Should students focus more on writing papers than on worrying about their thesis? And some historical gems from Google Books.
The Thesis. The Mount Doom of your PhD (for the full — and both funny and worrying — Lord of the Rings allegory, visit http://go.nature.com/cpbCEN). But does it have to be? Prof-like Substance thinks not (http://go.nature.com/Y67DQh). He recommends “Don't focus on an arcane document that will gather dust for the next 50 years until the departmental office needs space and throws the old ones out.” Instead, he suggests that students need to concentrate on getting the papers out: “Write the papers, or at least write the chapters as papers so you can get them out quickly after the thesis.” That should lead to less fixation on a document that he suggests very few people read anyway. Prof-like Substance himself has not opened his own thesis since discovering a typo in the very first sentence just after it was bound. Many of the comments agreed, but not all: finding descriptions of failed experiments saved Patchi valuable time, plus “in a thesis you can outline your thought process, pitfalls and have a complete description of your methods”.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
