While writing my master's thesis (which I thankfully defended and passed), I confirmed some suspicions not only about the subject of my research, but also about important aspects of the act of writing itself. I took note of some of these things. Below are the main ones:
1. The research topic is always much larger than we initially think.
The ancient Greeks imagined the sun to be the size of a human foot. Today we know it is more than 100 times larger than the Earth. What has changed since then? The amount of research and accumulated knowledge, of course. Relatively speaking, this is more or less what happens to someone who sets out to write a master's thesis. We often underestimate what we don't know well. Other times we get lost in dreams or vague and very abstract ideas when we contemplate something attentively. It's good to dream, but science and research don't mesh well with dreamlike approaches. Carlos Salas, a master of good writing, said that the brain is an animal within another animal, and that it needs to be tamed if we want it to work for us on something concrete.
The same thing happens with the research topic: first we have a fantastic vision of it, which takes us to fabulous places and quick, extraordinary solutions; as we advance in the filtering process, we begin to perceive its more prosaic forms and, when we are finally faced with the research problem, which is the topic in flesh and blood, we see that the feasible is far from the dream, but it is much more tangible. The research problem is Sultan the cat playing with the paper ball.
2. A thorough understanding of the subject is fundamental.
Cato said: rem tene, verba sequenturIn other words, have the subject matter and the word will follow naturally. The dissertation is not a fictional text (at least, it shouldn't be). Thus, the author is not given much room for invention. Most of the time, they should regurgitate their readings, although this should have a touch of originality. Knowing the subject beforehand and with certainty is fundamental for the writing to have fluency and sincerity.
When I tried to write some chapters without having properly read the subjects, I surprised myself by inventing things, fantasizing, and trying to fit in phrases that seemed more essential than the truth. I quickly deleted everything and went back to reading. I realized I wasn't prepared to write about it. The worst part is that this happens with undesirable frequency. Just lower your guard a little and the Chimera sits beside you. The best way to avoid this is to maintain close contact with good reading material, to surround yourself with those who have already effectively addressed the topic of interest.
3 – It's good to have people to talk to about the text.
It's strange to think about this: no one has ever directly seen their own face, nor heard their own voice from a distance. Of course, we can say that we have seen ourselves in a mirror or on some polished surface; or that we have heard a recording of our own voice. This may be true, but it only proves that we have seen or heard an external record of our image and our voice. That's something else entirely. We are relational beings. We need others to be who we are and to understand ourselves.
Language itself is a chessboard of symbols where each move only makes sense if there is an interlocutor to appreciate it and respond with another appropriate move. The act of writing, to a large extent, presents itself as a monologue immersed in a confused polyphony; at that moment, more or less inexplicable intuitions come to our minds, memories of previous readings and conversations on the subject, clichés that have obsessed us for years, in short, the stream of consciousness in all its richness and ambiguity.
When we exchange ideas with a qualified interlocutor—it could be a supervisor, a colleague, or someone else capable—we have the opportunity to refine our own ideas, which occur to us in a seemingly inextricable way. Eventually, this is so beneficial that, simply by trying to explain a passage of the text we are writing, we immediately notice some inconsistencies or obscurities that need correction. In other words, the other person is the mirror we need to see ourselves in.
4. Routine leads to inspiration.
A little progress is progress. You can't write a quality text of approximately one hundred pages in just a few days. The idea that a dissertation is the result of a long gestation with a quick birth is very attractive, but hardly achievable. In practice, writing a dissertation is more like the trickle of a spring than a storm in the middle of the night. The problem of writer's block has already been solved by Hemingway. He said that there is only one remedy for it: start writing. Simple, yet difficult. But that's exactly it. No one can write a work, mediocre or brilliant, if they don't start, and if they don't continue until the end. Discipline is inspiring.
5. It is important to respect the reader and establish an honest relationship with them.
Writing is a form of interpersonal communication. One of the most important, in fact. But, for some reason, it's not understood that way at first glance, and it's not uncommon for it to be used as an instrument of torture for the reader (and to torture the examiners doesn't seem like a good idea).
No one would take seriously someone who, in a conversation, started talking nonsense or completely out of context (and, worse, wouldn't stop talking). But, in writing, perhaps due to the lack of item 3 (above), one might believe that this psychedelic trip is possible, to the detriment of the poor reader. If we don't strictly monitor ourselves, we start writing completely irrelevant things just to fill the blank spaces on the screen and increase the final volume of the work.
