As an academic novice, you may not be very clear about how to write a thesis, and your writing ability is not very strong, at this time, we can learn from and imitate, but not plagiarise other people’s data and conclusions, but imitate their thesis structure and expression. How to imitate?
1. Find a direction first, and make clear what you want to write about
First of all, you have to be clear about your research field and what you are going to write about, so that you can find good papers to imitate and make sure that your dissertation topic won’t run off course.
2. Find two or three high-quality articles
The high quality here refers to the structure of the article, the writing and other aspects, not all published articles are high quality, and the literature you look for does not have to be on the same topic, you can look for similar topics.
3. Study the structure and writing techniques of these high-quality articles.
The purpose of studying these articles is to familiarise yourself with their writing rules. There are fixed rules for the writing order and length of each part of the article. When you study, you can consider the strengths and weaknesses of each article and take the strengths and weaknesses to make your article better.
4. Imitate and write your own essay
4.1 Imitate the structure
The main body of the essay consists of an introduction and a core section. The introduction is more generic and easier to imitate. The core section includes methods, results and discussion. If the object of your imitation adopts a canonical structure, which is to use Methods, Results and Discussion as the three first-level headings, then you can imitate this canonical structure. If the object of imitation adopts a free structure, then you can imitate the free structure. In the free structure, you have to consider whether to use a series or parallel structure, and whether there is a secondary outline, etc. In addition to the broad structure, you can also consider imitating the paragraph structure, for example, whether the paragraph uses the structure of topic sentence plus supporting content or the structure of context plus content plus conclusion, and whether each paragraph is arranged in a certain way.
4.2 Imitate writing ideas
Writing ideas are reflected in the structure of each part. Take the abstract and the introduction for example, you can imitate their writing ideas.
In the abstract section, you can imitate several elements of the abstract. For example, if the abstract of the object you imitate is to present the problem, then give the objective, then introduce the method, then introduce the main results, and finally the conclusion, then you can imitate this structure by replacing your problem, objective, method, results and conclusion. If the object of imitation is other structure, then you can also imitate along this line.
In the introduction section, a good model paper will usually follow the natural elements such as background, need and its importance, existing state of research, problems or remaining gaps, purpose and ideas of the paper, and arrangement of the paper. You can copy the introduction of the imitation object directly, just like the abstract, and then replace each element with your own.
4.3 Imitation Details
You can find these details to imitate from the object of imitation.
Taking a graph reporting similar results as an example, you can mimic: the graph itself, including the thickness, linearity, and colour of the curves, as well as the layout; the graph identification, how to label the coordinates, differentiate between the curves, label the points of the features, and so on; the caption, including the title of the caption and the rest of the caption; the sentence pattern of quoting the graph’s numbering; the introduction of the graph; the descriptions of features and trends in the graph; and the explanations of the features and trends in the graph; An introduction to the meaning reflected in the graphic.
5. Innovate on the basis of borrowing
Imitating high-quality articles can help you a lot, but you can’t just be satisfied with imitation, you have to innovate on the basis of borrowing. The article you borrowed, there may be some places do not do well, and this time, is where you innovate.
In the introduction section, a good model article will usually follow the natural elements such as background, need and its importance, existing state of research, problems or remaining gaps, purpose and ideas of the paper, and arrangement of the paper. You can copy the introduction of the imitation object directly, just like the abstract, and then replace each element with your own.
