Improving the writing style of your thesis

Writing style is one of the aspects on which your thesis will be assessed. That means  it is extra important to double-check the words and phrases you use in your thesis. We can help you tackle that language check properly. Here are 8 writing tips to improve the writing style of your thesis.

For your thesis, you should adopt academic language as your writing style. This means you write the text formally and impersonally. Avoid colloquial language (and specifically these forbidden words). Pay extra attention to the following, for example:

• Omit interjections. These are words like "well", "actually" or "a bit".

• Use full sentences, i.e. not "Power consumption has decreased from X to Y. A big drop, in other words!", but rather "Power consumption has decreased considerably, i.e. from X to Y."

• Don't start a sentence with "and" or "but". These are conjunctions that you can only use in the middle of a sentence. 

• Avoid colloquialisms and abbreviations, such as "TV" (prefer to say "television"), "email" (prefer to write "e-mail") or phrases like “up for grabs” (prefer to say "available").

• Do not use proverbs or expressions. Instead, choose concrete wording. 

The writing form of your thesis should be somewhat impersonal, so an important tip for your thesis is:do not write the thesis from the first person perspective ("I" or "we"). Instead, keep it more general. 

So not: "In this chapter I discuss..."

But instead: "This chapter covers X."

Incidentally, there is an exception to this rule. Your reflection and preface are written from your personal point of view. In those chapters, the word "I" can be used.

In addition, you do not address the reader directly in the thesis (except in the preface). So don't use words like "you", "you" and "your.”

For example, do not say, "You can find the interview transcripts in the appendix."

But instead say: "The interview transcripts can be found in the appendix."
You can read more about using "I", "you" and "we" in your thesis in another article

One of the things we often see go wrong is the dilemma of whether or not to write out numbers. In Dutch, the general rule is as follows: write out all round numbers and numbers below twenty. Non-round numbers above twenty are written in numerals. 

Now, some important exceptions to this do apply, such as:

• If you mention several exact numbers in a paragraph (for example, in the results chapter), write all numbers in numerals.

• When discussing exact measurements or symbols, such as amounts or weight measures, you also write the number in numbers.

• Numbers of chapters, paragraphs, tables, etc. are always written in numbers (i.e. "chapter 1", not "chapter one").

• Always write percentages in numbers (so "25%" not "twenty-five per cent").

Just because you should write your thesis in formal language does not mean you should make sentences unnecessarily complicated. It is better to avoid cumbersome sentences in your thesis. This improves its readability.

Avoid cumbersome sentences by looking at how to make a sentence shorter, possibly by splitting one sentence into several. 

For example:

Do not say, "The survey was completed by 145 respondents aged 45 to 65, who were approached by the researcher at a conference in Utrecht at the Jaarbeurs."

But instead say: The survey was completed by 145 respondents aged 45 to 65. They were approached at a conference at the Jaarbeurs in Utrecht."

In addition, it can help to avoid passive sentences, as these also make the text more complicated than it needs to be. Passive sentences are sentences in which the action of the verb is not performed directly by the subject. . For example, you can make a passive sentence active in the following way: 

Wrong: "This section discusses what concerns were raised by respondents in the survey."

Right: "This chapter addresses the concerns that respondents mentioned in the survey."

Another thing that often goes wrong in theses is the use of punctuation in enumerations. You can read more about it in our article on punctuation. The main basic rules for punctuation are as follows:

• Does the enumeration consist of single words? Start each part of the enumeration with a lowercase letter and end with a semicolon (and end with a full stop at the last word in the enumeration).

• Does the enumeration consist of full sentences? Then start each part of the enumeration with a capital letter and end each sentence with a full stop.

While writing your thesis, it is important to be clear and specific with your language. Avoid any kind of ambiguity. This is often found in vague words like "a little" (how much is "a little?"), "before" (when exactly do you mean?) or "improve" (in what respect?). For each sentence, check that it is clear to the reader what you mean  and that the sentence is not open to multiple interpretations. 

For example, the sentence "The students were not very happy with the catering in the university restaurant." is not concrete. 

• What aspects of catering are students unhappy about? 

• What does "not very happy" mean? Are they very dissatisfied or do they just think there is room for improvement?

• Which students are you talking about (all university students or a particular group)? 

• How many students say this? Do all students have this opinion or only a percentage of students surveyed?

• Are you talking about current catering or did you measure past satisfaction?

In the following excerpt, it is not clear to whom "they" refers:

"Research was conducted among two groups of students: psychology students and law students. They completed a survey and indicated what they thought of their studies."

By "they" do you mean both psychology and law students, or a just one group?

Even when referencing something with "that", "this", "that" or "what", it is not always clear what you are referring to. You can see why in this example:

"Young people use their mobile phones all day long and are on at least 10 different apps in the process. This is a worrying development." 

In this example, you might wonder whether "this" refers to using 10 different apps, or whether it is about young people using their phones all day long. 

Avoid that kind of ambiguity by checking the extent to which it is clear what you are talking about with reference words like "this", "that" and "those". Adjust the sentence where necessary.

Even among the best writers, mistakes go unnoticed. A typo is easy to make. Moreover, sentences are not always as clear as you think they are, because sometimes it is difficult to empathise with the reader when you are fully immersed in the subject matter yourself. Therefore, we recommend that you always proofread your thesis once you have written all the text. Preferably do that a couple of times. Then, you are more likely to discover errors.

Get your thesis checked

Even better: have your thesis proofread by a language expert who looks at it from the perspective of an expert. The editors of AthenaCheck will be happy to assist you. They will look at the writing style of your thesis, check it for academic language and filter out any language and spelling mistakes or vague wording. This way, you can hand in your thesis with confidence.