East Carolina University
 Department of Psychology

Common Thesis and Dissertation Errors

    Here is a list of errors of grammar and style which I have found to be fairly common in theses and dissertations. Now that you know they are errors, don't make them. I have provided references to sections of the 6th and/or 5th edition of the APA Publication Manual (PM5) where appropriate.

Abstract line spacing

           Don't double space the paragraph at the top of the abstract (which has your name, the title, etc.), it is supposed to be single spaced.

"Affect" and "Effect"

           Get out your dictionary. Used as a noun "affect" means "emotion." Used as a verb "affect" means "to act upon." Used as a noun "effect" means "a result or consequence." Used as a verb "effect" means "to bring about or cause to happen." Examples: "What is the effect of this drug? Does it affect cognition? Does it alter affect? Could we use it to effect a change in one's personality?"

Alphabetical Order of Citations Within Parentheses

           When listing several citations within parentheses, do so alphabetically, not chronologically. For example: "Cannibalism has been studied by several psychologists (Carr, 1981; Maslow, 1936; Wuensch, 1990)." (PM 6.16)

Ampersands

           Use the ampersand to stand for "and" within parentheses, but not outside parentheses. For example, say "Wuensch and Urwalt (1996) reported that estrogen's effects in tropical climates differed from its effects in temperate climates," but say "Several others have reported similar interactions (Mueller, 1995; Wuensch & Urwalt, 1996; Xenos, 1982)." (PM 6.12)

ANOVA Independent Variables ("Factors")

           Don't refer to them as "factors," reserve that term for the weighted linear combinations of variables resulting from a factor analysis (PM 4.20). Do not capitalize the names of variables unless they are connected by "x" -- for example, say "the main effects of sex and dose fell short of statistical significance, but the Sex x Dose interaction was significant."

Bold Font

           In a thesis at ECU, set all headings in bold font (and some of them in bold italic font). See my Thesis Tips page for more details (to which you can link at the bottom of this document).

Case

          Read the APA Publication Manual carefully regarding appropriate use of upper case. Students tend to capitalize things they shouldn't, such as the names of variables (but see the comments above about ANOVA independent variables). (PM 4.14 through 4.20)

        The word "factor" should be capitalized when it is followed by a number -- for example, "The first factor captured 46% of .... As shown in Table 3, Factor 1 loaded well on ...."  You should also capitalize the names that you give to derived factors -- for example, "The Chinese participants scored much higher on Temporal Farsightedness (Factor 5) than did ...."

Citations, Repeated Within Same Paragraph

    Within a paragraph, if the author's name appears in narrative (not within parentheses), you do not give the year in any subsequent narrative citations.  The year is always given for parenthetical citations.  (PM, 6.11)

Conjunctions as the First Word in a Sentence

    Do not start a sentence with a conjunction.  And don't end one with a preposition.  See Rules for Writers.

Commas and Quotation Marks

           Put the closing comma (or period or any punctuation mark that was part of the quoted material) within the quotation marks. (PM 4.08)

"Data"

           Treat this word as a plural noun. The singular is "datum." (PM 3.20)

DF for F

          Put a blank space after the comma which separates the numerator df from the denominator df. (PM 4.44.)

Equality and Inequality Signs

          Put a blank space on each side of them. (PM 4.44)

Et Al.

          There is no period after "et" (which is not an abbreviation), there is one after "al." Do not use "et al." the first time you cite an article, unless there are 6 or more authors. If two references with the same year would shorten to the same form using et al., then list as many of the authors as necessary to remove such ambiguity -- for example, if there were in your reference list two or more articles which could reduce to "Wuensch et al., 1996" you might have to say "Wuensch, Poteat, et al., 1996". Note that there is NOT a comma before "et al." unless more than one author's name is given. (PM 6.12)

Figures and Tables

           Refer to every figure and table that you present -- don't just throw in figures or tables without referring to them.  (PM 5.10)  In a final manuscript, place them in the body of the manuscript, usually on the first page after that on which the figure or table is first mentioned (unless you can squeeze it in on the page itself, which is likely only to work with a small figure or table), rather than at the end of the manuscript. Put the figure captions on the figures rather than on a captions page. Use the table border lines features of your word processor rather than underlining to produce spanners in your tables. See my Thesis Tips file for more details (link at bottom of this document).

Final Manuscript vs Copy Manuscript

           The thesis is a final manuscript, not a copy manuscript. Copy manuscripts are those that are submitted to editors for review and, with luck, publication. The staff of the journal turns them into nice looking, easy to read, final manuscripts. The thesis should already be a final manuscript when it goes to the thesis committee. (Chapter 6 of the PM5)

Headings

          Please see this document:  APA Style Headings

"Independent Variable"

    This term should be used only for experimentally manipulated variables.  Categorical variables not manipulated should be referred to as "predictor variables," "classification variables," "grouping variables," or another appropriate term that does not imply experimental manipulation.  Read this document.

Impact

          As a noun "impact" means "a striking together," "the force of a collision," or "the power to produce changes." Given that last meaning, it is appropriate to say "Sometimes early experience has a profound impact upon later species identity." As a verb "impact" means "to strike together." It does NOT mean to affect. If you say "he impacted my thinking" you are saying he hit your thinking. Think of an impacted wisdom tooth -- it is striking up against your other teeth. See also Impact This, Buddy!

Italics, not Underlining

           The only acceptable reason to use underlining rather than italics is that you are using a typewriter rather than a word processor.

Its vs. It's

            I have a hard time with this one.  "Its" is the possessive, as in "the rat licked its fur."  "It's" is a contraction of "it" and "is," as in "it's not a rat, it's a chinchilla."  It was not always so -- see the Word Detective.

