1. Professor N is known to deliver lectures in many European Universities.
2. The conference was reported to be held on June 18.
3. He was thought to visit the office in time.
4. The Head of our laboratory is said to have flown to Japan.
5. His new book is expected to become famous in this field of research.
6. Mr.Pirson was known to be a famous expert in that area.
7. The results were considered to be discussed the next week.
8. Our lab assistant was seen to stop the engine.
9. They were heard to discuss the subject of his report.
10. The obtained data are likely to have been lost.
11. They are certain to succeed at this conference.
12. I guess our partners are unlikely come next month.
13. She is sure to participate in our meeting.
14. Все знают, что Макс тщательно готовит каждый эксперимент. (to prepare)
15. Думали, что Макс тщательно подготовил каждый эксперимент. (to have prepared)
16. Говорят, что эксперименты были подготовлены Максом. (to be prepared)
17. Известно, что эксперименты были подготовлены после того, как Макс пришел в лабораторию. (to have been prepared)
18. Все видели Макса готовящего эксперимент. (to be preparing)
19. Сообщается что Макс готовит эксперименты для сотрудников лаборатории уже много месяцев. (to have been preparing)
Exercise 3.2.3
Brush up your knowledge in English Grammar and using Complex Object translate the following sentences.
1. We have never seen you visit our meetings.
2. We heard him switch on the engine.
3. We heard him switching on the engine.
4. You cannot make me write this report.
5. Never let her treat the results of our experiment.
6. They had the research group do what they asked.
7. Mary wanted Max to explain her the technical guidelines for setting the equipment.
8. The participants of the meeting would like him to make his presentation during the morning session.
9. We considered this article to be one of the most interesting.
10. His scientific supervisor finds the submitted paper to be thoughtful.
11. We believe it to be the best variant to invite Max to our laboratory.
12. Our team knew her to be the worst partner for our project.
13. A researcher discovered it to be impossible to create his model without large-scale surveys.
14. We did not allow unauthorized persons to be admitted to our laboratory.
15. You should have the old equipment repaired.
16. Our colleagues had their tools updated.
17. I want to have my presentation published in your proceedings.
18. Мы хотели, чтобы наши доклады получили отзывы у экспертов.
19. Они отремонтировали все лаборатории в прошлом году.
20. Она не разрешала нам курить в лаборатории и заставляла нас ежедневно убирать помещение.
Part IV. How to write a PhD thesis
The PhD thesis is the important, confident and forceful statement that a candidate for a scientific degree is trying to prove. The first step the author will take is writing a clear and effective thesis proposal that requires much thought and planning. The thesis must provide well-focused information needed to answer the research questionand describe facts that confirm the author’s hypothesis. The author should start with describing the research problem, placed in theoretical framework, the hypothesis and the purpose of the study. He should demonstrate a solid grasp of the major sources including a literature review and describe the methodology of the study. Any relevant attachments that include samples of survey instruments, evidence, explanation and the like, should be added to the thesis. The defended thesis will have an impact on the author’s search for grant funding and post-doctoral positions.
If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion.
Lazarus Long
The thesis structure
To get started you should set realistic, achievable objectives to keep your motivation up at the early stages of your research. Your strategies must monitor your progress. Read the text and discuss the following questions:
1. What is a thesis?
2. For whom is it written?
3. How do you exactly get started?
4. How should a thesis be written?
5. How do you manage a three-year research?
‘The investigator should have a robust faith -- and yet not believe.’
Claude Bernard, French physiologist (1813-78)
Any thesis is a huge undertaking based on researching which discovers something hitherto unknown. A thesis concerns a problem in a certain area of research, deals with some specific investigation and requires real experiments.A candidate for a degree should narrow down his research interests trying to be very specific and writing the preliminary outline of a standard three or four-chapter thesis that determines its final structure. A standard describing of a scientific research suggests a due form: the title page, table of contents, introduction, literature review, middle chapters, final or conclusion chapter, references and appendices. A research-based thesis usually contains between 45,000 – 50,000 words, which are logically distributed in the text of the thesis.
The Title page contains the thesis title and the author’s name. It also contains the information that the thesis is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Railway and Track Construction/Siberian State University of Railway Engineering/date.
The Table of contents contains the introduction, the chapter titles and the subheadings of each chapter to find information easily.
The Introduction keeps in short the main idea of the work and claims the author’s original contribution to human knowledge. It tells where the thesis is going and clears up the importance of the topic. A candidate for a degree should state the problem simply and logically and show the way it fits into the discipline. Having chosen a specific scientific topic within his general area of study he must describe exactly what was known about that problem previously. He should start with the theoretical background, mention the assumptions and theories, observe the relevant literature, considering the strengths and weaknesses of results that had already been obtained.
Literature review displays his erudition in the area he has investigated. The author refers to the titles, authors, year, volume and pages of the relevant information and shows where the problem comes from and what is already known about this problem. He describes the methods, which have been tried to solve this problem, and mentions the papers that tackle it. The author should mention very specific details, journals, and dates of publication of key articles or books and key people in the field. He should not omit his supervisor’s papers and other researchers who are like to be his examiners. A candidate for a degree must prove that he has produced a high quality comprehensive analysis of the problem and become the world expert on the narrow topic of his thesis.
