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How to Write a Master's Thesis

• Yvonne N. Bui - San Francisco State University, USA
• Description

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“Yvonne Bui’s How to Write a Master’s Thesis should be mandatory for all thesis track master’s students.  It steers students away from the shortcuts students may be tempted to use that would be costly in the long run. The step by step intentional approach is what I like best about this book.”

“This is the best textbook about writing an M.A. thesis available in the market.” 

“This is the type of textbook that students keep and refer to after the class.”

Excellent book. Thorough, yet concise, information for students writing their Master's Thesis who may not have had a strong background in research.

Clear, Concise, easy for students to access and understand. Contains all the elements for a successful thesis.

I loved the ease of this book. It was clear without extra nonsense that would just confuse the students.

Clear, concise, easily accessible. Students find it of great value.

NEW TO THIS EDITION:             

• Concrete instruction and guides for conceptualizing the literature review help students navigate through the most challenging topics.        
• Step-by-step instructions and more screenshots give students the guidance they need to write the foundational chapter, along with the latest online resources and general library information.          
• Additional coverage of single case designs and mixed methods help students gain a more comprehensive understanding of research methods.           
• Expanded explanation of unintentional plagiarism within the ethics chapter shows students the path to successful and professional writing.       
• Detailed information on conference presentation as a way to disseminate research , in addition to getting published, help students understand all of the tools needed to write a master’s thesis.    

KEY FEATURES:  

• An advanced chapter organizer provides an up-front checklist of what to expect in the chapter and serves as a project planner, so that students can immediately prepare and work alongside the chapter as they begin to develop their thesis.
• Full guidance on conducting successful literature reviews includes up-to-date information on electronic databases and Internet tools complete with numerous figures and captured screen shots from relevant web sites, electronic databases, and SPSS software, all integrated with the text.
• Excerpts from research articles and samples from exemplary students' master's theses relate specifically to the content of each chapter and provide the reader with a real-world context.
• Detailed explanations of the various components of the master's thesis and concrete strategies on how to conduct a literature review help students write each chapter of the master's thesis, and apply the American Psychological Association (APA) editorial style.
• A comprehensive Resources section features "Try It!" boxes which lead students through a sample problem or writing exercise based on a piece of the thesis to reinforce prior course learning and the writing objectives at hand. Reflection/discussion questions in the same section are designed to help students work through the thesis process.

Sample Materials & Chapters

1: Overview of the Master's Degree and Thesis

3: Using the Literature to Research Your Problem

For instructors

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The Thesis Writing Survival Guide: Research and Write an Academic Thesis or Disseration with Less Stress Paperback – May 2, 2023

Purchase options and add-ons, writing a thesis or dissertation can be a tough task—this practical guide will make it much easier.

Are you a student who’s just a thesis or dissertation away from completing your degree? Do you feel it’s a hugely daunting task and you’re not sure where to begin, or how to tackle all the reading, researching, and writing ahead of you? Don’t worry—you don’t have to do it alone! This concise guide will support you every step of the way on your journey from initial idea to completed thesis. In this practical guide, packed with tips, tricks, and tools, you will learn:

• How to find the right topic for your thesis or dissertation
• How to write a convincing research proposal
• How to conduct a literature review
• How to choose and correctly apply an appropriate qualitative or quantitative research method
• How to develop a mindset that will keep you writing
• How to write like an academic and build up convincing arguments

With The Thesis Writing Survival Guide at your side, you will confidently overcome all the challenges that students typically encounter on their thesis or dissertation writing journey. The book is written with a focus on the typical needs of graduate students in the social sciences, although students from other disciplines and those who are writing a thesis as part of their undergraduate studies will also find plenty of useful advice in it. Learn the nuts and bolts of thesis writing—and successfully complete your degree! “This is a masterful guide! Concise but rich in wisdom and practical advice, the authors offer step-by-step advice on how to make the process of writing an academic thesis more of an adventure of discovery, and less of an onerous task—and do so with elegance, clarity, and even a bit of humor.” — Professor James J. Kennelly , Professor of International Business & Management, Skidmore College, New York (USA) “An engaging and very practical guide to the process of writing a thesis. It is full of practical, actionable tips which graduate students and doctoral candidates will find invaluable.” — Dr Jonathan Stoddart , Lecturer (Teaching), Academic Writing Centre, UCL Institute of Education, University College London (UK) “As a PhD student, I have found this book to be an excellent companion in own my thesis writing journey. It’s definitely my survival guide!” — Michela Bearzi , PhD student at the University of Udine (Italy) and the University of Jonkoping (Sweden) “The Thesis Writing Survival Guide provides many helpful guidelines and tips to guide and motivate the student.” — Dr Arona Dison , Coordinator of the UWC Writing Centre, University of the Western Cape (South Africa) “The perfect handbook to navigate the tumultuous process of writing a thesis. In this survival guide, the authors provide down to earth advice on how to avoid the pitfalls encountered by most students when writing their thesis.” — Professor Olivier Furrer , Chair of Marketing, University of Fribourg (Switzerland) About the authors: Dr Dietmar Sternad is an award-winning management professor with a passion for helping his students succeed. He is experienced in supervising thesis projects and enjoys helping students overcome the many hurdles they face when writing their theses. Harriet Power is an experienced editor who has spent over a decade editing and writing resources for leading educational publishers. She loves helping writers to express their ideas in a clear and engaging way.

• Print length 245 pages
• Language English
• Publication date May 2, 2023
• Dimensions 7 x 0.62 x 10 inches
• ISBN-10 3903386162
• ISBN-13 978-3903386167
• See all details

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All you need to succeed in your thesis or dissertation project in one book, editorial reviews.

"This is a masterful guide! Concise but rich in wisdom and practical advice, the authors offer step-by-step advice on how to make the process of writing an academic thesis more of an adventure of discovery, and less of an onerous task-and do so with elegance, clarity, and even a bit of humor."

-Professor James J. Kennelly, Professor of International Business & Management, Skidmore College, New York (USA)

"An engaging and very practical guide to the process of writing a thesis. It is full of practical, actionable tips which graduate students and doctoral candidates will find invaluable."

-Dr Jonathan Stoddart, Lecturer (Teaching), Academic Writing Centre, UCL Institute of Education, University College London (UK)

"As a PhD student, I have found this book to be an excellent companion in own my thesis writing journey. It's definitely my survival guide!"

-Michela Bearzi, PhD student at the University of Udine (Italy) and the University of Jonkoping (Sweden)

"The Thesis Writing Survival Guide provides many helpful guidelines and tips to guide and motivate the student."

