What better way to put an abrupt end to summer than by recommending a book about thesis writing, that source of anxiety and dread for many a college and grad school student about to enter the back-to-school season? Bear with me, though.
It’s a book I wish I had read in college and even more so in grad school, and one I’d even think to recommend to a few of my professors (see the section on academic humility).
The book is How to Write a Thesis by the renowned Italian novelist and intellectual Umberto Eco. First published in 1977, it was an instant success and has since been translated into 17 languages, but for whatever reason only arrived in English this year. Eco updated it once in 1985, which is surprising considering the rapidly changing information environment. The age of the text shows but only on the surface—don’t let the talk of card catalogs belie its relevancy.
If anything, his index card (albeit hand written) system of research is more important than ever before. It emphasizes critical thinking and resourcefulness, skills that are crucial to navigating the vast sea of information available today.
At one point he writes of “the alibi of photocopies” in which “a student makes hundreds of photocopies and takes them home, and the manual labor he exercises in doing so gives him the impression that he processes the work…. This sort of vertigo of accumulation… happens to many.” Substitute photocopies with printouts or PDFs, and we’re all guilty as charged.