Then the author of the thesis clears up the problem in the Middle chapters, describes what he did towards solving this problem and proves scientifically the importance of the obtained results. The adviser and examiners, being experts in the general field of that thesis, will want to know in detail what the author did. It is often helpful to have them read the thesis for making valuable contributions. Middle chapters intend to treat the problem in different aspects, namely theory, materials and methods, proposed models or theory, results, and show statistical analyses.
Actually, the middle chapters include the information published by the author in journal articles. The author describes the methods, resources, techniques or technologies and experimental details relevant to his study at different stages of performing it. He reproduces exactly what was done, and finally a new model or theory based on the research is presented as the result of the work. The author must be aware of current and established theories related to the topic. He should not overburden his thesis with theories that are not relevant to the work but include sufficient theoretical grounds to provide the explanation of his ideas and arguments. It is very important, that his results must be consistent with current theories. It will help a candidate for a degree to prove that his results fit into the existing body of knowledge.
The final or conclusion chapter generalizes the author’s experience from the facts, which he has collected, and gives new insights to solving the problem. Though this chapter should usually be reasonably short and include a summary of conclusions, it must show the practical implications of the work as well as the author’s suggestions for its further development and progress. It is often the case with scientific investigations that more questions than answers are produced in the process of researching, and future workers might advance these new challengers.
References are used to mention all the citations from authoritative sources of information given in the thesis in order to ascertain the ideas, arguments, conceptions, hypothesis under test, etc. If results or observations used in the text are not the author’s own, it is necessary to state where in the scientific literature they are reported. It shows which parts of the thesis are descriptions of previous knowledge, and which parts are the author’s additions to that knowledge.
The author may use a web citation if he can give the URL (`Uniform Resource Locator'), i.e. an address of a particular page where this citation can be found on the World Wide Web. The downloading date must be also given because a web site may have been updated, changed completely or even disappear.
Appendices typically include either important additional materials that are too large to be represented in the thesis divisions or pictures and diagrams of results that are not important enough to keep in the main text.
Exercise 4.1.1
Relying on the information from the text discuss the following questions using suggested ideas or your own experience. Work in groups of two and make up a dialogue to clear up your progress in researching and writing.
1. What is the structure of your thesis? Does your thesis contain references? Are there any illustrations? (Will you kindly look at the table of contents? The thesis includes a short introductory chapter and is profusely illustrated with diagrams, tables and figures.)
2. How many chapters does the thesis, you are working on, consist of? (It consists of three chapters, each chapter contains the recent developments, and a careful account of work done in this field of science as well as the work carried out in our laboratory. The first chapter discusses the brief reference to the twentieth-century background of the problem, describes the achievements and aims of … and contains methodology. I used a special set of methods and principles when studying my subject. The second chapter contains the investigation itself and detailed account of the basic problem … It gives thorough consideration to/an accurate description of …. The third chapter presents a detailed account of the experiment and incorporates the results.).
3. Do the chapters contain any summary? (Each subsection is preceded by a brief theoretical introduction, includes the new data in the field of … and the up-to-date techniques in …, recent discoveries in …, applications of new methods. The second chapter of my thesis is devoted to the experimental technique and deals with the latest models of the apparatus).
4. What subjects are dealt with in the introduction of your thesis?
5. Which part of your thesis contains the theory?
6. Which section of your thesis presents a detailed account of the experimental results?
7. Which section presents a detailed account of the method of your investigation?
8. The subject of your investigation is of great importance, isn’t it?
9. When and how were you introduced to this subject for the first time?
10. Does the thesis contain any original data?
11. What are the final pages of the thesis devoted to? (The last part of my thesis contains references to other workers in this special branch of …).
12. Could we congratulate you on obtaining some original data and results?
Exercise 4.1.2
Researching and writing a thesis is a substantial piece of work. To do it successfully you need to give adequate time not only to thinking about your topic and the approach you intend to adopt, you need design your experiment; analyze the sources you might use, publish your results in journals and edited collections, etc. Organizing your work effectively is a significant part of your scientific activity. Read the text and comment on your personal experience in planning your work.
Research is rather long systematic investigation and deep study of materials and sources in order to discover facts and reach new conclusions. Getting started your personal research you should be ready to create a rather long piece of writing on your particular subject. To make a successful start and give you self-confidence you should organize your research activity, which requires a lot of concentration. Keep in mind that you should be prepared to toil and moil early and late.It is encouraging and helpful to make the timetable that looks like a chart with items that you can check off as you have finished them. Set yourself a deadline and stick to it. Make your individual research plan including the timetable with a list of dates when the first and second drafts of each chapter will be written. Your scientific adviser (research tutor), who directs and oversees your research, will help you in making up your thesis outline containing your thesis title, chapter headings and sub-headings and key words. You should focus your attention on a number of areas, targets and results towards which your efforts should be directed. Organize your information and the references as a filing system making the thesis structure in the logical chapter order. These files will be a reliable back-up for the necessary arrangements, and will organize your research activity helping you in achieving well-deserved success.
Most PhDs admit that they thought about reasons for stopping that arduous toil. It is well known that one PhD student out of four drops out and gives up at the writing stage, but towards the end, you will feel satisfaction based on the achievement. Therefore, it would be a regretful decision to give up or bring to a close after years of tough work on the research. Once you have been successful in your submission and assessment, and if necessary, resubmitted or revised, you will feel elated. Having completed the huge undertaking you may be ready to select the thesis elements for conference presentation and publication.
Exercise 4.1.3