-Dr Arona Dison, Coordinator of the UWC Writing Centre, University of the Western Cape (South Africa)

"The perfect handbook to navigate the tumultuous process of writing a thesis. In this survival guide, the authors provide down to earth advice on how to avoid the pitfalls encountered by most students when writing their thesis."

-Professor Olivier Furrer, Chair of Marketing, University of Fribourg (Switzerland)

"Graduate students are often not explicitly taught how to write a thesis or dissertation, and this modern "how to" guide can provide actionable answers to the questions they have! This book conveys the scaffolded and iterative nature of thesis writing in digestible chapters and explains how graduate students can set themselves up for thesis success. As a graduate writing specialist, I definitely recommend this guide to all students working on their theses!"

-Samantha Demmerle, Assistant Director, Graduate Writing and Support, KU Writing Center, The University of Kansas (USA)

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ econcise (May 2, 2023)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 245 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 3903386162
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-3903386167
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.2 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7 x 0.62 x 10 inches
• #102 in Education Research (Books)
• #112 in Social Sciences Research
• #288 in Writing Skill Reference (Books)

About the author

Dietmar sternad.

Dr Dietmar Sternad is a passionate management educator. He aims to create highly engaging learning experiences and learning materials that help his students and other people to become better leaders who can make a difference in the world.

Dietmar is a Professor of International Management at CUAS/FH Kärnten (Austria) and has extensive experience as a CEO of publishing companies as well as in teaching, consulting, and coaching top managers. He holds degrees from universities in Austria, Slovenia, and the UK, is an alumnus of the GLOCOLL (Harvard Business School) and IMTA (CEEMAN) management teachers programs and has received several national and international awards (e.g. from the Academy of Management or the Austrian State Prize for Teaching Excellence).

Dietmar is also the founder and CEO of econcise, an internationally active publisher of concise, approachable, and affordable management and leadership textbooks and ebooks.

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How To Write Your First Thesis

• © 2017
• Paul Gruba 0 ,
• Justin Zobel 1

School of Languages & Linguistics, University of Melbourne SLL, Babel Bldg 608, Melbourne, Australia

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School of Computing & Information Systems, University of Melbourne Comp. Science & Software Engg., Carlton, VIC, Australia

• A practical guide for the entire process of producing a thesis for the first time
• Written by authors with many years of experience advising students
• Provides grounded advice to students who are new to writing extended original research, either undergraduate or graduate coursework

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About this book

Many courses and degrees require that students write a short thesis. This book guides students through their first experience of producing a thesis and undertaking original research. Written by experienced researchers and advisors, the book sets out signposts and tasks to help students to understand what is needed to succeed, including scoping a topic, managing references, interpreting data, and successful completion.

For students, the task of writing a thesis is a transition from structured coursework to becoming a researcher. The book provides advice on:

• What to expect from research and how to work with a supervisor
• Getting organized and approaching the work in a productive way
• Developing an overall thesis structure and avoidance of mistakes such as inadvertent plagiarism
• Producing each major component: a strong introduction, background chapters that are situated in the discipline, and an explanation ofmethods and results that are crucial to successful original research
• How to wrap up a complex project with an extended checklist of the many details needed to be checked before a final submission

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Writing a Postgraduate or Doctoral Thesis: A Step-by-Step Approach

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Completing a Thesis by Publication

Persistent myths about dissertation writing and one proven way of breaking free of their spell.

• research writing
• thesis preparation
• dissertation writing
• final project preparation
• thesis structure
• learning and instruction

Table of contents (9 chapters)

Front matter, transition to your first thesis.

• Paul Gruba, Justin Zobel

Getting Organized

The structure of a thesis, a strong beginning: the introduction, situating the study: the background, explaining the investigation: methods and innovations, presenting the outcome: the results, wrapping it up: discussion and conclusion, before you submit, back matter, authors and affiliations, school of languages & linguistics, university of melbourne sll, babel bldg 608, melbourne, australia, school of computing & information systems, university of melbourne comp. science & software engg., carlton, vic, australia.

Justin Zobel

About the authors

Paul Gruba  is Associate Professor in the School of Languages and Linguistics, University of Melbourne.

Justin Zobel  is Professor in the School of Computing & Information Systems, University of Melbourne.

Bibliographic Information

Book Title : How To Write Your First Thesis

Authors : Paul Gruba, Justin Zobel

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61854-8

Publisher : Springer Cham

eBook Packages : Computer Science , Computer Science (R0)

Copyright Information : Springer International Publishing AG 2017

Softcover ISBN : 978-3-319-61853-1 Published: 06 September 2017

eBook ISBN : 978-3-319-61854-8 Published: 24 August 2017

Edition Number : 1

Number of Pages : XIII, 95

Number of Illustrations : 8 b/w illustrations

Topics : Computer Science, general , Learning & Instruction , Natural Language Processing (NLP) , Popular Social Sciences , Science, Humanities and Social Sciences, multidisciplinary

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Think of yourself as a member of a jury, listening to a lawyer who is presenting an opening argument. You'll want to know very soon whether the lawyer believes the accused to be guilty or not guilty, and how the lawyer plans to convince you. Readers of academic essays are like jury members: before they have read too far, they want to know what the essay argues as well as how the writer plans to make the argument. After reading your thesis statement, the reader should think, "This essay is going to try to convince me of something. I'm not convinced yet, but I'm interested to see how I might be."

An effective thesis cannot be answered with a simple "yes" or "no." A thesis is not a topic; nor is it a fact; nor is it an opinion. "Reasons for the fall of communism" is a topic. "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe" is a fact known by educated people. "The fall of communism is the best thing that ever happened in Europe" is an opinion. (Superlatives like "the best" almost always lead to trouble. It's impossible to weigh every "thing" that ever happened in Europe. And what about the fall of Hitler? Couldn't that be "the best thing"?)

A good thesis has two parts. It should tell what you plan to argue, and it should "telegraph" how you plan to argue—that is, what particular support for your claim is going where in your essay.

Steps in Constructing a Thesis

First, analyze your primary sources.  Look for tension, interest, ambiguity, controversy, and/or complication. Does the author contradict himself or herself? Is a point made and later reversed? What are the deeper implications of the author's argument? Figuring out the why to one or more of these questions, or to related questions, will put you on the path to developing a working thesis. (Without the why, you probably have only come up with an observation—that there are, for instance, many different metaphors in such-and-such a poem—which is not a thesis.)

Once you have a working thesis, write it down.  There is nothing as frustrating as hitting on a great idea for a thesis, then forgetting it when you lose concentration. And by writing down your thesis you will be forced to think of it clearly, logically, and concisely. You probably will not be able to write out a final-draft version of your thesis the first time you try, but you'll get yourself on the right track by writing down what you have.

