Thesis Writing Guide/Chapter 2: Background

Anything that could be interesting for this thesis guide. Even if it might not end up being used, it should be here. Background Thesis Writing Guide/Chapter 3: Related Work Lessons Learned: Introduction Dear reader, this is your time to shine! Contribute your own lessons learned, add helpful hints and mistakes made so that others may learn from it. Just click "edit" and add your own subsection! Do not stray far To write a good thesis, you need to read a lot of articles going in the same direction. Above all - do not stray far from your topic! You will soon find out how deep the rabbit hole goes, and your topic is specifically chosen to be manageable. Keep looking at what you have to do, not what you could do - each work has a "Future Work" section for a reason, write all your ideas down there and don't spend the time while you haven't finished your actual tasks. If you're done and still have time, you can still work on anything from your future work list :) thumb|left thumb Editor Note: Think of your thesis like a bush you're trying to grow in a set shape (your scope). Left unchecked, it turns into an unmanageable tangle of vines going randomly in all directions. If you focus on trimming back everything that exceeds your scope consistently, your thesis will be a dense, comprehensive work answering a set questions. You, your understanding and your thesis will grow iteratively, and with your discipline to focus on what's important, you ensure to give every aspect of your thesis adequate time to grow, and everything beyond that is future work. Patience Investing time in understanding the tools pays off in the long run. At the same time, don't overinvest from the get-go, maybe you read and write 5 pages about a method or tool which you are actually never going to use, because your supervisor has a better idea that you could just ask them for. As always, iterative steps are the key: Read, write down and structure as much as you can. Review with your supervisor. Refine your approach concept. Happy? Time ran out? Proceed! - If neither - back to step 1 :)