5 ms·

I wonder why more dissertations aren't written in an entertaining or "layperson" way as these are. Is it just deemed nonproper in the various communities?

naavis 3y ago
It takes a lot of skill to meaningfully communicate complex and deep topics to people who are not already familiar with the field.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
nestorD 3y ago
Deemed non-proper in a lot of field and by many advisor (whose approval you need). But, also, technical vocabulary is specific which matter when you operate at the edge of knowledge.
fritzo 3y ago
PhD students get a limited number of innovation tokens to spend. One of the many ways to spend them is on the form of the dissertation.
- leemailll 3y ago
  I think this somehow also depends on the institution
NL807 3y ago
Think of it more like conforming to a certain communication standard, specific to the academic field. The language needs to be concise, precise, and correct use of terminology to avoid as much ambiguity as possible. Colloquial form of writing is often open to interpretation and may not be understood by international readers (for example), as cultural norms are different. Academic and technical communication on aims to eliminate these barriers.
analog31 3y ago
A graduate student is shouldering both the opportunity cost of spending more time, and the risk of not finishing. Things can happen almost at random that can knock you off your horse or shoot it out from under you. Like, your advisor can lose funding, change jobs, or even just up and die. You can get sick. Once you've got a thesis worth of data (or whatever you need), your best bet is to write it up as clearly and concisely as will get you "published and outa here" in the words of my fellow grad students. Don't even spend time choosing a font. (A friend did that).
toomim 3y ago
Yep. I tried to write my dissertation in an accessible way, and my thesis committee's only feedback was on the style. They didn't even bother to read the content. Then I dropped out and posted the dissertation on the web, instead. I didn't want to ruin it by making it "academic" enough.
- leemailll 3y ago
  Whoa that's brave move. most people just will yield to finish Kudos to you Do you mind share more on the story? Like which field? any repercussion?
- p00dles 3y ago
  similar experience here. I wrote a Masters dissertation and the feedback was effectively “why are you introducing and explaining any of these basic concepts, the audience is expert researchers who know this stuff already.” I wanted to be able to give it to a curious friend who isn’t an expert but has enough background that with some help they could understand what the dissertation project was doing.
- seanhunter 3y ago
  It sounds (like a few other comments in this thread) like you didn't want to write a dissertation - you wanted to write a document more broadly communicating your thesis topic to a wider audience. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that, but if you think you would ruin it by turning it into a document written for (and to suit the needs of) the thesis committee, then it's not a dissertation.
seanhunter 3y ago
Firstly, most people are bad at writing. Writing is a skill so like all other skills it stands to reason that most people won’t be good at it. When it comes to people who are writing a dissertation, you’re looking for the intersection of people who are good enough at the other discipline to be in the position of writing a dissertation (presumably for a PhD) and are also good at writing, so it’s going to be a small subset of people who are going to do that well. Not saying these people don’t exist (Feynman is a famous example, but there are others). Secondly, writing a dissertation is hard. Technical vocabulary, jargon etc generally exists because it is a helpful shortcut to communication with experts in a particular field. So for most people, writing their dissertation such that it could be readable by a layperson would generally make an already hard thing harder and doesn’t add anything in particular that’s helpful to experts (if anything might make it harder for experts because they would need to wade through things that are redundant or unnecessary to their understanding) so you’re making it harder in a way that doesn’t particularly benefit you. Why do that?
Derbasti 3y ago
The point of the dissertation is to become certified as a PhD. Most supervisors are not open to the idea of stepping outside the norm. Which is downright tragic, as research should be all about that. My writing was actively criticized wherever I tried to use simple vocabulary. It was heartbreaking, and made me resent academia to this day.
50 3y ago
A rare occurrence, a few months ago, I came across one (re: a dissertation that is both entertaining and for the lay): Neocosmicism: God and the Void (2013) by Ellen Greenham[1]. It seems like it eventually came into fruition as a full-fledged book: After Engulfment: Cosmicism and Neocosmicism in H. P. Lovecraft, Philip K. Dick, Robert A. Heinlein, and Frank Herbert (2022) by Ellen Greenham[2]. 1: https://researchportal.murdoch.edu.au/esploro/outputs/doctoral/Neocosmicism-God-and-the-void/991005542073107891 https://researchportal.murdoch.edu.au/esploro/outputs/doctor... 2: https://www.hippocampuspress.com/other-authors/nonfiction/after-engulfment-cosmicism-and-neocosmicism-in-h.-p.-lovecraft-by-ellen-j.-greenham https://www.hippocampuspress.com/other-authors/nonfiction/af...
d0100 3y ago
Too much work, and you have to nail it or else you might get railed for a half-baked dissertation

naavis 3y ago

It takes a lot of skill to meaningfully communicate complex and deep topics to people who are not already familiar with the field.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

nestorD 3y ago

Deemed non-proper in a lot of field and by many advisor (whose approval you need). But, also, technical vocabulary is specific which matter when you operate at the edge of knowledge.

