Natalie

January 24, 2023 | Read time: 7 min

Does Your Thesis Tell a Story? How to spice up your dissertation

A lot of academic writing gets a bad reputation for being dull and boring. This is understandable to a degree. After all, many people find reading detailed explanations of the inner workings of a chemical reaction or a mathematical formula difficult at best or incomprehensible at worst. But does all academic writing have to be dry and “objective” to sound professional? It does not!

Academic writing trends historically have preferred language that removes the researcher from the research, as if to imagine that the research has performed itself. Proponents of this style argue that writing this way makes research appear more objective. But the people who perform research are human, and their work has human influence and perspective.

Readers are also human, and many people connect more strongly with writing that doesn’t just summarize research; it tells a story. So, can you make your academic writing more interesting by employing narrative techniques? You definitely can, so let’s look at some techniques for doing so.

Frame Your Research in Context

To draw out and articulate the narrative within your research, you must first frame your research within the context it emerged. To put it more simply, what made you want to research this topic in particular? What did you identify was missing or needed confirmation, and what made you think so?

Let’s take an example. Suppose you’ve investigated whether combining two existing drugs could better treat a specific disease. What led you there? Why this disease, and why these drugs? Who is primarily affected by the disease, and who would be helped by improved treatment? How did you decide on your research protocol, and what challenges did you encounter, if any? Were there unexpected results, or did everything go as you anticipated?

Actually, most research papers already aim to answer these questions. The very structure of an academic research paper invites the writer to provide this information to the reader as they write their introduction, provide a literature review, list their methods and data, and then analyze what happened.

But many academic writers err on the side of writing their experiment as a dry list of facts rather than painting the reader a picture of the driving motivation and curiosity behind the research. By providing context and explaining your motivations and hopes for the research, you give your reader a deeper reason to be invested in your work.

Use Human-Centered Language

The second thing you can do to help the reader follow the story of your research is to focus on the humanity behind your research. After all, research is generally done by humans and about humans. Even research that seeks to understand how the world around us works promises to unlock new secrets and understandings of the world we humans live in. Whether your research focuses on historical events that shaped people’s lives in the distant past or on how stars work billions of light years away, there is a human connection.

If you find yourself struggling with how to work this into your paper, consider focusing on both the introduction and the analysis section as a way to frame your work in the larger human context. When you introduce the motivations behind your research, share a story that sparks the reader’s imagination. Use the power of narration to convey your passion for your subject and share your curiosity about what inspired this research.

Make it Personal

Adding a personal anecdote or story about how your research topic impacts the world or someone in it is a great way to draw readers in. It doesn’t have to be your personal story, of course. But by telling a story about something that happened to someone, you can inspire empathy in your reader.

For example, a paper about the trajectory of governance in Myanmar in the context of democracy can undoubtedly focus on democratic backsliding, imbalances of power, and what economic factors might contribute to making the democratic transition possible.

But behind those things are people living under a military regime who briefly made progress toward a more democratic society before the coup in 2021.

Behind every new diabetes, the drug formulation is someone whose life can be improved through enhanced therapies. By describing in detail the impacts of existing problems on their lives, you can quickly develop a powerful connection with your motivation for research.

Preferred writing styles are constantly changing, and academic writing is evolving over time as well. The transition to the digital age, where so much human communication takes place through writing, has given rise to a new appreciation for the power of narrative.

Academic writing doesn’t have to be dry and boring in the name of objectivity. Adding narrative elements and context can make any dissertation more exciting and interesting don’t hesitate— to break away from the traditional academic writing style of objectivity and bring out the narrative that describes your research process and motivation. As a result, you might find your readership grows.