Keep your thesis prominent in your introduction.  A good, standard place for your thesis statement is at the end of an introductory paragraph, especially in shorter (5-15 page) essays. Readers are used to finding theses there, so they automatically pay more attention when they read the last sentence of your introduction. Although this is not required in all academic essays, it is a good rule of thumb.

Anticipate the counterarguments.  Once you have a working thesis, you should think about what might be said against it. This will help you to refine your thesis, and it will also make you think of the arguments that you'll need to refute later on in your essay. (Every argument has a counterargument. If yours doesn't, then it's not an argument—it may be a fact, or an opinion, but it is not an argument.)

This statement is on its way to being a thesis. However, it is too easy to imagine possible counterarguments. For example, a political observer might believe that Dukakis lost because he suffered from a "soft-on-crime" image. If you complicate your thesis by anticipating the counterargument, you'll strengthen your argument, as shown in the sentence below.

Some Caveats and Some Examples

A thesis is never a question.  Readers of academic essays expect to have questions discussed, explored, or even answered. A question ("Why did communism collapse in Eastern Europe?") is not an argument, and without an argument, a thesis is dead in the water.

A thesis is never a list.  "For political, economic, social and cultural reasons, communism collapsed in Eastern Europe" does a good job of "telegraphing" the reader what to expect in the essay—a section about political reasons, a section about economic reasons, a section about social reasons, and a section about cultural reasons. However, political, economic, social and cultural reasons are pretty much the only possible reasons why communism could collapse. This sentence lacks tension and doesn't advance an argument. Everyone knows that politics, economics, and culture are important.

A thesis should never be vague, combative or confrontational.  An ineffective thesis would be, "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe because communism is evil." This is hard to argue (evil from whose perspective? what does evil mean?) and it is likely to mark you as moralistic and judgmental rather than rational and thorough. It also may spark a defensive reaction from readers sympathetic to communism. If readers strongly disagree with you right off the bat, they may stop reading.

An effective thesis has a definable, arguable claim.  "While cultural forces contributed to the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the disintegration of economies played the key role in driving its decline" is an effective thesis sentence that "telegraphs," so that the reader expects the essay to have a section about cultural forces and another about the disintegration of economies. This thesis makes a definite, arguable claim: that the disintegration of economies played a more important role than cultural forces in defeating communism in Eastern Europe. The reader would react to this statement by thinking, "Perhaps what the author says is true, but I am not convinced. I want to read further to see how the author argues this claim."

A thesis should be as clear and specific as possible.  Avoid overused, general terms and abstractions. For example, "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe because of the ruling elite's inability to address the economic concerns of the people" is more powerful than "Communism collapsed due to societal discontent."

Copyright 1999, Maxine Rodburg and The Tutors of the Writing Center at Harvard University

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A Guide to Thesis Writing That Is a Guide to Life

“How to Write a Thesis,” by Umberto Eco, first appeared on Italian bookshelves in 1977. For Eco, the playful philosopher and novelist best known for his work on semiotics, there was a practical reason for writing it. Up until 1999, a thesis of original research was required of every student pursuing the Italian equivalent of a bachelor’s degree. Collecting his thoughts on the thesis process would save him the trouble of reciting the same advice to students each year. Since its publication, “How to Write a Thesis” has gone through twenty-three editions in Italy and has been translated into at least seventeen languages. Its first English edition is only now available, in a translation by Caterina Mongiat Farina and Geoff Farina.

We in the English-speaking world have survived thirty-seven years without “How to Write a Thesis.” Why bother with it now? After all, Eco wrote his thesis-writing manual before the advent of widespread word processing and the Internet. There are long passages devoted to quaint technologies such as note cards and address books, careful strategies for how to overcome the limitations of your local library. But the book’s enduring appeal—the reason it might interest someone whose life no longer demands the writing of anything longer than an e-mail—has little to do with the rigors of undergraduate honors requirements. Instead, it’s about what, in Eco’s rhapsodic and often funny book, the thesis represents: a magical process of self-realization, a kind of careful, curious engagement with the world that need not end in one’s early twenties. “Your thesis,” Eco foretells, “is like your first love: it will be difficult to forget.” By mastering the demands and protocols of the fusty old thesis, Eco passionately demonstrates, we become equipped for a world outside ourselves—a world of ideas, philosophies, and debates.

Eco’s career has been defined by a desire to share the rarefied concerns of academia with a broader reading public. He wrote a novel that enacted literary theory (“The Name of the Rose”) and a children’s book about atoms conscientiously objecting to their fate as war machines (“The Bomb and the General”). “How to Write a Thesis” is sparked by the wish to give any student with the desire and a respect for the process the tools for producing a rigorous and meaningful piece of writing. “A more just society,” Eco writes at the book’s outset, would be one where anyone with “true aspirations” would be supported by the state, regardless of their background or resources. Our society does not quite work that way. It is the students of privilege, the beneficiaries of the best training available, who tend to initiate and then breeze through the thesis process.

Eco walks students through the craft and rewards of sustained research, the nuances of outlining, different systems for collating one’s research notes, what to do if—per Eco’s invocation of thesis-as-first-love—you fear that someone’s made all these moves before. There are broad strategies for laying out the project’s “center” and “periphery” as well as philosophical asides about originality and attribution. “Work on a contemporary author as if he were ancient, and an ancient one as if he were contemporary,” Eco wisely advises. “You will have more fun and write a better thesis.” Other suggestions may strike the modern student as anachronistic, such as the novel idea of using an address book to keep a log of one’s sources.

But there are also old-fashioned approaches that seem more useful than ever: he recommends, for instance, a system of sortable index cards to explore a project’s potential trajectories. Moments like these make “How to Write a Thesis” feel like an instruction manual for finding one’s center in a dizzying era of information overload. Consider Eco’s caution against “the alibi of photocopies”: “A student makes hundreds of pages of photocopies and takes them home, and the manual labor he exercises in doing so gives him the impression that he possesses the work. Owning the photocopies exempts the student from actually reading them. This sort of vertigo of accumulation, a neocapitalism of information, happens to many.” Many of us suffer from an accelerated version of this nowadays, as we effortlessly bookmark links or save articles to Instapaper, satisfied with our aspiration to hoard all this new information, unsure if we will ever get around to actually dealing with it. (Eco’s not-entirely-helpful solution: read everything as soon as possible.)

