Authoring a PhD

particularly engage readers’ attention;
◆
a piece of framing text which moves from the start element
to some discursive comments on the chapter’s main
substantive themes, leading up to;
◆
a set of signposts to readers about the sequence and topic
focus of the chapter’s main sections (that is, those parts
which have first-order headings).
Because of the special importance of starts in conditioning
readers’ expectations and the author’s later progress, I analyse
each of these requirements in detail.
A
chapter title
may seem obvious, but it is actually very com-
mon to find doctoral students submitting chapters to their
supervisors without any title at all. This move makes it harder
for supervisors to give useful feedback. It also means that the
author has been writing the chapter all the way through without
O R G A N I Z I N G A C H A P T E R O R PA P E R
◆
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a clear focusing element to keep her on track. Chapter titles need
to be carefully chosen, but this is not a reason to postpone choos-
ing one until the chapter is complete. Choose a working title
from the very beginning, which you can then re-evaluate when
you have finished. Chapter titles can be somewhat longer than
the headings used for sections inside chapters – for instance, it 
is acceptable to have a two-part heading with a colon in the 
middle, as I do in some chapters of this book. Remember that
chapter titles operate inside the overall thesis title, and so they
should not repeat elements of it directly.
A
high impact start
serves to attract readers’ attention, to get
them immediately engaged with the new chapter. It should set
your new slab of text apart from what has gone before, and give
it a distinctive ‘feel’ and character from the outset. In a ‘big
book’ thesis it is very important that each chapter does a par-
ticular job which is clearly signalled to readers, and which is dif-
ferent from its neighbours. The chapters need to build up across
the whole thesis in a cumulative way, adding new elements of
the analysis. They must not seem to readers to repeat, or to go
round in circles, or to wander without an obvious pattern
across the possible landscape of your topic.
Start paragraphs must be conceived, written and normally
rewritten with special care. The opening element (either a sen-
tence, or a set of sentences, or a whole paragraph) should focus
on some interesting general aspect or problem that the chapter