Line Spacing

          The usual advice is to "set your word processor to double space and then forget it." If you are using Microsoft Word, see "Double Spacing" in my document Word Tips for the Thesis Typist. Do not put a blank line between one paragraph and the next paragraph. Do single space the abstract.

Numbers

           Numbers nine or less that don't represent precise measurements should be spelled out, unless they are grouped for comparison with numbers greater than nine. Spell them out at the beginning of a sentence. See the APA Publication Manual for details, exceptions, and examples. (PM 4.31 through 4.38)

P Values

          Why just say "p < .05" or "p > .05" when you can give an exact value such as "p = .032"? PM 2.07. On the other hand, if the p is less than .001, just say "p < .001." It is not very useful to say something like "p = .000000283." Although p is an abbreviation, do not follow it with a period.

Page Breaks

        To force a page break, in Word, just hold hold down the Ctrl key while you hit the Enter key.  Do not insert multiple carriage returns (Enter) to force a new page.

Pagination

          Page numbers should not appear on the first page of each chapter. Prefatory pagination is really strange: Consult my Thesis Tips page.

Passive/Active Voice and the First Person

         Use of the active voice with the first person is strongly encouraged. (PM 3.18.)

Pronouns for Nonhuman Animals

          Use neuter pronouns unless the animals have been named. (PM 3.20.)  I guess that I would use "he/she" for my pet earthworm, Squiggly.  Squiggly is a hermaphrodite.  APA probably considers "hermaphrodite" an insensitive term, but it describes earthworms accurately.  I would still use a neuter pronoun when referring to a named animal from a species that does not reproduce sexually.

Prepositions at the End of a Sentence

         Avoid them. "A preposition is a poor word to end a sentence with" can be changed to "A preposition is a poor word with which to end a sentence."

Reference List

Redneck Plural

        An apostrophe should not be used when forming the plural of a noun unless it is possessive.  For example, you should write "these possums make great stew," not "these possum's make great stew."

Royal We

          When referring to the author of the thesis, use "I" or "my," not "we" or "our."

Secondary Sources

        Avoid them, if possible.  Don't tell me that Row and Boat (2004) reported that Stream (1996) found a quadratic relationship between misanthropy and family income, do go to the original source (Stream), read it, and then cite the original source.  If you absolutely must use a secondary source (you have tried to get the original but could not), do it with proper APA style -- for example:  "Rodin, Silberstein, and Striegel-Moore (1985, as cited in Striegel-Moore, Tucker, & Hsu, 1990) reported that ......."

Sexist or Dehumanizing Language

          Avoid sexist or dehumanizing language. Don't use "male" and "female" as nouns when referring to humans, acknowledge their humanity by referring to them as "men" and "women," or "boys" and "girls." Don't, however, use "man" and "woman" as adjectives. It is OK to use "male" and "female" as adjectives.  (Item 3 in Table 2.1 in the PM:  "Use male and female as adjectives where appropriate and relevant (female experimenter, male participant).  Males and females may be appropriate when the age range is quite broad or ambiguous.  Avoid unparallel usage such as 10 men and 16 females.")  See the APA Guidelines for Unbiased Language, especially Item 3 under gender and the following comment.

          APA used to discourage authors from using the term "subjects" to describe the research units when they were humans.  They encouraged the use of words like "participants," "respondents," or some other terms less dehumanizing than "subjects."  With the 6th edition of the publication manual, use of the word "subjects" has been designated as appropriate even when the subjects are humans.  (PM6:  3.11, Guideline 3)

Shifts of Tense

          Shifting tenses back and forth annoys readers. Avoid it. (PM 3.06)

Singular "They"

          While it is appropriate to avoid sexist language by using the plural, do not use the "singular they." For example, "Each subject was instructed to hit the red key on their keyboard...." is agrammatic -- the pronoun "their" is plural but its antecedent ("Each participant") is singular. You could instead say "Subjects were instructed to hit the red key on their keyboards......"   (PM 3.12, 3.19, 3.20)

Split Infinitives

          Call me old fashioned, but, unless needed to avoid ambiguity, I think one should avoid placing an adverb between "to" and the verbal. More than once I have been sent the following quotation as proof that I am a traditionalist:
         "The dislike of split infinitives is long-standing but is not well founded, being based on an analogy with Latin. In Latin, infinitives consist only one word (e.g. crescere 'to grow'; amare 'to love'), which makes them impossible to split; therefore, so the argument goes, they should not be split in English either. But English is not the same as Latin. In particular, the placing of an adverb in English is extremely important in giving the appropriate emphasis ... In the modern context, some traditionalists may continue to hold up the split infinitive as an error in English. However, in standard English the principle of allowing split infinitives is broadly accepted as both normal and useful." (New Oxford Dictionary of English, 1998)

Statistical Symbols

          Set in italic font (or underline if you are using a typewriter rather than a word processor) statistical symbols such as t, F, and p. The PM (3.19) says not to set Greek letters in italics, even when used as statistical symbols, but I happen to think they look better when set in italics, so I do so in my handouts (I do follow the APA prescription in my manuscripts for journals that use APA style).

            In Microsoft Word 2003, you can get Greek symbols, such as c , by clicking Insert, Symbol, selecting the font (use the Symbol font, it usually looks better than the others for Greek letters), selecting the symbol, and then clicking on insert, as illustrated here. 

Tense

          Use the past tense to describe things that have already happened, such as the procedure you used to gather the data and the results you obtained when analyzing the data. (PM 3.18)

"Try And"

        No, no, no.  "Try to."  See Try2.htm.

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This page most recently revised on 22. October 2009.