But the most alluring aspect of Eco’s book is the way he imagines the community that results from any honest intellectual endeavor—the conversations you enter into across time and space, across age or hierarchy, in the spirit of free-flowing, democratic conversation. He cautions students against losing themselves down a narcissistic rabbit hole: you are not a “defrauded genius” simply because someone else has happened upon the same set of research questions. “You must overcome any shyness and have a conversation with the librarian,” he writes, “because he can offer you reliable advice that will save you much time. You must consider that the librarian (if not overworked or neurotic) is happy when he can demonstrate two things: the quality of his memory and erudition and the richness of his library, especially if it is small. The more isolated and disregarded the library, the more the librarian is consumed with sorrow for its underestimation.”

Eco captures a basic set of experiences and anxieties familiar to anyone who has written a thesis, from finding a mentor (“How to Avoid Being Exploited By Your Advisor”) to fighting through episodes of self-doubt. Ultimately, it’s the process and struggle that make a thesis a formative experience. When everything else you learned in college is marooned in the past—when you happen upon an old notebook and wonder what you spent all your time doing, since you have no recollection whatsoever of a senior-year postmodernism seminar—it is the thesis that remains, providing the once-mastered scholarly foundation that continues to authorize, decades-later, barroom observations about the late-career works of William Faulker or the Hotelling effect. (Full disclosure: I doubt that anyone on Earth can rival my mastery of John Travolta’s White Man’s Burden, owing to an idyllic Berkeley spring spent studying awful movies about race.)

In his foreword to Eco’s book, the scholar Francesco Erspamer contends that “How to Write a Thesis” continues to resonate with readers because it gets at “the very essence of the humanities.” There are certainly reasons to believe that the current crisis of the humanities owes partly to the poor job they do of explaining and justifying themselves. As critics continue to assail the prohibitive cost and possible uselessness of college—and at a time when anything that takes more than a few minutes to skim is called a “longread”—it’s understandable that devoting a small chunk of one’s frisky twenties to writing a thesis can seem a waste of time, outlandishly quaint, maybe even selfish. And, as higher education continues to bend to the logic of consumption and marketable skills, platitudes about pursuing knowledge for its own sake can seem certifiably bananas. Even from the perspective of the collegiate bureaucracy, the thesis is useful primarily as another mode of assessment, a benchmark of student achievement that’s legible and quantifiable. It’s also a great parting reminder to parents that your senior learned and achieved something.

But “How to Write a Thesis” is ultimately about much more than the leisurely pursuits of college students. Writing and research manuals such as “The Elements of Style,” “The Craft of Research,” and Turabian offer a vision of our best selves. They are exacting and exhaustive, full of protocols and standards that might seem pretentious, even strange. Acknowledging these rules, Eco would argue, allows the average person entry into a veritable universe of argument and discussion. “How to Write a Thesis,” then, isn’t just about fulfilling a degree requirement. It’s also about engaging difference and attempting a project that is seemingly impossible, humbly reckoning with “the knowledge that anyone can teach us something.” It models a kind of self-actualization, a belief in the integrity of one’s own voice.

A thesis represents an investment with an uncertain return, mostly because its life-changing aspects have to do with process. Maybe it’s the last time your most harebrained ideas will be taken seriously. Everyone deserves to feel this way. This is especially true given the stories from many college campuses about the comparatively lower number of women, first-generation students, and students of color who pursue optional thesis work. For these students, part of the challenge involves taking oneself seriously enough to ask for an unfamiliar and potentially path-altering kind of mentorship.

It’s worth thinking through Eco’s evocation of a “just society.” We might even think of the thesis, as Eco envisions it, as a formal version of the open-mindedness, care, rigor, and gusto with which we should greet every new day. It’s about committing oneself to a task that seems big and impossible. In the end, you won’t remember much beyond those final all-nighters, the gauche inside joke that sullies an acknowledgments page that only four human beings will ever read, the awkward photograph with your advisor at graduation. All that remains might be the sensation of handing your thesis to someone in the departmental office and then walking into a possibility-rich, almost-summer afternoon. It will be difficult to forget.

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Other Research Support Guides 1. Plan (Design and Discover) your Research >>  2. Find & Manage Research Literature >> 3. Doing the Research >> 5. Publish & Share >> 6. Measure Impact

Your dissertation may be the longest piece of writing you have ever done, but there are ways to approach it that will help to make it less overwhelming.

Write up as you go along. It is much easier to keep track of how your ideas develop and writing helps clarify your thinking. It also saves having to churn out 1000s of words at the end.

You don't have to start with the introduction – start at the chapter that seems the easiest to write – this could be the literature review or methodology, for example.

Alternatively you may prefer to write the introduction first, so you can get your ideas straight. Decide what will suit your ways of working best - then do it.

Think of each chapter as an essay in itself – it should have a clear introduction and conclusion. Use the conclusion to link back to the overall research question.

Think of the main argument of your dissertation as a river, and each chapter is a tributary feeding into this. The individual chapters will contain their own arguments, and go their own way, but they all contribute to the main flow.

Write a chapter, read it and do a redraft - then move on. This stops you from getting bogged down in one chapter.

Write your references properly and in full from the beginning.

Keep your word count in mind – be ruthless and don't write anything that isn't relevant. It's often easier to add information, than have to cut down a long chapter that you've slaved over for hours.

Save your work! Remember to save your work frequently to somewhere you can access it easily. It's a good idea to at least save a copy to a cloud-based service like Google Docs or Dropbox so that you can access it from any computer - if you only save to your own PC, laptop or tablet, you could lose everything if you lose or break your device.

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Book series

Springer Theses

Recognizing Outstanding Ph.D. Research

About this book series

Aims and Scope  

The series “Springer Theses” brings together a selection of the very best Ph.D. theses from around the world and across the physical sciences. Nominated and endorsed by two recognized specialists, each published volume has been selected for its scientific excellence and the high impact of its contents for the pertinent field of research. For greater accessibility to non-specialists, the published versions include an extended introduction, as well as a foreword by the student’s supervisor explaining the special relevance of the work for the field. As a whole, the series will provide a valuable resource both for newcomers to the research fields described, and for other scientists seeking detailed background information on special questions. Finally, it provides an accredited documentation of the valuable contributions made by today’s younger generation of scientists.

Theses may be nominated for publication in this series by heads of department at internationally leading universities or institutes and should fulfill all of the following criteria  

• They must be written in good English.
• The topic should fall within the confines of Chemistry, Physics, Earth Sciences, Engineering and related interdisciplinary fields such as Materials, Nanoscience, Chemical Engineering, Complex Systems and Biophysics. 
• The work reported in the thesis must represent a significant scientific advance. 
• If the thesis includes previously published material, permission to reproduce this must be gained from the respective copyright holder (a maximum 30% of the thesis should be a verbatim reproduction from the author's previous publications).
• They must have been examined and passed during the 12 months prior to nomination. 
• Each thesis should include a foreword by the supervisor outlining the significance of its content.
• The theses should have a clearly defined structure including an introduction accessible to new PhD students and scientists not expert in the relevant field.

