How to Set Up a Thesis Project in Research Think

What a thesis project does

In Research Think, a project is the container for one thesis or dissertation. It holds your chapter list, word-count targets, cloud sync settings, and optional AI scoring configuration. If you are writing one dissertation, you usually need one project. If you are managing multiple large writing efforts, keep them separate so the progress data stays clean.

Step 1: Create and name the project

When you enter the app for the first time, Research Think walks you through onboarding. Start by creating a project and giving it a name you will still recognise six months from now. "Dissertation", "PhD Thesis", or a field-specific title all work. The point is not branding. The point is making sure you can immediately tell which project holds your live writing.

If you skip onboarding, you can still create or rename projects later in Project Setup. The app supports multiple projects, but most users should resist overcomplicating this. One thesis, one project, at least to start.

Step 2: Set review and final word goals

Early in setup, Research Think asks for milestone goals. These are not just decorative settings. They give your dashboard something concrete to measure against, especially if you are working toward a supervisor review, departmental submission, or final hand-in.

• Review goal. Use this for the next meaningful checkpoint, such as a chapter bundle for supervisor review.
• Final goal. Use this for your expected submission word count.

You can change these later, so do not treat them as permanent. Set something realistic enough to guide your planning, then refine it once your chapter structure is stable.

Step 3: Decide whether to enable AI scoring

This is where Research Think differs from most thesis tools.

Research Think can automatically score synced chapters on criteria like clarity, argumentation, critical depth, grammar, and contribution. If you want the app to track writing quality over time instead of just word volume, enable AI scoring during setup.

If you are not ready yet, skip it. You can turn it on later in project settings. The important thing is understanding the tradeoff: without scoring, Research Think still tracks words and sync history; with scoring, it also shows whether the writing itself is getting stronger across revisions. Without scoring, you see how much you are writing. With scoring, you see whether your writing is improving.

For a practical guide to getting the most from AI scoring — including how to calibrate it to match your supervisor's feedback — see using AI scoring as a low-cost feedback tool.

A note on privacy and AI scoring

Privacy matters here because thesis chapters are not casual documents. If you enable AI scoring, Research Think sends chapter text to OpenAI through the API so the writing can be evaluated. OpenAI does not train on API data, and thesis text sent for scoring is not retained by OpenAI for model training.

That is the core distinction: AI scoring requires sending the chapter content for analysis, but it is not being fed back into model training. If you are working with especially sensitive material, you can leave AI scoring off and still use Research Think for cloud sync, chapter tracking, and word-count progress.

For users who do want scoring, the practical question is whether the benefit of fast feedback on argument, clarity, and structure outweighs the fact that the text must be processed by the API. Research Think is built so that this is an explicit choice, not a hidden default.

Step 4: Connect the folder where your thesis chapters live

This is the part that makes the app useful day to day. Research Think supports Google Drive, OneDrive, and Dropbox. Connect the provider you already use for your real thesis files instead of creating a parallel folder system just for the app.

During setup, choose your cloud provider, authorise access, and then select the folder that contains your chapter documents. For OneDrive and Dropbox, you choose the folder directly in the setup flow. Research Think then checks what it finds and tells you whether the folder is ready to import cleanly. If you are unsure which cloud provider to use or how sync fits into your broader writing setup, see the thesis writing tools guide for a breakdown of each option.

The goal is to point the app at the actual working folder where you save your thesis chapters, not a temporary export folder and not a folder full of unrelated documents.

Example thesis folder

Clean import

01-introduction.docx

02-literature-review.docx

03-methodology.docx

04-findings.docx

Step 5: Keep the chapter files organised

The import works best when the folder contains chapter files that are clearly named and easy to order. In practice, that means one document per chapter and a predictable naming scheme. Research Think’s folder preview can flag files that do not follow the expected ordering pattern.

A simple system is enough:

• Use one file per chapter. Do not combine half the thesis into one giant document unless that is truly how you write.
• Use an order prefix. Names like 01-introduction.docx, 02-literature-review.docx, and 03-methodology.docx are easy for both you and the app to interpret.
• Stick to your real workflow. The app is most useful when it reflects the documents you are actually editing each week.

Step 6: Run the first sync and check the import

Once the folder is connected, let Research Think import the chapters. After the first sync, check that the chapter list makes sense: titles should be recognisable, the order should be right, and the word counts should roughly match what you expect from the source documents.

If something looks off, fix the source files first. Rename the documents, move unrelated files out of the folder, or separate merged chapters into individual files. Clean inputs produce clean tracking.

Step 7: Add chapter targets after import

After your chapters are in the system, set target word counts for each chapter. This is where the progress tracking becomes genuinely useful. Instead of staring at a single thesis-wide number, you can see which chapters are underweight, which ones are drifting too long, and how close the whole project is to done.

Research Think uses those chapter targets to calculate live progress across the project, so this step is worth doing even if your targets are approximate. This is where tracking becomes more than a word count. You can see which parts of the thesis are actually developing and which need revision.

Chapter progress

Introduction82%

Literature Review61%

Methodology95%

Quality trend

A useful setup shows both output and improvement over time.

How to use the project well after setup

A thesis project is not something you configure once and forget. The useful habit is simple: keep writing in the same synced files, let Research Think pick up changes, and review the dashboard regularly. Watch both the word-count trend and the chapter-level score trend. If word count is increasing but quality scores are flat, you are likely drafting without improving the argument. If quality improves without much word growth, you are refining what is already there. Both patterns are useful, but they call for different decisions.

• Review the chapter list weekly. It is the quickest way to see what is moving and what is stalled.
• Adjust targets when the thesis plan changes. Static targets become misleading fast.
• Keep the synced folder clean. Draft fragments, old exports, and duplicate files make the tracking worse.

The simplest setup that works

If you want the short version, it is this: create one project, name it clearly, set rough goals, connect the folder where your chapter .docx files actually live, import the chapters, and assign chapter targets. That is enough to make Research Think useful immediately. Everything else can be refined later.