写作方法2014nextscientist.com
如何写出委员会不会通过的博士论文
How to write a PhD thesis your committee will not approve
导读
这是一篇面向理工科博士生的写作建议：如何在第三年之后把研究收束成一个清晰、可被委员会接受的核心问题，并避免把论文写成一份无人认可的清单。对写作者的启发在于：先确定主张（标题/研究问题），再围绕它做减法，抵抗来自导师、委员会与自身完美主义的分散力量。评论区补充了一条实用路线：把已发表文章组合成学位论文，以降低风险、保持产出。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
动笔前先把论文压缩成一个具体的标题式主张；如果说不成一句话，说明问题还没定下来。
- 02
用“这篇文章要证明什么”来筛选材料与章节，凡是不能支撑核心主张的内容就删掉或挪走。
- 03
不要等一切完美再写：按可发表的单位（每篇一个实验或论证）持续产出，最后再把成果组织成整体。
- 04
把导师和委员会的具体期待逼问出来：要什么分析、什么理论框架、什么范围，含糊的指导往往来自他们自己没想清楚。
HN 评论精选
用“文章组合成论文”的策略降低风险并保证持续产出。
最好的博士论文写法是不写论文：把时间用来写期刊文章，每年大约产出一篇，等有三四篇已发表或接近发表的文章，再把它们整合成学位论文。多数大学允许这样做，而且这种方式风险最小——不必把所有赌注压在一个实验上，也减少临交稿时被大改的风险。起步时一年一篇看似吓人，但要在学术界立足，最终每年要产出五到十篇甚至更多（当然有大量合作与协助）。给研究生定下一年一篇的硬目标，在多数领域都做得到，也会逼你保持纪律、持续产出；研究生最大的风险之一，就是想把工作做得太完美、太“宏大”。
scottfr查看英文原文
The best way to write a PhD thesis is to not write one. Instead, spend your time writing articles and getting them into journals. You should be able to produce roughly one published article a year [0]. When you have 3-4 published or near published articles, take them and put them together into a dissertation. Most universities will allow this and it's the approach to developing a dissertation that minimizes your risk (you don't bet everything on one experiment, you minimize the risk of last minute critiques and requests for changes, etc...). [0] This might seem intimidating when you start out, but if you want a promising future in academia you will eventually need to be producing 5, 10 or more articles a year (with admittedly a lot of collaboration and assistance from other). Setting a strict goal of one article a year as a grad student should be obtainable in most fields and get you on the right track. It will also force you to be disciplined and to produce. When of the biggest risk for grad students is trying to be too perfect or too "big" in their work.
逼导师和委员会把标准说具体；用“论文标题是什么”检验研究问题是否清晰。
这份清单不错，但再怎么强调都不为过：导师和委员会成员通常需要被反复推动，才肯说清他们心目中可接受的论文是什么样。说大多数学者会在学生面前睁眼说瞎话也不为过；这种“撒谎”多源于不上心或没意识到后果，但效果与恶意无异。所以要不怕追问，把分析类型、理论框架等问到非常具体。理科尚好一些，人文学科的博士项目基本是虐待工厂；但即便在理科，学生被导师或委员会一个月指一个方向、下个月又指另一个方向的事也很常见。关于清晰的研究问题，我常问学生：“你论文的标题是什么？”这是更具体的问法，也更难自欺——“我在研究某某某”看似回答了研究问题，却常常归不成“用某某模型与理论研究某某”。最后，要提防的不只是你自己的完美主义……
tjradcliffe查看英文原文
This isn't a bad list, but it's hard to over-emphasize the amount of pushing that supervisors and committee members typically need to clarify their beliefs about what is an acceptable dissertation. It's not too strong to say that most academics will flat-out lie to students about what they need do. Although this "lying" is frequently the result of inattention of misunderstanding its effects are indistinguishable from malice. So don't be shy about getting very concrete and specific with your committee, including the kind of analysis you want to do, the theoretical framework you want to apply, etc. This is all easier in the sciences--humanities PhD programs are basically abuse factories (http://www.tjradcliffe.com/?p=1588)--but even in the sciences it is all too common to see students get misled by their supervisor and/or committee, who give guidance in one direction one month and a completely different direction the next. One further piece of advice with regard to a clear thesis question: I've often found it useful to ask students "What's the title of your dissertation?" This just a more concrete way of asking about their thesis question, but it's much harder to fool yourself about. "Well, I"m investigating blah blah blah..." may look like an answer to the question "What's your thesis question?" but it frequently can't be reduced to "Experimental Investigation of Blah Using Blah Models and Blah Theories". Finally, it isn't just your own perfectionism you have to watch out for. My iron rule for when a dissertation is finished is: the very first time your advisor tells you to change A to B in draft N, and then tells you to change B back to A in draft M > N, you are done. Your resistance to making further changes should go up factorially at that point, because your advisor has stopped paying attention or has become obsessed with minutia, and if given a free rein will continue to fiddle around indefinitely. I've seen students waste a year on this kind of nonsense, when they had a perfectly acceptable dissertation to begin with.
形式花哨但内容扎实：核心是定义清晰问题并在阻力中保持专注。
如果能绕过那个坏掉的弹窗（我在 Safari 里只能用阅读视图）、无聊的表情包图和清单体写法，这篇文章对三年级及以上的理科博士生其实塞满了极好的建议（很多也适用于博士后）。它讲的是如何定义一个清晰的科学问题，并在各种（有时很微妙的）阻力下保持对这个问题的专注。
chockablock查看英文原文
If you can get past the broken modal dialog (I had to use Reader view in Safari), and the inane image macros, and the listicle-style writing, this post is crammed with excellent advice for science PhD candidates in their 3rd year or beyond (much of it is applicable to postdocs as well). Discusses how to define a clear scientific question and maintain focus on it in the face of (sometimes subtle) forces that make both of these things difficult.
把已发表文章直接装订成学位论文完全可行，甚至更优。
第二条是胡扯。订书机论文（把已发表文章直接装订成册）完全可以接受。事实上很多人认为它比传统论文更好，因为它建立在已经在别处发表、质量过关的工作之上。
sjtrny查看英文原文
2. Is bullshit. Stapler thesis are totally acceptable. In fact many people think they are better than a traditional thesis since they are based on work that is of enough quality to already have been published in other venues.
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