Book titles in this series

High energy efficiency neural network processor with combined digital and computing-in-memory architecture.

• Jinshan Yue
• Copyright: 2024

Available Renditions

Enhanced Microbial and Chemical Catalysis in Bio-electrochemical Systems

• Xian-Wei Liu

Stability Assessment of Power Systems with Multiple Voltage Source Converters

Bifurcation-Theory-Based Methods

• Youhong Chen

Micromachined Mixed-potential-type YSZ-based Sensors for Nitrogen Dioxide Monitoring in Automobile Exhaust

Event-Based PID Controllers with Fixed Threshold Sampling Strategies

• Oscar Miguel-Escrig

Publish with us

Abstracted and indexed in.

Thesis Statements

What this handout is about.

This handout describes what a thesis statement is, how thesis statements work in your writing, and how you can craft or refine one for your draft.

Introduction

Writing in college often takes the form of persuasion—convincing others that you have an interesting, logical point of view on the subject you are studying. Persuasion is a skill you practice regularly in your daily life. You persuade your roommate to clean up, your parents to let you borrow the car, your friend to vote for your favorite candidate or policy. In college, course assignments often ask you to make a persuasive case in writing. You are asked to convince your reader of your point of view. This form of persuasion, often called academic argument, follows a predictable pattern in writing. After a brief introduction of your topic, you state your point of view on the topic directly and often in one sentence. This sentence is the thesis statement, and it serves as a summary of the argument you’ll make in the rest of your paper.

What is a thesis statement?

A thesis statement:

• tells the reader how you will interpret the significance of the subject matter under discussion.
• is a road map for the paper; in other words, it tells the reader what to expect from the rest of the paper.
• directly answers the question asked of you. A thesis is an interpretation of a question or subject, not the subject itself. The subject, or topic, of an essay might be World War II or Moby Dick; a thesis must then offer a way to understand the war or the novel.
• makes a claim that others might dispute.
• is usually a single sentence near the beginning of your paper (most often, at the end of the first paragraph) that presents your argument to the reader. The rest of the paper, the body of the essay, gathers and organizes evidence that will persuade the reader of the logic of your interpretation.

If your assignment asks you to take a position or develop a claim about a subject, you may need to convey that position or claim in a thesis statement near the beginning of your draft. The assignment may not explicitly state that you need a thesis statement because your instructor may assume you will include one. When in doubt, ask your instructor if the assignment requires a thesis statement. When an assignment asks you to analyze, to interpret, to compare and contrast, to demonstrate cause and effect, or to take a stand on an issue, it is likely that you are being asked to develop a thesis and to support it persuasively. (Check out our handout on understanding assignments for more information.)

How do I create a thesis?

A thesis is the result of a lengthy thinking process. Formulating a thesis is not the first thing you do after reading an essay assignment. Before you develop an argument on any topic, you have to collect and organize evidence, look for possible relationships between known facts (such as surprising contrasts or similarities), and think about the significance of these relationships. Once you do this thinking, you will probably have a “working thesis” that presents a basic or main idea and an argument that you think you can support with evidence. Both the argument and your thesis are likely to need adjustment along the way.

Writers use all kinds of techniques to stimulate their thinking and to help them clarify relationships or comprehend the broader significance of a topic and arrive at a thesis statement. For more ideas on how to get started, see our handout on brainstorming .

How do I know if my thesis is strong?

If there’s time, run it by your instructor or make an appointment at the Writing Center to get some feedback. Even if you do not have time to get advice elsewhere, you can do some thesis evaluation of your own. When reviewing your first draft and its working thesis, ask yourself the following :

• Do I answer the question? Re-reading the question prompt after constructing a working thesis can help you fix an argument that misses the focus of the question. If the prompt isn’t phrased as a question, try to rephrase it. For example, “Discuss the effect of X on Y” can be rephrased as “What is the effect of X on Y?”
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? If your thesis simply states facts that no one would, or even could, disagree with, it’s possible that you are simply providing a summary, rather than making an argument.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? Thesis statements that are too vague often do not have a strong argument. If your thesis contains words like “good” or “successful,” see if you could be more specific: why is something “good”; what specifically makes something “successful”?
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? If a reader’s first response is likely to  be “So what?” then you need to clarify, to forge a relationship, or to connect to a larger issue.
• Does my essay support my thesis specifically and without wandering? If your thesis and the body of your essay do not seem to go together, one of them has to change. It’s okay to change your working thesis to reflect things you have figured out in the course of writing your paper. Remember, always reassess and revise your writing as necessary.
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? If a reader’s first response is “how?” or “why?” your thesis may be too open-ended and lack guidance for the reader. See what you can add to give the reader a better take on your position right from the beginning.

Suppose you are taking a course on contemporary communication, and the instructor hands out the following essay assignment: “Discuss the impact of social media on public awareness.” Looking back at your notes, you might start with this working thesis:

Social media impacts public awareness in both positive and negative ways.

You can use the questions above to help you revise this general statement into a stronger thesis.

• Do I answer the question? You can analyze this if you rephrase “discuss the impact” as “what is the impact?” This way, you can see that you’ve answered the question only very generally with the vague “positive and negative ways.”
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? Not likely. Only people who maintain that social media has a solely positive or solely negative impact could disagree.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? No. What are the positive effects? What are the negative effects?
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? No. Why are they positive? How are they positive? What are their causes? Why are they negative? How are they negative? What are their causes?
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? No. Why should anyone care about the positive and/or negative impact of social media?

After thinking about your answers to these questions, you decide to focus on the one impact you feel strongly about and have strong evidence for:

Because not every voice on social media is reliable, people have become much more critical consumers of information, and thus, more informed voters.

This version is a much stronger thesis! It answers the question, takes a specific position that others can challenge, and it gives a sense of why it matters.

Let’s try another. Suppose your literature professor hands out the following assignment in a class on the American novel: Write an analysis of some aspect of Mark Twain’s novel Huckleberry Finn. “This will be easy,” you think. “I loved Huckleberry Finn!” You grab a pad of paper and write:

Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn is a great American novel.

You begin to analyze your thesis:

• Do I answer the question? No. The prompt asks you to analyze some aspect of the novel. Your working thesis is a statement of general appreciation for the entire novel.

Think about aspects of the novel that are important to its structure or meaning—for example, the role of storytelling, the contrasting scenes between the shore and the river, or the relationships between adults and children. Now you write:

In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain develops a contrast between life on the river and life on the shore.

