Master your master thesis – overcome writer’s block and handle feedback like a pro

The main challenge for master students is to start with the thesis writing. A common hard nut to crack for students at the beginning of the writing process is to decide which geological concepts to include in the introduction and background chapters, and how to present scientific content clearly without repetitions. They therefore often spend a lot of time in the initial stages of the work, and the challenges continue for the students in the later stages, where they struggle with separating new observations from results already presented by others. Furthermore, the master thesis is often the first time in their geoscientific career that the students are faced with constructive criticism on their written work. Although well-intended by the supervisor and aimed to help with the thesis work, this may sometimes be difficult to handle for the students.

The ability to structure a text efficiently, discuss problems in an advanced way by including new observations, and improve a scientific text through feedback are essential skills to master. These skills are highly valued both in academia and in other geoscientific workplaces. To address the challenges in the thesis work of the students, we have developed a scientific writing guide that aims to strengthen the master students conceptual understanding of how a scientific text should be structured. This guide also shows how feedback from the supervisor can be used to ease the writing process and improve the quality of the master thesis.

To illustrate how a text should be structured and address feedback, the guide includes short drafts from each section of a master thesis along with comments from the supervisor. Revised text and figures are shown side-by-side to the original draft, thus demonstrating an improved version of each chapter. Or put in simpler terms: the guide displays typical pitfalls and time thieves in the writing process, and by being aware of these the student and supervisor may save valuable time. The writing guide and condensed versions of chapter drafts are available on Instagram and can be found using this link: https://www.instagram.com/master_your_master/.