1. Dalhousie Writing Centre
Graduate Student Writing
FINDING YOUR VOICE:
PARTICIPATING IN THE
ACADEMIC DIALOGUE

2. Overview
In writing your Master’s thesis or dissertation, you are
participating in the ongoing academic dialogue that
propels your field.
To create an interesting and original thesis statement and
to emphasize the implications of your research and the
contribution to the field is to assert your own voice in
this dialogue.
You may at times feel that your academic voice is lost or
overwhelmed or insignificant. But acceptance into
graduate school is acknowledgement that your unique
academic voice can and should make a contribution to
your field.

3. Overview
This slide show addresses the need to
1. Identify your focus
2. Develop the implications
3. And choose a structure that reflects your field and
your purpose

4. 1. Identify your focus
Refine your thesis statement (or claim or research
question or hypothesis) as you write to make it more
correct, more finely crafted, more specific, and more
defensible.
A. Your paper should address an interesting problem
(gap, ambiguity, unresolved issue, something
unsettling, a point of tension).

5. A. Address an interesting problem
Consider issues or points that you have found
unsettling or unresolved.
Trust your responses.
Trust that your lack of clarity on an issue is a problem,
not with you, but with the material, the research, the
current practice, etc.

6. B. Offer your proposed solution
The paper should offer your proposed solution (new
policy or approach, a particular application, an
explanation) in a single sentence.
The solution should make a contribution to your field of
study; it should be original and useful.

7. B. Offer your proposed solution
Consider the following questions in devising a solution:
How can the problem be resolved?
What should be done? What do you recommend?
The solution to the problem is your thesis statement or
claim.

8. 2. Develop the implications
There should be clear implications of your research.
Editors find that the biggest problem with articles written
for publication is unclear or weak implications.

9. 2. Develop the implications
Consider the following questions in developing the implications of
your research:
Why should we care about this idea?
What effect would your solution have?
What effect would a contrary solution have?
Is the effect you seek achievable or worth the cost?
What consequences are likely to result from what you propose?
How does your proposed solution change how we see the
world?
Will the reader come away from the paper with something that is
professionally valuable?

10. 3. Choose an appropriate structure
The structure should reflect the standards of your field.
Create a reverse outline of a piece of writing in a form
similar to what you are writing. Reverse outlines reflect
the flow and arrangement of ideas.
In most academic writing, the introduction should
o contain the problem;
o establish the focus (or claim or thesis);
o emphasize the implications;
o state your intended route (the elements of your analysis in
the order you will develop them).

11. Conclusion
The process of defining the problem and writing the
thesis statement, its implications and the following
evidence and discussion is often difficult. It is also
tremendously fulfilling, rewarding, and exciting to
engage in the academic dialogue that propels your
field.