• Do I answer the question? Yes!
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? Not really. This contrast is well-known and accepted.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? It’s getting there–you have highlighted an important aspect of the novel for investigation. However, it’s still not clear what your analysis will reveal.
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? Not yet. Compare scenes from the book and see what you discover. Free write, make lists, jot down Huck’s actions and reactions and anything else that seems interesting.
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? What’s the point of this contrast? What does it signify?”

After examining the evidence and considering your own insights, you write:

Through its contrasting river and shore scenes, Twain’s Huckleberry Finn suggests that to find the true expression of American democratic ideals, one must leave “civilized” society and go back to nature.

This final thesis statement presents an interpretation of a literary work based on an analysis of its content. Of course, for the essay itself to be successful, you must now present evidence from the novel that will convince the reader of your interpretation.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Anson, Chris M., and Robert A. Schwegler. 2010. The Longman Handbook for Writers and Readers , 6th ed. New York: Longman.

Lunsford, Andrea A. 2015. The St. Martin’s Handbook , 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Ramage, John D., John C. Bean, and June Johnson. 2018. The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing , 8th ed. New York: Pearson.

Ruszkiewicz, John J., Christy Friend, Daniel Seward, and Maxine Hairston. 2010. The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers , 9th ed. Boston: Pearson Education.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Thesis Book.pdf

High poverty rates, unemployment, illegal immigration, etc. are the causes of low economy growth in Somaliland. Among the reasons of low economy is corruption. In the thesis, the researchers will examine the relationship between corruption and economy in order to analyze the impact of corruption on the economy and create practical solutions to solve it. The topic of the thesis will be based on “The impact of corruption on economic growth of Somaliland (with reference to Good Governance And Anti-Corruption Commission).Many young people are leaving the country due to lack of job because of low economy, there is nothing done to solve the poverty as Somaliland is dependent on foreign countries economically, these factors caused me to write about this factor in order for Somaliland to improve its economic competence.

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Corruption tops common problems for state-building and economic development for most of the nations in the world1. The contemporary anti-corruption measures led by the World Bank Group, the International Monetary Fund, Transparency International, and many other international and regional bodies, approach corruption from an upright interpretation, address it with a legal view, highlight its deleterious effect on state-building, and judge its negative consequences on development2. This article focuses on the government expenditure side of annual budgets, but it does not cover corruption related to any particular problems arising from budget planning, projection and auditing. Using both primary and secondary data, the article ropes the Pritchett et al.3 led argument on the institution focused anti-corruption fights led by the international development interventions which remain under-valued and under-researched, and proposes a repositioning of the current approach to the local context. This argument establishes two views, the strategic actions and the tools we need for local fit anti-corruption reform, and dwindling the knowledge gaps among public on corruption effects.

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Social, political and institutional factors play a major role in the retarding of development and economic growth in many developing and developed countries. Corruption, which is a symptom of deep institutional weaknesses, is blamed for reducing investments and expenditures (for education and health), inereasing income inequality, reducing foreign direct investments, distorting markets, and allocation of resources. Some writers argue that corruption is also responsible for a low economic growth rate. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of corruption on economic growth across 54 developing and developed countries for the period of 1960-1995. Based on the theoretical framework of Barro (1991) and Mauro (1995, 1997), the ernpirical evidence presented suggests that there is a statistic aııy significant negative relationship between corruption and economic growth. The relationship is directly related to inclusion of other determinants of economic growth. 2 • Ankara Ünivers...

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This study was conducted with the objective of assessing the impacts of corruption on socio-economic development in Shambu town, Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia. To this end, Cross sectional descriptive survey research design, and mixed approach were used. And, questionnaire was distributed among 142 respondents, and an interview was conducted with 18 key informants to collect data. Besides, secondary data were used. The data collected through questionnaire were analyzed using SPSS software (Statistical Package for Social Science) version 20 while the data collected through interview were analyzed qualitatively. The study reveals that corruption is highly affecting the socio-economic development of the study area. In this respect, some of its specific impacts are include negatively affect the social relation of the society, lack of provision for infrastructure among society, affecting equality rights of using resources, making the gap between the rich and the poor wider, affects standard of living, unnecessary conflicts among the society, decreasing the town investment, highly reducing taxes and revenues, negatively affecting the total economic growth of the municipality and etc. are some of the problems of corruption and its impacts. Thus, corruption is highly prevailing in Shambu town that affects socio economic development in the study area. It also a serious problem that Shambu Town are suffering from and a setback to the development efforts of a town. Thus, the study recommends that commitment is needed from the concerned bodies like the government, the anti-corruption commission, the woreda court and the civic association to provide strong policy of controlling mechanism especially on the office holders, to set systems and structures that can reduce corruption and ensure efficient delivery of services to the community, to impose strong responsibility on the town administration offices and should be to make a Learnable punishments and establish good governance and democratic leaders in the town and strongly work to minimize the corruption on socio-economic development. Keywords: Corruption, Social Development, Economic Development, Shambu Town.

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While there's an outsized consensus within the empirical literature on the negative impact of corruption on the economic process, some studies still argue that corruption could also be economically justified. There is, however, little empirical evidence to validate the impact of corruption on economic growth within the devolved units. The effect of the corruption rate on the economic activities is examined using ordinary least squares regression analysis and Kenya county-level data. The results of this study revealed that there exists a negative independent relationship between corruption and county per-capita income growth. Arising from the study findings, this study submits that the county authorities and policymakers must put in situ policies that may eradicate the grounds for bribe-taking in counties to stimulate economic growth.

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From OHCHR's experience, corruption negatively impact the enjoyment of all human rights –civil, political, economic, social and cultural, as well as the right to development, which underscores the indivisible and interdependent nature of human rights. The impact on the realization of human rights depends on the level of pervasiveness, the different forms and levels of corruption. Corruption can affect human rights as an obstacle to their realization in general and as a violation of human rights in specific cases. Corruption in the public and private spheres and its proceeds are not confined within national borders, nor is its impact on human rights. It typically diverts funds from state budgets that should be dedicated to the advancement of human rights. It therefore undermines a State's human rights obligation to maximize available resources for the progressive realization of rights recognized in article 2 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Corruption undermines the fairness of institutions and processes and distorts policies and priorities. As a result, corruption damages the legitimacy of regimes leading to a loss of public support and trust for state and government institutions. Corruption impact on the ability of the State to protect and fulfills its human rights obligations, and to deliver relevant services, including a functioning judiciary, law enforcement, health, education, and social services. In countries where corruption pervades governments and legal systems, law enforcement legal reform and the fair administration of justice are impeded by corrupt politicians, judges, lawyers, prosecutors, police officers, investigators and auditors. Corruption in the rule of law system weakens the very accountability structures which are responsible for protecting human rights and contributes to a culture of impunity. Since illegal

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“I wrote a book!” Chemistry concentrators offer a few words on the senior thesis

From the moment they are admitted to Princeton University, undergraduates anticipate the singular requirement of the senior thesis. It offers the chance for them to pursue original research and scholarship in a field of their choosing while working one-on-one with an adviser. Princeton is one of the few Ivy League schools to require a thesis for graduation.

