Preface

Before writing this book, I looked into a couple of thousand theses based on published (and ready-for-publication) papers. Most of them I viewed on the Internet, but several I surveyed while on location in various university libraries. Merely seeing an image of a thesis on the Internet is not the same as having a paper version in your hands; to smell and feel the paper – I love it!

Although the examples shown are real (if not otherwise stated), bad ones are given without revealing the source. When I wanted to include a figure, I sought permission from the author. If the example was bad, the author was informed of the changes suggested and of the form the credit line would take, for example: Reproduced from a thesis published in 2008, with permission. All the authors asked gave me permission. I am grateful for your generosity, which has provided the readers with authentic examples from which to learn. Thank you!

This book is about the overall summary of a thesis (also called the overview). It is thus not about the research papers which were dealt with in my book How to Write and Illustrate a Scientific Paper (2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, 2008). Such research papers authored by the degree candidate have passed editorial scrutiny; the overview has not. As a former editor of a scientific journal, I had the experience of giving this overview a closer look.