1. Keep the focus narrow. I was never going to write the history of conservative Christianity over the last 30 years of New Zealand history. I was not even going to get close. Remember the key thesis you are making and look for prescient and powerful examples from which to say it. The simpler the scope, topic, or subject the easier it is for a Masters thesis. This does not mean it should not be challenging, rather a Masters thesis should be narrow in focus but wide in implication. Think about the wider importance of the work. What does it change about the understanding of the subject/period/issue? As my supervisor used to remind me: ask the 'so what?' question.
2. Spend more time preparing, less time reading and writing. This isn't simply a nice lesson i've learnt, it is in fact a simply truth. The more time you spend preparing your chapters, preparing your reading lists and preparing your writing schedule, the faster the reading and writing will come. Preparation means thoroughly thinking through your chapter structure, leading examples, sections where you highlight important points, and where you demonstrate how the chapter fits into the whole thesis. It means thinking carefully where to hit your reader (or examiner) with the points you want to make. Do you start with leading questions? Suggest what the chapter may reveal? Start with examples which can tease out bigger themes or go straight to the throat of the literature you are drawing (or attacking) from? All of this matters, both in terms of the individual chapters and in terms of the thesis as a whole. Each chapter should have its own character, they each speak to different points so they should be different in subtle but significant ways.
3. Write every draft as if it was the final version. Very early on I found myself thinking 'it's ok if it's a bit weak here, or not clear here, as I've got plenty of time left'. Pretty soon each draft was needing significant rewrites and editing simply because I did not put the full effort in the first time. This made it much harder to stay on top of each chapter down the stretch.4. Write every day. Set a goal for how much you can write in a day and try to stick to it. Because a thesis weighs heavily on the ability to communicate an argument through writing, it is so important to be practicing the craft everyday. Putting ideas into words should not be a last minute exercise but a habit. Writing consistently will help you think through your thoughts, your argument will become clearer, your grammar and style will improve and most importantly, boring descriptive language will be more quickly recognised and deleted. This is especially important for subjects (like history) which give much weighting to prose. A fellow MA graduate once said to me, 'short, sharp, declarative sentences' are the best way to go. He's right.
5. Stop writing a week before it is due. This is perhaps completely unrealistic if you work on adrenalin and down to the wire (like myself). But I think most people would still like to aim for such an early finish time, and for good reasons. Approaching your work fresh, from a day or two rest reveals many things you do not notice when you keep reading/writing on it everyday. The time you leave at the end can be used to catch typos, missed words, formatting issues, prose, and more typos. Never underestimate the existence of the typo!
I'm sure there are a bunch more that could go up here. I'm also sure that once i get my examiner comments back i'll have a whole lot more to put up. But as a reflection of where i think i struggled during the last two years, these are the five lessons I should have listened to earlier to make the transition from honours to masters easier. Still, they wouldn't be lessons if you already knew them right?
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