It's always necessary to return to the text, reread it carefully, and put oneself in the reader's place to purge these unwelcome hallucinations. By doing so, we often realize the undeserved punishment we were inflicting on the benevolent individual who took the time to read our work. In other words, to write well, one must stop writing or erase a great deal.
6. The dissertation resembles a short story or a novella, never a novel.
Information is not a scarce commodity today. On the contrary, there is too much information available to the researcher—especially in the social sciences—when conducting a bibliographic survey. Therefore, it is necessary not to write too much, nor to discuss irrelevant things. A master's dissertation, as methodologists teach, should focus on only one central problem, although surrounded by sub-problems. Opening up too many lines of research can be a terrible mistake—which unfortunately almost all of us make, and whose remedy is rereading and streamlining. What should be avoided most is raising questions for which there will either be no solution in the text, or, if there is, it will be too weak.
Therefore, it's best to avoid references that lead nowhere—I confess I haven't been able to strictly follow this principle. Chekhov, the master of short stories, said that "if a rifle appears in a story, it has to fire." The same applies to dissertations. Every element in the text must be functional. From the words used, to the sentences, periods, paragraphs, items, and even chapters, everything must be in good harmony, contributing to the solution of the research problem. If a passage sounds odd, it probably is.
7. Intertextuality is the environment of legal research.
Every text we write is a reinterpretation of reality, illuminated by the texts with which we have had prior contact. Total originality does not exist. Particularly in the field of law, research is highly dependent on texts.
Although there are ample opportunities for direct legal research into reality, using data, numbers, statistics, and even experiments, the truth is that our academia is still deeply dominated by the culture of bibliographic research and intertextual writing. Therefore, it is very important to read good texts in order to produce good texts.
Ultimately, writing is, to a large extent, an imitation of what one has read. The correct choice of readings, with the help of a supervisor, is fundamental. On the one hand, this avoids unnecessary reading and, on the other, it constitutes the community of ideas to which we want to belong.
8. A place to write is essential.
"Great things happen when man and mountain meet." This phrase, by William Blake, is so good that it has become commonplace, and we often hear it even in comedy films. What Blake meant was that the peace of the mountains offers the individual the necessary atmosphere to think deeply about great things, beyond the mundane. In fact, the Bible is full of passages in which inspirations, visions, and direct conversations with God occurred on the summit of some mountains (Tabor, Horeb, Sinai, Carmel, Olives, etc.).
Pagan thought also shares the idea that mountains are inspiring. Just think of Mount Parnassus. But you don't need to climb a mountain to find an inspiring place. Fortunately, with the technologies we have today, it's possible to transform an apartment bedroom into a stimulating environment for thought. Everyone will know how to do it. I, personally, like it to be something close to nature and have a table full of paper and pens. Whatever the case, the important thing is that the writing space is well separated from the rest of daily life.
9. We write while we sleep.
We truly know nothing about how our brain works. It's a stranger that lives within us, and yet it's also responsible for who we are. The truth is, it doesn't follow a standard, traditional work schedule.
Anyone who reads and thinks intently about a problem surely has a story to tell about flashes of insight that appeared "out of nowhere" and seemed too interesting to lose. This happens, I suppose, because the brain is capricious and resembles those retired action movie heroes who only agree to return to work after much insistence from the fragile victim who needs them. But when they return… they come back with a vengeance. During sleep, many insights end up occurring, and some of them remain in our memory as soon as we wake up.
Not everything is brilliant, of course, but many things from these sleep reminiscences can be useful. For this, it's also very important to have a notebook, so you can jot down these ideas as soon as they arise, because they are very fleeting.
10. Everything is history.
No one has yet invented a better way to communicate a topic than through storytelling.storytellingIn Portuguese, we don't have a well-established distinction between vocabulary for designating a real narrative and a fictional one. It is true that Câmara Cascudo defended the use of the distinction between "história" and "estória," as in English. history/storyHowever, this is not always the practice. The truth is that even the narration of a real event (which should be the case in scientific research) can benefit from the technical and stylistic resources of good fiction literature.
Just because it's research doesn't mean writing has to be boring. I think, on the contrary, it shouldn't be. Furthermore, the situation of someone writing a dissertation is quite similar to that of a novelist, although naturally there are differences in method, purpose, and limitations for both tasks. To make writing a dissertation a pleasurable experience and deliver something easily readable to the reader, I see no reason why some storytelling strategies shouldn't be prudently employed. I believe this greatly improves the atmosphere of both writing and reading.
Finally, although I didn't write a novel, throughout the process I was reminded a lot of E.L. Doctorow's lesson: "Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as the headlights reach, but you can make the whole trip that way."
Nazareno CM Reis