Along with the rest of the senior class, the 23 chemistry concentrators finished their theses about a month ago. But the impact of the experience lingers, often for years, sometimes for decades.

We asked five graduating seniors about the process, which used to earn them the right to boast: “I wrote a book.” Today, senior theses in the Department of Chemistry are digital. But the phrase still carries the day.

Concentrators’ answers, edited for length, appear below. Congratulations to the Great Class of ’24 on achieving this commendable milestone.

Kit Foster, Class of '24

Adviser: Erik Sorensen

Thesis: Advancements in Nitrogen Deletion Enabled Squalene Synthesis

Was this a rewarding experience?

It was a real joy scouring the literature to find historical ways of making my compound of interest (i.e. Squalene). The chemists of old were so creative with their methods, and since Squalene is a significant molecule in the development of total synthesis, many “big name” scientists of the past century have taken a crack at producing it. By reading their papers, I became acquainted with these chemists and their stylistic quirks in a very parasocial way. By the time I was writing my conclusion, they felt like close friends of mine. They felt like real, fallible people who face both hurdles and roadblocks in their own unique ways.

Knowing the ideas of important players in your field is critical for any undergraduate education, but demystifying your predecessors is uniquely important for science students. We are far too frequently fed the narrative that pure genius exists and that we as students can only achieve genius status by living up to impossible standards. I felt like writing this thesis peeled back the facade that the academic giants are somehow different from the rest of us; and in doing so, I can now see myself as being capable of similar achievements.

What was the most difficult part of your thesis?

For me, there was this urge to push off certain easy but monotonous tasks. I found myself saying, “I’ll just write up my bibliography right before I submit,” or “I can edit this sentence for word-flow later; it’s easy and low priority.” This was a mistake because, by the end, these small tasks added up. While actually writing my thesis was slow but relatively relaxing, the last dash to finish all the little things that I hated doing was extremely mentally taxing. So, here is my advice to future seniors who are delving into their thesis: write your bibliography before the last day. You’ll thank me later. 

What are your post-commencement plans?

I will be working in a post-baccalaureate program at Belharra Therapeutics in San Diego, CA. I’m really excited to continue developing my chemical intuition and immerse myself in drug-discovery chemistry, a field with which I am currently completely unacquainted. While New Jersey has been beautiful, I am also thrilled to be moving back to Southern California. I’ll be closer to my family and delicious Mexican restaurants, both of which I enjoy exorbitantly. 

Emma Cavendish, Class of '24

EMMA CAVENDISH

Adviser: Paul Chirik

Thesis: Upgrading Bioderived Dienes through Cycloaddition and Ring Opening Metathesis Polymerization: Catalyst Development and Materials Design

I think I like researching more than I like writing about the research, but there is something about putting it all down on paper that brings more clarity to the process and highlights weaknesses and areas that need further exploration.

The most difficult part of completing the thesis was selecting a stopping point.  There is always more research that can be done and that would be informative, so I tried to wait until the last possible minute to wrap up the research that would be included in my paper.

After graduation I will be doing clinical research at Boston Children’s Hospital while applying to medical school.

Sandeep Mangat, Class of '24

SANDEEP MANGAT

Adviser: Erik Sorensen (also: Nick Falcone, John Hoskin, Samuel He)

Thesis: N-to-C Transmutations of Nitrogen-Containing Heterocycles

What I found most rewarding about the thesis was that it allowed me to become a sort of expert in a very focused field in organic synthesis. Classes had given me a broad look at the subject, but spending a year researching a specific topic helped me master some of the reactions we learned about in pursuit of my own synthesis goals. 

I  enjoyed the research process because it offered a break from the pace of the Princeton life. I like working with my hands and the demands of a project that involved a lot of benchwork gave me the chance to do just that. Purifying a reaction, for instance, allowed me to step away from my computer screen, before which I’d spent most of my time as a student. It allowed me to exercise my mind in a different way. 

One thing I learned about the writing process was to have trust in the overarching goals of the project when trying to write about it. There were times at which I’d get lost in the granularity of a task; getting overwhelmed, for instance, by a figure that was taking too long to make sometimes led me to forget about the successes I luckily was able to achieve in the lab.

The most difficult part about completing this “book” was definitely balancing my time between the lab and my other commitments. In the year I did my thesis research, I was also an editor at The Daily Princetonian , a job that required a lot of attention. It was not uncommon for me to run out of lab to interview a source or write up the latest scoop. Simultaneously, running a column on a crude product required my undivided attention. Navigating these competing forces was difficult but, ultimately, successful, as both my articles and my thesis were able to be published!

Guided by an interest in bringing science to wider audiences, my next step after graduation is to pursue a career in journalism.

Beianka Tomlinson, Class of '24

BEIANKA TOMLINSON

Adviser: Joshua Rabinowitz

Thesis: Investigating how purified diets synergize with cancer therapy to improve outcomes in mouse models of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma and melanoma

Was this a rewarding experience?  

I learned a lot from writing my thesis—more than I thought I would. I had thought that the majority of my learning would take place in the lab or when I was doing my literature review, but it was surprising how much new knowledge and insight emerged as I was synthesizing the written parts of my thesis. What I learned about the writing process is that learning does not end in the lab but continues throughout all aspects of the project. 

I really enjoy being in the lab, so even though it presented challenges as I managed my other responsibilities as a student, it was not the most difficult part for me. Writing, surprisingly, proved to be extremely rigorous. I was nervous about writing because there were so many results I had to work with and I didn’t know where to begin. I also found that the writing process magnifies parts of your project that has gaps or inconsistencies, so I always have to be taking notes on which parts of my lab work to review and fine-tune. I had to be more mentally present when I was writing than when I was in the lab. This process, despite being the most challenging, probably taught me the most about my project and even about myself and my tendencies as a researcher. 

I plan to be an oncologist by profession, but I also enjoy research. In particular, I want to conduct research on diseases like cancer that affect people of color and those from low-income communities the most, as these groups are the most neglected by the medical community. Because of this long-held interest, I will be a post-baccalaureate fellow at the National Institute of Aging under the National Institutes of Health, where I will spend two years studying age-related diseases and how vulnerable populations develop a propensity for them on both an epidemiological and molecular level. I will then go to medical school and become a physician, practicing in both oncology and conducting cancer research. 

