Tag Archives: education

How to write a PhD thesis. Part I: Saving Time

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My aim in this series is to explain the things that are often in plain sight but not always to the person that most needs to know. Image by Randal Phoenix.

Amongst PhD students it’s unsurprising that the thesis becomes the subject of obsessive attention. The thesis is, after all, the one absolutely essential output of the program, the final product, the main focus of assessment. Everything else is nice-to-have but not actually required for graduation1.

There’s another point of view though, which is that the thesis is actually the least-important output you’ll produce. As soon as you’ve passed the viva it doesn’t matter. The chances are that no-one will ever read it again. The fact that you have a PhD implies that a thesis exists somewhere but your potential as a researcher will be measured in actual publications2. This is why, as I’ve argued elsewhere, the thesis only needs to be good enough to pass. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s not the defining statement of your career. You need a thesis; you don’t need a great thesis. Don’t create something that’s a joy to read when it’s only being sent to an audience of two people3.

This is why I counsel against the danger of thesis-gazing, which is when an inordinate of time is spent on trying to craft the perfect thesis for your own satisfaction rather than directing effort towards the parts that will actually count. Focus instead on the elements that will have an impact on your future career, the chances of an easier ride in the viva, and for the actual progress of your field as a whole. Crafting a thesis that flows in a cohesive narrative arc might be satisfying but it’s not necessary. A student who slings together a bunch of loosely-connected studies and sticks a cover on it, but who also gets several papers out at the same time, is going to have a better chance of landing a post-doc position. Your future employers will not read your thesis but they will read your CV and publication list.

The main idea I’d like to get across in this post, and the ones that follow, is the importance of marginal value. You have limited time, no matter what stage of your degree you’re at. Invest in the things that will make a difference now and in the future, and cut corners wherever you can get away with it. This will reduce the pressure you place on yourself.

Here are the three things you can probably save time on4:

  • Final discussion. Quite frankly, no-one cares about this. In this concluding chapter you aspire to draw all the threads of your various studies together. The aim is to convince the reader that it did all actually make sense, you found something worthwhile, and has wider importance and implications. The truth is that your examiners have already made their mind up by the time they reach the discussion. A great discussion will not rescue a thesis if the data chapters have been below par. Likewise a bad discussion isn’t going to change their minds, and if they don’t like it then they can ask for amendments. Most likely is that they will run out of time before the viva, give it a skim read, and not worry too much. Leave this until last and run it off in a couple of days (no more than a week).
  • Appendices. A thesis chapter is a manuscript that needs to go on a diet. Publishing it requires you to remove all the fat: supplementary analyses, digressions on individual observations, excessive literature citations and endless waffle. It’s already too long. Then there are the other things you did on top, which probably took a lot of time, but which don’t quite fit into the chapter. So you think: let’s have an appendix. This appears to be a cost-free solution. It will also have absolutely no impact on the quality of your thesis or the outcome of the viva. If there’s something you can’t bear to leave out then you could have an appendix. Or you could put it in a shoebox and bury it in a bog where it has a higher chance of being found. Time spent preparing and formatting the appendix is generally wasted.
  • Rants. You’ve spent a long time thinking about this one thing. It’s been your whole life for the last few years. In the course of this obsession you have developed Opinions. And someone needs to hear them. Whether it’s that a major paper in the field is wrong, or a method is flawed, you’re about to unleash. Unfortunately only two people will read it and the internal examiner won’t care. The external will either disagree, which creates a problem in the viva, or perhaps already agree. Maybe, in the best case scenario, you might actually change their mind. Fantastic! That’s a lot of effort to shift one person’s opinion, and probably not worth it. Write an angry blog post instead or start an argument on Bluesky.
  • General introduction. This one is likely to spark some disagreement from other academics because writing a general introduction is an essential step in the grad student journey. But if the point of the general introduction in the thesis is only to explain and justify your research questions then it doesn’t need to be highly polished. Put the real effort into the chapter introductions because there’s a good chance of those being turned into manuscripts. The counter argument is that the general introduction is the first thing examiners read and it’s worth giving them a good impression. I do agree with this. Make the introduction coherent and authoritative, but it’s not going to make-or-break your thesis. If you miss something out then your examiners will tell you and it’s an easy correction to make.

