This dissertation is about the writing of theses in Swedish higher education. The aim is to construct meanings about thesis writing from different kinds of texts. The meanings are answers to the overall question about what good teaching can be in relation to thesis writing, and to what extent handbooks on writing can enhance such teaching. The dominant meaning constructed from handbooks on thesis writing is that writing is about following certain rules and closely connected to this meaning is the idea that writing can be taught as a separate ability. Focus is on the abilities of the individual student. A consequence of this meaning is that handbooks can be of use. The dominant meaning constructed from research on thesis writing is that writing takes place in a context, and that the teaching must concentrate on the content of the subject. When students understand the subject they will also be able to write. Focus is on what the institution can do to support students. The consequence of this meaning is that there is no need for handbooks in the teaching of writing. Important aims of Swedish higher education are being neglected in most texts on writing, i.e. critical thinking, students’ influence over the education, the possibilities of all categories of students participating in higher education, students’ personal development, education and citizenship. These issues, however, are frequent in other texts on higher education, and in the last part of the dissertation the question of thesis writing is brought to these broader contexts. The dissertation takes pragmatism as its theoretical starting point. The construction of meanings and their consequences, as well as the insistence on the two roles of education being of use to the individual as well as to society, come from pragmatism. So does also, following Dewey, the belief that what students do in education must have significance, not only in future, but as it takes place.