fritzo 3y ago

PhD students get a limited number of innovation tokens to spend. One of the many ways to spend them is on the form of the dissertation.

leemailll 3y ago
I think this somehow also depends on the institution

NL807 3y ago

Think of it more like conforming to a certain communication standard, specific to the academic field. The language needs to be concise, precise, and correct use of terminology to avoid as much ambiguity as possible. Colloquial form of writing is often open to interpretation and may not be understood by international readers (for example), as cultural norms are different. Academic and technical communication on aims to eliminate these barriers.

analog31 3y ago

A graduate student is shouldering both the opportunity cost of spending more time, and the risk of not finishing. Things can happen almost at random that can knock you off your horse or shoot it out from under you. Like, your advisor can lose funding, change jobs, or even just up and die. You can get sick. Once you've got a thesis worth of data (or whatever you need), your best bet is to write it up as clearly and concisely as will get you "published and outa here" in the words of my fellow grad students. Don't even spend time choosing a font. (A friend did that).

toomim 3y ago

Yep. I tried to write my dissertation in an accessible way, and my thesis committee's only feedback was on the style. They didn't even bother to read the content. Then I dropped out and posted the dissertation on the web, instead. I didn't want to ruin it by making it "academic" enough.

leemailll 3y ago
Whoa that's brave move. most people just will yield to finish Kudos to you Do you mind share more on the story? Like which field? any repercussion?
p00dles 3y ago
similar experience here. I wrote a Masters dissertation and the feedback was effectively “why are you introducing and explaining any of these basic concepts, the audience is expert researchers who know this stuff already.” I wanted to be able to give it to a curious friend who isn’t an expert but has enough background that with some help they could understand what the dissertation project was doing.
seanhunter 3y ago
It sounds (like a few other comments in this thread) like you didn't want to write a dissertation - you wanted to write a document more broadly communicating your thesis topic to a wider audience. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that, but if you think you would ruin it by turning it into a document written for (and to suit the needs of) the thesis committee, then it's not a dissertation.

seanhunter 3y ago

Firstly, most people are bad at writing. Writing is a skill so like all other skills it stands to reason that most people won’t be good at it. When it comes to people who are writing a dissertation, you’re looking for the intersection of people who are good enough at the other discipline to be in the position of writing a dissertation (presumably for a PhD) and are also good at writing, so it’s going to be a small subset of people who are going to do that well. Not saying these people don’t exist (Feynman is a famous example, but there are others). Secondly, writing a dissertation is hard. Technical vocabulary, jargon etc generally exists because it is a helpful shortcut to communication with experts in a particular field. So for most people, writing their dissertation such that it could be readable by a layperson would generally make an already hard thing harder and doesn’t add anything in particular that’s helpful to experts (if anything might make it harder for experts because they would need to wade through things that are redundant or unnecessary to their understanding) so you’re making it harder in a way that doesn’t particularly benefit you. Why do that?

Derbasti 3y ago

The point of the dissertation is to become certified as a PhD. Most supervisors are not open to the idea of stepping outside the norm. Which is downright tragic, as research should be all about that. My writing was actively criticized wherever I tried to use simple vocabulary. It was heartbreaking, and made me resent academia to this day.

50 3y ago

A rare occurrence, a few months ago, I came across one (re: a dissertation that is both entertaining and for the lay): Neocosmicism: God and the Void (2013) by Ellen Greenham[1]. It seems like it eventually came into fruition as a full-fledged book: After Engulfment: Cosmicism and Neocosmicism in H. P. Lovecraft, Philip K. Dick, Robert A. Heinlein, and Frank Herbert (2022) by Ellen Greenham[2]. 1: https://researchportal.murdoch.edu.au/esploro/outputs/doctoral/Neocosmicism-God-and-the-void/991005542073107891 https://researchportal.murdoch.edu.au/esploro/outputs/doctor... 2: https://www.hippocampuspress.com/other-authors/nonfiction/after-engulfment-cosmicism-and-neocosmicism-in-h.-p.-lovecraft-by-ellen-j.-greenham https://www.hippocampuspress.com/other-authors/nonfiction/af...

d0100 3y ago

Too much work, and you have to nail it or else you might get railed for a half-baked dissertation