Thesis Tip: Style Sheets.

How come no one ever taught us about these in our Masters? A style sheet is a neat little tool for when you are writing, and I think it would come in very handy while writing a thesis. A style sheet is a chart that keeps track of the following:

Odd Spellings
For example scientific words, philosophical made up terms (I'm looking at you Derrida, ontopology? Serious?) and individual quirks, like the fact I use artefact (British) instead of artifact (American).

Words with variations
Would you say he dived into the pool, or he dove in the pool, now you can be consistent

Names of people and places
It would be great if every scholar in the world had the name Wu or Smith, but they don't, this way I can look up Csikszentmihalyi once, and be able to spell it every time. (I actually had a prof notice once that I had spelled this name wrong in my bibliography, you never know)

Abbreviations, numbers and dates
Do you do it military style (11 Nov 45) or longhand (November eleventh, nineteen hundred and forty-five)? Also important, decide your number rules, I generally like to write out every number under 100.

Trademarked names
Even in my research I come across brand names like Kleenex and iPod. I have to keep track of them somehow.

Specific Instructions
Keep any little quirks your committee has told you to do here, you may have a reader who hates the word "that" put it in the style sheet and you will be aware of it.

Title, Table, Diagram, Figure and section formats

Decide what to bold, itaclizes, underline and make notes of it. Also if you are using capital letters, a numerical system or roman numerals to organise your things. Make notes of the formats for captions on any figures or tables

If you have a friend editing your paper or dissertation for you, a style sheet is a dream come true, organise all your rules alphabetically and your readers will have time to focus on your ideas rather than your inconsistencies. It also helps to tell them which style guide you are using unless you have a field standard like Associated Press or Chicago Manual of Style.