How to Write a Thesis

257 Pages·2015·6.74 MB·English

by  Umberto Eco

How to Write a Thesis

How to Write a Thesis
Umberto Eco
translated by Caterina Mongiat Farina and Geoff Farina
foreword by Francesco Erspamer
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
© 2015 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Translated from the original Italian, Come si fa una tesi di laurea:
le materie umanistiche, © 1977/2012 Bompiani/RCS Libri S.p.A.,
Via Angelo Rizzoli 8 – 20132 Milano
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced
in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including
photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval)
without permission in writing from the publisher.
MIT Press books may be purchased at special quantity discounts
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email [email protected].
This book was set in Chapparal Pro by the MIT Press. Printed and
bound in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
isbn: 978-0-262-52713-2

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
Foreword by Francesco Erspamer ix
Translators’ Foreword xv
Introduction to the Original 1977 Edition xix
Introduction to the 1985 Edition xxiii
1 THE DEFINITION AND PURPOSE OF THE THESIS
1.1 What Is a Thesis, and Why Is It Required? 1
1.2 For Whom Is This Book Written? 4
1.3 The Usefulness of a Thesis after Graduation 5
1.4 Four Obvious Rules for Choosing a Thesis Topic 7
2 CHOOSING THE TOPIC
2.1 Monograph or Survey? 9
2.2 Historical or Theoretical? 13
2.3 Ancient or Contemporary? 16
2.4 How Long Does It Take to Write a Thesis? 17
2.5 Is It Necessary to Know Foreign Languages? 22
2.6 “Scientific” or Political? 26
2.6.1 What Does It Mean to Be Scientific? 26
2.6.2 Writing about Direct Social Experience 32
2.6.3 Treating a “Journalistic” Topic
with Scientific Accuracy 35
2.7 How to Avoid Being Exploited by Your Advisor 42
vi Contents
3 CONDUCTING RESEARCH
3.1 The Availability of Primary and Secondary Sources 45
3.1.1 What Are the Sources of a Scientific Work? 45
3.1.2 Direct and Indirect Sources 50
3.2 Bibliographical Research 54
3.2.1 How to Use the Library 54
3.2.2 Managing Your Sources with
the Bibliographical Index Card File 58
3.2.3 Documentation Guidelines 62
3.2.4 An Experiment in the Library of Alessandria 79
3.2.5 Must You Read Books?
If So, What Should You Read First? 103
4 THE WORK PLAN AND THE INDEX CARDS
4.1 The Table of Contents as a Working Hypothesis 107
4.2 Index Cards and Notes 115
4.2.1 Various Types of Index Cards
and Their Purpose 115
4.2.2 Organizing the Primary Sources 123
4.2.3 The Importance of Readings Index Cards 126
4.2.4 Academic Humility 142
5 WRITING THE THESIS
5.1 The Audience 145
5.2 How to Write 147
5.3 Quotations 156
5.3.1 When and How to Quote: 10 Rules 156
5.3.2 Quotes, Paraphrases, and Plagiarism 164
5.4 Footnotes 167
5.4.1 The Purpose of Footnotes 167
5.4.2 The Notes and Bibliography System 170
5.4.3 The Author-Date System 174
5.5 Instructions, Traps, and Conventions 179
5.6 Academic Pride 183
Contents vii
6 THE FINAL DRAFT
6.1 Formatting the Thesis 186
6.1.1 Margins and Spaces 186
6.1.2 Underlining and Capitalizing 188
6.1.3 Sections 190
6.1.4 Quotation Marks and Other Signs 191
6.1.5 Transliterations and Diacritics 195
6.1.6 Punctuation, Foreign Accents,
and Abbreviations 199
6.1.7 Some Miscellaneous Advice 204
6.2 The Final Bibliography 208
6.3 The Appendices 212
6.4 The Table of Contents 214
7 CONCLUSIONS 221
Notes 225

FOREWORD
How to Write a Thesis was first published in 1977 in Italy,
where it has remained in print ever since. Not only has the
book provided instruction and inspiration for generations of
Italian students, but it has been translated into seventeen
languages, including Persian (1996), Russian (2001), and
Chinese (2003). Remarkably, given the book’s success, in an
era when editorial facelifts, sequels, and new editions have
become publishing norms, the book has not been revised
or updated, apart from an augmented introduction that
Umberto Eco wrote for the 1985 edition. Its durable rules
and sound advice have remained constant, despite passing
trends and changing technologies.
I am not sure whether this qualifies it as a classic. A clas-
sic, Italo Calvino wrote, is a work which relegates the noise
of the present to a background hum—but without rendering
that hum inaudible. Indeed, at first glance, this book may
seem incompatible with our present, considering that chap-
ter 6 is typewritten rather than word-processed (with under-
lining to render italics!) and that chapter 4 includes repro-
ductions of index cards with handwritten corrections and
additions. As unfamiliar as this way of taking notes may be
to today’s students, it evokes nostalgic memories for those
of us who attended college before the 1990s. The persistence
of How to Write a Thesis is not due to nostalgia, however, nor
do I think it is because it renders the noise of the present
remote. I believe the book’s staying power has to do with the
very essence of the humanities.