Before writing this book, I looked into a couple of thousand theses1 based on published (and ready-for-publication) papers. Most of them I viewed on the web, but several I surveyed while on location in various university libraries. Merely seeing an image of a thesis on the web is not the same as having a paper version in your hands; to smell and feel the paper – I love it!
Although the examples shown are real (if not otherwise stated), bad ones are given without revealing the source. When I wanted to include a figure, I sought permission from the author. If the example was bad, the author was informed of the changes suggested and of the form the credit line would take, for example: Reproduced from a thesis published in 2008, with permission. All the authors asked gave me permission. I am grateful for your generosity, which has provided the readers with authentic examples from which to learn. Thank you!
This book is about the overall summary of a thesis (also called the overview2). It is thus not about the research papers which were dealt with in my book How to Write and Illustrate a Scientific Paper (2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, 2008). Such research papers authored by the degree candidate have passed editorial scrutiny; the overview has not. As a former editor of a scientific journal, I had the experience of giving this overview a closer look.

Preface vii

Acknowledgements ix

1 Introduction 1

2 Compilation – the article-based thesis 3

3 Front cover illustration 7

4 Title 15

5 Abstract 20

6 Quotations 24

7 Thesis at a glance 25

8 Abbreviations 32

9 List of publications 34

10 Contributors 39

11 Popularized summary 42

12 Acknowledgements 43

13 General introduction 46

14 Aims 49

15 Methods 51

16 Results 57

17 General discussion 65

18 Copyright 69

19 A dissertation worth considering 77

Appendix A. To the authorities at the graduate division 82

Literature cited 85

Index 90

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