The Thesaurus and Dissertations
January 18th is National Thesaurus Day. The thesaurus is a oft-used tool of doctoral neophytes, but must be used with great caution, lest its application defeat its purpose…
It’s quite common for dissertation students to lament their writing skills. Of particular concern is how to paraphrase properly. Writers often want to simply change the words of another author and assume that this constitutes original writing on their part.
Unfortunately, such exercises often result in confusing text that doesn’t flow very well at all.
For example, let’s consider the following sentence:
A dissertation is a scholarly extended treatment of a subject written in a manner that eschews passive verbs and anthropomorphic language, demonstrates a contribution to the field of knowledge, and marks the fulfillment of the final requirement for the completion of a doctorate.
By simply using a thesaurus to finds synonyms or antonyms of antonyms for many of the words in the preceding sentence, I was able to arrive at the following “paraphrased” sentence:
A dissertation is a light figurative flattery of a conjecture suppressed in a belief that embraces violent verbs and inhuman language, settles for a favor from the hell of competence, and ignores the blessing of the death of sympathy for the accomplishment of a spouse.
…Not quite sure that’s what I meant!
But, here you can see the problem with paraphrasing. The author usually wrote what he meant in the most reasonable way the first time around. Anything you do to try to copy the author’s original meaning tends to come across sounding both unnatural and forced. And, occasionally obfuscates the original point altogether!
Which is why you should not worry about paraphrasing what other researchers have written. Instead, incorporate their thoughts, ideas, and findings into your own narrative. Think higher up Bloom’s taxonomy. Don’t report when you can summarize. Don’t summarize when you can compare, analyze, or evaluate.
Even in your literature review, you are the star. It’s your project that your lit review seeks to justify. It’s your narrative that previous researchers works are cited to support. So, give the thesaurus a break and think about what you want to say!
I’ve found that 9 times out of 10 perceived writing problems merely mask a deeper problem. If you want to uncover the true issues that are holding you back, click here to schedule a quick, 15-minute chat with me to see if you’re a good fit for our Fast Track Your Dissertation Coaching Program. If you are, then I’ll invite you to join the fastest group of dissertation students out there and help you to reach graduation a good year or two faster than you would on your own.