Jess Wang, Class of '24

Thesis: Towards the Synthesis of Blazeispirol A: Progress Regarding the Preparation of an Enantiopure Phosphonate Fragment

Research-wise, I found the creative process involved in synthetic design to be the most rewarding. I also enjoyed organizing the different elements of this project together to provide a cohesive narrative in my writing.

The most difficult part of writing this thesis was the amount of time it took!

After graduation, I will be teaching at a college in Vietnam for one year through Princeton in Asia . Afterwards, I will pursue my Ph.D. in chemistry at Caltech.

Books | The skateboarders’ experience, explored in…

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Books | the skateboarders’ experience, explored in essays by josé vadi, in ‘chipped,’ matters of injury, aging, freedom from a car, camaraderie, music and more..

“Skateboarding is truly rebellious and punk in its ethos,” said author José Vadi. “Nobody should care how old someone is just as much as someone shouldn’t care about their sexual orientation, gender, economic background. None of those things should be the determining factor of your ability to enjoy yourself on a skateboard.”

Vadi explores these ideas and more in his sophomore collection of essays, “Chipped: Writing from a Skateboarder’s Lens.”

“Having an active relationship with skateboarding means having an active relationship with your body — but also the realization of your own mortality,” Vadi said in a recent phone interview from his Sacramento home. “That happens every time you try a trick, whether or not you’re gonna land or get injured, and as your body changes over time.”

As a skater, he has been keenly aware of his changing body with each passing decade. The book’s second essay documents a bad fall he had in 2019 and the excruciating pain that lingered for weeks. His description of the experience, like much of the collection, is written with sharp prose.

“As an older skater who is graying, you definitely feel self-conscious, not just because of your age but your ability at your age, or lack thereof,” he said.

Vadi grew up in Pomona and began skating in the mid-’90s, on the cusp of his teenage years. The book transitions between skating around Southern California’s San Gabriel Valley and Inland Empire and skating the streets of San Francisco and Berkeley. He also looks at how much has changed since he began.

“In the wake of all these new skate parks that have developed over the past 20 years, these kids are so good out of the gate. The baseline barometer of what is considered proficient in skateboarding today is what we would consider pro in the ’90s,” he said.

The book provides insight into what it’s like for kids skating out of suburbia to find themselves — or other like-minded skaters who are also exploring the freedom the board bestows.

“You’re so bound to a car, and skateboarding gives you a vehicle, metaphorically and literally, to re-explore your world,” he said.  “Growing up in the suburbs, things can get very dull, very quick, and skateboarding allows you to reenergize and reimagine an environment.”

That reimagining can be literal, such as turning an empty industrial space into a landscape bursting with creative possibilities. “It’s turning a loading dock into a skatepark,” he says.

The essays also illustrate the impact that skating had on popular culture, touching on MTV, skating publications such as Thrasher Magazine, and videotapes of riders that got passed around skating scenes and shops around the country.

Music also plays a large role in the book. Vadi writes about how skating incorporated punk, hip-hop, heavy metal and other genres that helped redefine its culture. In one essay, he investigates the connections between jazz and skating, arguing that the musician and composer known as Sun Ra was a skater though he never stepped on a board.

“If I’m writing through skateboarder’s lens and am really going to try to own that perspective, it has to be inclusive of as much of those different strands as possible,” he said.

As much as the book is about skating, it also reminds readers of the beauty in the documentation of ourselves and the interests we acquire through our lived experiences.

“I feel like ‘Chipped’ is a redocumentation by way of articulation,” he said. “It reflects this larger need to document … and to articulate the many ways that this thing that we care about can impact someone.”

“The point is not to be better than anyone else, or to necessarily compete,” he said. “The point is to enjoy the act itself and in camaraderie with others.”

About the book

“CHIPPED: Writing from a Skateboarder’s Lens”

José Vadi

Soft Skull. 256 pp. $26.

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What does John Green's book of essays say about the Indy 500? About the Indianapolis nod

Author John Green is no stranger to Indianapolis and the Indy 500, which is Sunday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Green has many works in his back pocket, including several with nods to Indianapolis. It seems fitting to revisit some of the mentions as we wait for drivers to start their engines.

The IndyStar has several guides to get fans ready for the Greatest Spectacle in Racing including a printable starting lineup , how to tune in to the race from outside the racetrack and what people can bring to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

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What to know about John Green and the Indy 500:

What does John Green's book of essays say about the Indy 500?

In " The Anthropocene Reviewed ," Green writes essays reviewing different topics from Halley's Comet to Diet Dr Pepper and even the Indianapolis 500, the IndyStar previously reported.

He wrote the Indy 500 review during the pandemic.

“I wanted to write about my experience of suddenly being unable to go to the race, and how it felt to go through all the same rituals that I always go through on that Sunday, and to bike to the race as I always do and to arrive at an empty Speedway, with the gates locked shut."

"It can be hard at times because we have to get used to a new normal to be able to reflect on how much has been lost in the last year and a half," he said. "And obviously the loss of fans at the speedway wasn't one of the big losses, but it was a loss. One loss among billions. For me, it was a way to feel that."

But people don't have to feel that loss again as they can attend the race on Sunday.

The book, which was released in 2021, is his first work of nonfiction and is inspired by his podcast of the same name where he also published monthly reviews.

'The Anthropocene Reviewed': John Green's new nonfiction book finds wonder in Diet Dr Pepper, Indianapolis 500

What John Green books mention Indianapolis?

"The Fault in Our Stars" and "Turtles All the Way Down" are both situated in Indianapolis.

In the latter, there are many references to the city, including:

• White River
• Pogue's Run
• Michigan Road mansion
• Applebee’s at 86th and Ditch
• IU Health North Hospital
• The Indianapolis Star
• The Indianapolis Prize
• Juan Solomon Park

Others are reading: John Green’s ‘Turtles’ at home in Indianapolis

Is John Green from Indianapolis?

Not originally.

In his webpage , Green states that he grew up in Orlando. He moved to Indianapolis in 2007 when his wife got a job at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the IndyStar previously reported.

John Green on TikTok: Author still can't stop talking about how great Indianapolis is

How to watch 'Turtles All the Way Down'

The movie adaptation is now available streaming on Max .

When is the 2024 Indy 500?

This year's Indy 500 race is on Sunday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

David Lindquist, Rachel Fradette and Ethan May contributed to this article.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: What does John Green's book of essays say about the Indy 500? About the Indianapolis nod