10 Tips on Rewriting Your Thesis as a Book

Extensive study goes into formulating a research thesis; often thesis gets lengthy too because of the scope of the subject of research. Hence when a research thesis is completed, many a times, writers and researchers have the feeling of converting their thesis into a book to cater to a larger audience. When word limit of a thesis exceeds 100000, which will only be read by 6 examiners in lifetime, it is common notion that the work can be converted into a book so that a different set of audiences can come to know of the person’s study, findings and knowledge.

A few things to remember before venturing into this:

• Research thesis is not a book. Its content is meant for academic audience, even its language and style format.
• A research begins with a question but a book begins with an answer.
• It is imperative to understand if your thesis has the scope to reach out to broader audience. If the topic is relevant to generic world beyond academic world.
• Examiners will read through text of thesis irrespective of writing style, but readers are not bound to read your book.
• No publisher will be interested to read an entire thesis; a book proposal will be required as the first step to move on.

Tips on writing the book from thesis:

1. Include inter-related and inter-disciplinary study– Scope of a book is much broader than that of a thesis. Even while keeping the theme of the book relevant to the thesis, you need to add extra content which are related or somehow associated with the main topic. This adds multiple layers to the book; not engaging a solo or unidirectional discussion, which can bore the readers, but involve many diversified ideas into a single narrative.
2. Take care of the narrative– The narrative technique is everything in a book, which is very different from that of a thesis. A thesis carries a third person understanding of the subject referencing other people’s works wherever applicable, but in a book the author needs to be more interactive with the audience. Change your voice for converting your thesis to a book, and that can be a first-person view of the entire story. Write with more personal engagement and write what you feel. Book writing gives the liberty to speak yourself, which may not always be politically correct.
3. Develop the plot for the book properly- A thesis is written within strict rules and guidelines, and each section of it has to be brief and to the point like the abstract, introduction, literature review, then a scientific approach to methodology, interpretation, results and conclusion etc. But a book needs to have a story. Even if your subject is as bland as mental disorders, you have to develop a background story in your opening chapters, which may strike the emotional notes of happiness, sorrow, fear, thrill etc. which will keep the readers hooked to your book and employ them in reading on. The first few chapters of your story will establish a context, an environment, basically the objective of your writing, but in an interesting manner, not briefly like in an abstract. For e.g. your opening lines can be the quote of a famous poet or philanthropist. You can further continue talking about a personal spine-chilling event that you may have witnessed, or bring up a real-life story from the cover page of a journal or newspaper which can hold relevance to your subject. If it directly doesn’t have significance, you can use the power of your words to establish a connection between the two. Slowly, you go on unfolding layers and discovering new things and the readers discover the same with you. Thus, a book has to have something to discover through the process of storytelling.
4. Include case studies wherever required while writing the book: Case studies or real stories always inspire and intrigue readers. A book that is based on your thesis cannot have a fictional narrative, but you can always make it more interesting by using cases and human references, their voices and their stories. That may require you to interact with some real characters who eventually become the characters of your book and you build them the same way an author does with his fictional characters.
5. You can use historical accounts associated with your study or interdisciplinary study being used in your book- Again, accounts and experiences from history keep your work factual but make it interesting and engaging by giving the portions of the book a relatable emotional aspect of a story.
6. Avoid using too many technical terms- a book reader can be anyone, someone not even related to your field of study. The language you use in writing your book should be accessible and comprehensible to the mass. So, avoid being too scientific or technical while writing a book. Specific keywords can confuse readers and definitely you don’t want your audience to sit with a methodological dictionary while reading your book.
7. Engage in literary and intercultural discussions on the subject- Another tip for engaging audience is bringing in references and theories from literature, art, mythology or cultural studies. You have to remind yourself throughout that a thesis has many limitations but while writing a book you can digress, meander, climb up and down, roam around and again come back to your point as long as you are assimilating every element together harmoniously.
8. Avoid repetitions- Be creative, think what new can be brought in the context of the work while writing a book. A thesis can have several portions speaking the same thing, like a paragraph or two in the abstract will be same as that in the introduction or body of a research thesis, but in a book, you cannot speak about the same thing in two or more paragraphs.
9. Be creative- Widen your vision; use logical thinking but in a more creative way while writing a book. Free yourself from being technically right; use personal motivation in your analysis of the situations and subject matter.
10. Use Bibliography not References- A book can be inspired from a lot of works, may not be all works are cited or directly used in the actual text of the work. In other words, there can be books from other authors which you have read but not used any material from them in your text, can be listed in bibliography, which you cannot so much do with references.

 For the author, rewriting on the same topic for an elaborate length can be too tedious and wearisome. Brainstorming may not help at times, and if book writing is attempted at such a situation, it can be a disaster. So, hold yourself back for a moment, ask yourself is the quality of your thesis really high which deserve your double effort of rewriting towards the work. Think about your target audience, for whom you intend the book. Do not expect to become rich by selling your book. After putting all the effort, your reward is a publisher’s contract with royalty. But most authors’ first books do not become best sellers, so keep your expectations low. After a definitive thought process if you decide to write your thesis into a book, your need a book proposal in right format which you have to send out to publishers.

Source URLs

http://www4.caes.hku.hk/acadgrammar/general/argue/citation/subtopics/sec7RefsVsBibl.htm

https://www.masterstudies.com/article/five-tips-for-turning-your-phd-thesis-into-a-book/

https://johanacademicwritinghelp.com/turn-thesis-into-book/

https://www.thecreativepenn.com/2019/02/08/writing-tips-how-to-turn-a-thesis-into-a-book-that-sells/

https://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/from-phd-to-book-the-basics/

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