PhD Tips: Be consistent when you write…

photo credit: Tomasz Stasiuk

Introduction – Consistency is key

During my PhD orientation at the London School of Theology, I received a ton of good advice for how to approach my dissertation. However, it was a seemingly obscure piece of information in my student handbook, which has paid off handsomely as I continue with thesis writing: Be consistent!

For the rest of this post we will define what it means to be consistent and then turn to the style guides for some help with this process (e.g. SBL Handbook of Style (for work in biblical studies) or Chicago Manual of Style (for other disciplines)).

What does it mean to be consistent when you write?

Consistency involves doing the same thing over and over again.  In terms of writing a thesis it involves deciding in advance how certain elements in your dissertation will be handled. This means you must answer many of the following questions: (Note: I am doing a Biblical Studies thesis and using Greek. You can extrapolate for your field.)

1. Will you be transliterating Greek words or using a Greek font to display them?
2. When you show a Greek word and its translation, which one will come first? Will you enclose the second in parentheses (slave) or quotes “slave” if it is the translation?
3. Where will you place punctuation marks when you run up against quotes? How about footnote numbers?
4. How will you abbreviate books of ancient literature or references to the Bible?
5. Will you write v. 21 or verse 21? verses 21-25 or vv. 21-25?
6. Which words will you capitalize where you have an option? For example, will you write Church or church?  Will personal pronouns that refer to the Godhead be capitalized?
7. Will the first line of a paragraph be indented or not?

There are other questions that could be added to this list, but you get the point.  You want to decide up front how you will treat each of the above occurrences.  The last thing you need is having to scour a 250 page report, looking for slight inconsistencies in your grammar and style.

(Tip: Create a document that contains all of the elements you are likely to encounter and how you will deal with each one.  Then all you have to do is refer to it when making writing decisions.)

Style guides are your best friends

One of the best tools to promote consistency in your writing is a style guide like The Chicago Manual of Style or Turabian’s A Manual for Writers (Note: These are affiliate links).  A good perusal of their contents will orient you to some of the “decision points” you will need to tackle as you embark on writing your dissertation.  You do have choices in some cases, but the key is to decide on one particular handling of an element and stick with it.

If you are in the biblical studies field then the SBL Handbook of Style is a must.  It provides guidelines for preparing Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical and Early Christian Studies manuscripts including information on grammar, transliteration, indexes and bibliographies, abbreviations and primary sources.

You must be a member of the Society of Biblical Literature to download your free copy (The SBL website is here). Membership is only $40.00 per year for students and provides a great deal of benefits.

Finally I should add that each university typically has its own style guide, which contains additional instructions for handling different elements in a dissertation.  These can be particularly instructive in dealing with some of the grammatical and styling differences between a U.S. and British PhD, for example.

Conclusion

So remember, be consistent when you write and you will surely save yourself a ton of editing headaches as you get closer to completing your dissertation.

Happy researching!

As always, your comments are greatly appreciated.