Authoring a PhD

Chapter 2
Section 2.2
Section 2.1
Section 2.3
Conclusions
Figure 4.1
The tree structure of a chapter

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Writing Clearly: Style and
Referencing Issues
Poorer writers have fewer readers.
Robert J. Sternberg
1
A
n author with a well-organized piece of text must still pass
two further hurdles before gaining credibility or approval
in academic professional circles. The first is a test of style. Does
the author communicate fluently, convincingly and appeal-
ingly in the professional manner appropriate for her discipline?
Quite where success or failure should be determined here is 
difficult to specify in any general way. Evaluations of good or
bad writing style are notoriously subjective. Much ink has been
spilt on good style for novelists and creative writers (see 
Further
Reading
on p. 287 for some style manuals). But this literature
offers little help to authors of doctoral theses or other large pro-
fessional bits of text, like academic books. However, it is still
possible to pull together some generally useful advice about
conflicting style pressures, and some sensible ways of proceed-
ing at a paragraph-by-paragraph, or sentence-by-sentence level,
as I try to do in the first part of this chapter.
The second hurdle is a test of scholarship, more important
perhaps in a PhD thesis than in any other piece of academic
writing. Does the author acknowledge sources for her argu-
ments or evidence? Does she chart her intellectual influences
comprehensively and in an appropriate format? Obtrusive 
referencing is often one of the most obvious hallmarks of 
academic text, something that sets it apart from everything
else. As a result PhD students often overdo referencing, and
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5

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they can get trapped into embracing overelaborate systems or
mystifying the issues involved. But in stark contrast to stylistic
issues, good referencing practice can be clearly and objectively
defined in terms of key principles. In the second part of the
chapter I show how two simple core referencing systems meet
these needs.
The elements of good research style
Below the zoom level of the chapter and the section, we enter
the realm of new and smaller organizing entities, the paragraph
and the sentence. Good style consists of stringing these tiny
elements together in connected chains that strike the maxi-
mum number of other people, your achieved readers, as logical,
meaningful, accessible and plausible. But it is wise to acknowl-
edge from the outset that there is no single route to good style.
Such judgements are particular, varying with the nature of the
materials, the readership and the author’s purposes. It would be
easy to say also that ‘good style’ is a subjective issue, and to
adopt a philosophy of ‘each to their own taste’. But underneath
this appearance of irreconcilable diversity I actually think there
lie some more fundamental authoring dilemmas in professional
writing. I begin by exploring these divergent style pressures 
in doctoral work. I move on to some checklists of style issues