How to Write a Thesis

Eco’s test for a topic is practical. It should interest you; its sources should be ones you can physically get to; you should be able to understand and handle those sources; and its method should be within your experience. A narrow topic done well beats a grand one abandoned.

Before settling on a topic, find out whether the material exists, where it is, and whether you can read it. A thesis whose key sources are in an archive you can’t visit, or a language you don’t read, is a thesis you won’t finish.

Eco separates primary sources (the texts, documents or data you’re studying) from secondary ones (what others have written about them), and he insists on working from the first kind. A summary of a source is a different object from the source.

His system of index cards gives each job its own set: one for the bibliography, one for notes on what you’ve read, others for themes, ideas and quotations. The cards themselves are dated. The principle isn’t: notes are only useful if you can retrieve them, and every note should say exactly where it came from.

Eco suggests writing a provisional table of contents early, and treating it as a hypothesis about what the finished work will say. You revise it as you learn. It gives the work a shape and shows you which parts are still empty.

He gives rules for quoting: quote exactly, make clear where every quotation comes from, and know the difference between quoting, paraphrasing and copying. Someone else should be able to check every claim against its source.

Write for someone intelligent who doesn’t already know your subject. Define your terms, explain your steps, and keep your sentences plain. As he puts it: “You are not Proust.”