Status
Available
Call number
Publication
The MIT Press
Description
Umberto Eco's wise and witty guide to researching and writing a thesis, published in English for the first time.
User reviews
LibraryThing member gendeg
Reading How to Write a Thesis by Umberto Eco, even an ‘updated’ version in this MIT Press edition, felt like a sweet exercise in futility. There’s something folksy and quaint about being told how to put notes on index cards and properly organize them and being given tips for using the library
The reason for this is that Eco’s book actually has a lot more to say to people outside of academia, to those no longer writing long tracts of academic esoterica or using words like ‘juxtaposition,’ ‘asymmetricality,’ or ‘reconfigurations’ in everyday writing.
How to Write a Thesis could be easily re-titled ‘How to Live a More Realized Life’ or something along those lines—tongue-in-cheek, of course, as this is Eco and despite all the rhapsody in his prose is actually quite funny. What Eco’s classic tome gives us is the kind of advice you might get from an inspiring college graduation speech. It resonates with wisdom about being more curious, about being more engaged in the world—which is wonderful advice, especially for those who stand on the precipice of maturity, where on one side is youthful idealism and optimism still, and on the other side, lingering over the horizon, is the embittered resignation and indifference of...middle age? Just because you’re not a hot young thing in your twenties anymore doesn’t mean you can’t experience that revelatory process of discovery in other aspects of life.
Eco takes on the usual mechanics of the thesis-writing process—coming up with the right research question; outlining; collating notes—and expands on it so that it becomes a jumping off point to exploring the notions of creativity, originality, and attribution. There is a section on developing core ideas and then using those ideas to explore more peripheral ideas; often, the true thrust of a thesis comes in those minor works and footnotes. I also liked his ideas on how to approach the work of others. My favorite rule of thumb from the book is: “Work on a contemporary author as if he were ancient, and an ancient one as if he were contemporary … You will have more fun and write a better thesis.” Eco also has much to say on the obsession with spending too much time compiling information (he calls it the “alibi of photocopies”); it makes for a watered down, unfocused, blurry project. We’re all guilty of this in some way. How often do we bookmark and save articles we come across on the Web and never really get to? Eco is basically saying, ‘Don’t be a hoarder.’ Don’t do the equivalent of bottom trawling and hoping that there will be a prize fish in all the bycatch. One solution: Better outlining and a read-now attitude (don’t stockpile; read soon, and then decide to keep or toss).
I know it’s weird to think this but reading How to Write a Thesis felt very homey. It was very much a feel-good book; like being treated to home cooking. It reminds the academic to not be so insulated and narcissistic (reality check: odds are, only a handful of people will ever read your work in its entirety). And it reminds the rest of us of the worth of slowing down and digesting information thoughtfully, with care and consideration (no skimming), and of the the worth of committing to a task.
[Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest and candid review.]
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and talking to librarians. (Not too surprising, as Eco wrote this in the late seventies—almost forty years ago!) But with over twenty-three editions and countless translations, there’s something to be said about this just-won’t-die thesis-writing guide. It endures, even in a world of Dropbox and Evernote and Endnote and online style guides and, of course, the oracle of information—the internet.The reason for this is that Eco’s book actually has a lot more to say to people outside of academia, to those no longer writing long tracts of academic esoterica or using words like ‘juxtaposition,’ ‘asymmetricality,’ or ‘reconfigurations’ in everyday writing.
How to Write a Thesis could be easily re-titled ‘How to Live a More Realized Life’ or something along those lines—tongue-in-cheek, of course, as this is Eco and despite all the rhapsody in his prose is actually quite funny. What Eco’s classic tome gives us is the kind of advice you might get from an inspiring college graduation speech. It resonates with wisdom about being more curious, about being more engaged in the world—which is wonderful advice, especially for those who stand on the precipice of maturity, where on one side is youthful idealism and optimism still, and on the other side, lingering over the horizon, is the embittered resignation and indifference of...middle age? Just because you’re not a hot young thing in your twenties anymore doesn’t mean you can’t experience that revelatory process of discovery in other aspects of life.
Eco takes on the usual mechanics of the thesis-writing process—coming up with the right research question; outlining; collating notes—and expands on it so that it becomes a jumping off point to exploring the notions of creativity, originality, and attribution. There is a section on developing core ideas and then using those ideas to explore more peripheral ideas; often, the true thrust of a thesis comes in those minor works and footnotes. I also liked his ideas on how to approach the work of others. My favorite rule of thumb from the book is: “Work on a contemporary author as if he were ancient, and an ancient one as if he were contemporary … You will have more fun and write a better thesis.” Eco also has much to say on the obsession with spending too much time compiling information (he calls it the “alibi of photocopies”); it makes for a watered down, unfocused, blurry project. We’re all guilty of this in some way. How often do we bookmark and save articles we come across on the Web and never really get to? Eco is basically saying, ‘Don’t be a hoarder.’ Don’t do the equivalent of bottom trawling and hoping that there will be a prize fish in all the bycatch. One solution: Better outlining and a read-now attitude (don’t stockpile; read soon, and then decide to keep or toss).
I know it’s weird to think this but reading How to Write a Thesis felt very homey. It was very much a feel-good book; like being treated to home cooking. It reminds the academic to not be so insulated and narcissistic (reality check: odds are, only a handful of people will ever read your work in its entirety). And it reminds the rest of us of the worth of slowing down and digesting information thoughtfully, with care and consideration (no skimming), and of the the worth of committing to a task.
[Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest and candid review.]
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LibraryThing member berezovskyi
Great book, given that author wanted to tell completely inexperienced students how to perform their day-to-day work on their thesis. Its approach is still state-of-art, but particulars became replaced with the tools of the 21st century: typewriter with LaTeX, literature index folder with Zotero,
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markers with annotated PDFs. I started to use Trello to organise literature that has some backlog items (such as read references and come back etc.). Don't think it's too old to be useful. Show Less
LibraryThing member EduardoGasparini
I read this book to help me in preparing my master's dissertation in Engineering, and it was very helpfull, specially because Eco writes in a pleasant way, using humor and keeping the seriousness the subject demands. Although it's a technical work, I experienced almost the same pleasure reading it
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as I did in his The Name of the Rose. Show Less
LibraryThing member A.Godhelm
This is just too old to be useful. The apologetic introduction mentions how it's stayed relevant well past its years as an inspiration for students but there is virtually no meat on the bone left once you excise what is now just historical curio. Perhaps a fifth of the book has retained some
I don't blame the book for this of course, but rather the people who perpetuated the idea that it's a perennial work.
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relevance - in between information about hiring a typist or using index cards (amazing to see illustrated how much busywork technology has solved). I don't blame the book for this of course, but rather the people who perpetuated the idea that it's a perennial work.
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Subjects
Original publication date
1977