Writing strategies for graduate students

Abstract

Most graduate students at the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology experience little difficulty in writing their theses; however some students struggle to articulate their ideas. This struggle can include issues of scope, focus, conciseness and coherence, use of technical graphics, use of graphics, and grammatical and syntactical errors. When this happens, thesis advisors can find themselves coaching graduate students in writing skills while also responding to the technical content. This paper discusses some common problems of graduate student writers and suggests a model that can facilitate the thesis writing process with an efficient and effective use of thesis advisors' time.