I’ve been direct supervisor for a dozen completed PhDs and acted as tutor or advisor to countless others. Every single one said that they want to publish their general introduction as a review paper. Maybe this is one of those post-grad myths because I’ve never seen it happen. Instead students can spend an inordinate amount of time crafting what amounts to a lengthy attempt to demonstrate that they’ve read (and cited) everything of potential relevance to their PhD. It’s good experience but look at it in terms of return on effort. I’ve examined theses with finely crafted introductions and made no comments on them at all, then given the students a hard time because their data chapters were sub-standard. I’ve also read theses with cursory introductions followed by a series of self-contained manuscripts. The latter had a much easier ride.

In my next post I’ll move onto the things that are often under-valued by many students, but where you can reinvest the time saved by decreasing emphasis on the above. Or just take the weekend off, you probably deserve it.

1 There are some countries where a publication, or at least a submitted manuscript, is required before the PhD can be awarded.

2 Or, depending on your field, software tools on GitHub, patents, new species, DNA sequences… all sorts of things that might be picked up and used by others. Unlike your thesis.

3 My experience is with theses in the UK and Ireland, and I know that there is variation between systems, but in all cases the likely audience for a thesis is in the low single figures.

4 I’m going to put one caveat in here, which is that working on something unimportant can be treated as productive procrastination, or help build up momentum for the important writing to come. This can be true but can also be used as a convenient excuse. Instead of bulking up the thesis, why not write something that someone might actually choose to read?

How to be an external examiner for a degree course

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An arbitrarily selected university at which I was once an external examiner. Panoramic photo taken by mintchocicecream.

Acting as an external examiner for a degree course is one of those roles for which academics typically receive no guidance or training. This is quite striking given how much authority an external examiner has over the degrees awarded to students. The experience is very different from being the external examiner for a PhD, for which there is plenty of advice out there, along with some profoundly differing opinions. Here however I’m referring to the role of assessing a taught undergraduate or Masters-level course at another university. This post is very much a personal perspective because even over the course of a long career any one individual only gains a limited experience, and mine has been entirely within Europe, so please add or qualify in the comments.

How do you become an external examiner?

Opportunities for external examiners are seldom advertised externally which means they are usually allocated through networks and personal connections rather than a transparent process. That doesn’t overly concern me because finding external examiners is difficult and I’d rather not place any more barriers in the way of course directors. I doubt that an open recruitment would attract many candidates, we would spend a long time on it, and I suspect in most cases we’d fall back on calling a friend anyway. It’s also not an easy job with much remuneration, as will become clear lower down, so really it’s a favour you do for friends and colleagues more than an opportunity. That being said, here are the main ways to get involved.

  • The most common method is being in the wrong place at the wrong time, which usually means at a conference bar at a moment of weakness. One moment you’re sharing a drink with a colleague, the next they’re casually mentioning that they have a vacancy for an external, and by the time they’ve bought the next round you’ve signed up for the next three years.
  • Related to this is to be recommended by someone else, usually by a more experienced academic who was approached at the conference bar and still had the wherewithal to say “No, but I know a great person you should try.”
  • Ask during your development or performance review. Letting your line manager know that you’re on the lookout for opportunities means they can pass any on to you, as well as signalling that you’re trying to broaden your external responsibilities.
  • Let the world know! I’ve never seen anyone put an open call out on social media but if you’re really keen then I doubt you’d be left waiting for long.

What does the role involve?

There doesn’t seem to be a standard list of expectations, or at least every institution for which I’ve acted as examiner has asked me to do something slightly different. Some combination of the following are usually involved though. Typically it involves a few days of preparation beforehand and one or two days at the university itself per year.

