented passages, without burdening readers with any further
elaboration of your subheadings system. (The only other reason
for indenting passages of text should be for quotations longer
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than 30 words. Run on smaller quotations in the text within
single quotation marks, ‘like this’.)
In addition to its component main sections each chapter 
will need a relatively brief, untitled section of lead-in text at 
the beginning, and a short section of lead-out text labelled
‘Conclusions’ at the end. Each of these smaller bits should be
between 200 and around 1000 words only. Readers will univer-
sally expect that the text placed at the very beginning of each
chapter is lead-in material, so you do not need to label it
‘Introduction’. (Using this redundant subheading can often be
a quick way to make your overall scheme of headings and sec-
tions start to malfunction badly: see below.) However, your
lead-out materials will always need a heading to mark them
out, preferably at second-order level so that readers will not
expect to find here a longer section than they will actually get.
Thus in outline my recommended complete schema of sections
for a chapter (let’s say Chapter 3) is:
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