  • Checking exam papers is always an important element. Spotting mistakes is part of this, but more important is to ensure that the questions are clear and easily comprehensible. A module convenor who is deep into the material can sometimes need a little help to make sure that others will understand things the same way that they do. It’s also necessary to check that the expectations are reasonable for the level of the students and the time available.
  • These days vivas are no longer standard for all undergraduate students but in some places remain expected for taught post-graduates. Often a subset of the cohort is invited to a viva. These might be useful to make decisions about borderline candidates, find out more about a particular student who faced personal difficulties during their degree, or just to check that overall standards match up with your expectations of strong and weak students. I find them very useful for gathering some informal feedback about the content and delivery of the course, although this can also be achieved by holding open meetings or course surveys.
  • Review the exam scripts or coursework. There is always far more of this than you can cover in the time available to you so this is necessarily selective. Sometimes you might take a deep dive into a module with unusual mark distribution, or track the performance of a particular student who needs special attention. Other times you might just pick a box of papers at random. Your role isn’t to check or amend the marks, it’s more to make sure that they align with the university’s own grade descriptions.
  • Attend the final exam board. At this your main responsibility is to make sure that the university applies their own rules consistently and correctly so that candidates get the degree classifications that they deserve. Sometimes the rules are bizarre and hard to justify but it’s not within your power to fix them or propose different ones. All you can do is make sure that the university is doing what they claim to.
  • Submit a final report at the end of the academic year. This is normally the trigger that allows you to get paid. In this you are asked to respond to a set of questions which is determined by the university, usually related to the overall standards and practices you’ve seen on the course. You can ask for reports from previous examiners to see whether there are long-standing issues and how they have been addressed in the past.
  • To clear up one common misconception, you’re not there to evaluate the accuracy of module content, even in areas of your expertise. You have to respect the academic independence of your colleagues to teach what they want in the manner that they choose. I’m not going to declare that r/K selection is out-of-date, or that CSR theory is an abomination against reason, even if I believe both to be the case1.

The term of an external examiner is usually three years, sometimes with an opportunity to extend for another year, but not much longer. The principle of changing externals to get different insights is an important one. In my experience you spend the first year just trying to understand the course and it takes until the second or third year before you can start making properly informed observations and recommendations.

What are the benefits?

  • You get paid! How much you receive varies widely between universities but even at best it in no way compensates you for the actual time spent. In other words, don’t do it for the money. A nominal fee does at least help you to feel that your expertise is appreciated.
  • You get to visit another university. This is a much bigger benefit than the pay. If they’re doing things properly and haven’t suffered from ruinous budget cuts (hello to my friends in UK universities) then you should be offered the costs of travel, a stay at a hotel and a nice meal out at their expense. Perhaps this can lead to new collaborations or connections that otherwise might not have developed.
  • It exposes you to lots of new ideas. Some of these might be approaches to teaching that you wouldn’t have otherwise considered. Alternatively you might learn from the mistakes made by others. Seeing how other people and institutions deal with the challenges of teaching and supporting students can help you to improve practices at your own institution.
  • There’s also a great deal of reassurance that comes from finding out that a different set of colleagues in another city or country are struggling with the same issues that you are. Whether it’s the use of LLMs in coursework, the difficulties involved in teaching to students with English as a second language, or dealing with ever-declining lecture attendance, you might not find the answers but you can come away with the feeling that at least it’s not just you.
  • People have to listen to you. There are very few moments in an academic career when you say something and your audience are obliged to hear you out, respect what you say, and then respond to it. Ultimately you submit a report with some recommendations and these need to be acted upon (or if not then provide a justification). Aside from boosting your ego it’s a rare opportunity to have your expertise lead directly to changes which are hopefully beneficial to students or the teaching of your discipline. This can be very satisfying.

What are the biggest challenges?

  • Top of the list for me are virtual learning environments (VLEs). Most modern universities use one of Moodle (relatively good), Canvas (ok once you understand the layout) or Blackboard (an offence to the dignity of all who encounter it). Every university adopts different policies for setting up modules, which are interpreted in wildly variable ways by individual academics. I often spend around 50% of my time as an examiner just trying to access pages and find the information I need.
  • IT security is simply not designed with external examiners in mind. Normally you need a new institutional email account, which allows you access to their system, and is annoyingly the only way they ever contact you. This includes setting your password to get onto the systems. Expect many headaches.
  • Moving onto actual pedagogical issues, the mixed approaches to assessment and evaluation you observe can be challenging to understand. As time goes on I’ve become more accepting of this in that any single assessment is unlikely to shape the outcome of a whole degree which aggregates across lots of modules. Nevertheless it continues to surprise me what some teachers think are appropriate ways to test or reward student achievement.

I hope this helps to clarify a little of what’s going on behind the scenes of a task that is sometimes quite mysterious. I’ve enjoyed all my external examiner positions2 and have gained a great deal from them professionally. If you get asked then you can feel flattered and I hope your experiences are as positive as mine.

1 Go on, try me.

2 Funnily enough I don’t have one at the moment. No, I’m not looking.