dissertation in 1 month

8 Tips to Write a Thesis in 30 Days (Bonus Tip Included)

Every student wants to know how to write a thesis in a month . Before sharing the tips that I’ve used in my writing journey, we first need to ask: is it possible to write a thesis in one month, and actually finish it? The answer to this question is yes! You absolutely can write a thesis in 30 days. And you can write your thesis, from start to finish, without the emotional distress that often comes with such a monumental task. And, before you ask, no you’re not going to pay anybody to write a thesis for you. You’re going to write your thesis by yourself.

I’ve written two Masters’ theses, a PhD dissertation and a draft of a book. Here are the 8 tips that have helped me write my thesis as quickly as possible and get to the other side.

3.1 Use Grammarly: An Online Writing Assistant

My 8 tips on how to write a thesis or dissertation in a month.

Before we start, let me say that no one is born knowing how to write a thesis. My professors were not born knowing how to write a thesis and I wasn’t born knowing how to write a thesis either.

I learned how to write a thesis. It was not easy, and I struggled a lot in writing my first thesis. That’s until I discovered what I needed to do to push through and finish writing it.

I then used those lessons and applied them to my second thesis and every writing assignments since then. Writing became fun. 

In fact, I was having so much fun writing my second thesis that I took on extra writing assignments. Hence the birth of this blog.

1. Adjust Your Expectations

If you want to finish writing your thesis in a month, the first thing you need to recognize is that you don’t need to break new grounds in your thesis for your thesis to be acceptable.

If for some reason you think you need to break new grounds, then you need to quickly adjust your expectations. The point of a thesis is to demonstrate mastery of the literature and show that you’re able to competently synthesize  and present those works persuasively.

That’s all you need to do.

If you’re aiming for more, then consider these two points:

• You don’t have the advanced training or the experience yet to “contribute” to the field. It’s certainly not impossible, but that’s not what’s expected of you in your M.A thesis (and even in your PhD thesis). In fact, if you can just slightly “advance” the research, that’s considered a great accomplishment!
• You need much longer than 30 days or 3 months or even 3 years to come up with something new. Why? Because you need to read literally everything on your subject. And that’s what you’re expected to do when you’ve already finished writing your thesis, and decided to pursue an academic career.

For these two reasons, I think it’s best to view your thesis as something that reflects what you’ve been trained to do, which is to write a good thesis using the skills you already have. You are enough and you probably already have what it takes to write your thesis. So don’t be too hard on yourself. Think of this: Just like you can’t run a marathon if you’ve been training for a 5k, you also can’t “contribute to the field” when you’re still in the process of being trained on how to write a thesis. Most probably, this is your first time writing a masters degree thesis, so take it easy. (More on writing a PhD dissertation below).

So, adjust your expectations accordingly.

Now, if you are trying to write your PhD thesis in a month, let me first say that it’s almost impossible. But if you have certain circumstances (say like a serious illness), then talk to your advisor about it and see what he/she suggests.

2. Don’t Be a Perfectionist

A professor once told me, if you want to write a perfect thesis, “you will never finish writing.” And he was right. I can’t begin to tell you just how much time I wasted trying to write a flawless thesis (AHHH!). In the end, it was not worth it. I ended up procrastinating and wasting time. I wish I could have that time back. Please, don’t make the same mistake I made.

After that emotionally draining experience, I changed my approach. I strove to write something good (and not perfect). I then got feedback on my ideas from my professors and went back and made them better. Eventually, they were, in my eyes, perfect. I was happy.

If you still think you need to be a perfectionist, consider this: there’s always more you can say about your topic. There are more examples you can discuss, more evidence to support your arguments with, and there is an infinite number of ways to organize your ideas, paragraphs and chapters to eventually turn your thesis into a “masterpiece.” You literally can go on forever writing and re-writing your thesis.

If you’re tight on time and you want to finish writing your thesis in 30 days, then do yourself a favor and focus on being done . Write something that’s good enough and move on knowing that you will get back to it later. 

So stop fixing things day in and day out. The goal is to make linear progress every single day until you’re done.

Remember, a mediocre finished thesis is better than a perfect unfinished one.

3. Take the 80/20 Rule Seriously

Each writing assignment will take you as much time as you’re willing to give it.

So if you give yourself 10 hours to write what usually takes 2 hours, then you will spend 10 hours working on it.

And the opposite is true.

If you have an assignment that usually takes 10 hours to finish, and I give you 2 hours to work on it, you will probably finish it in 2 hours.

On this basis, if you want to write your thesis in 30 days, you have to decide that 30 days is all you have to finish writing it. Be firm about this deadline, and work with the aim of finishing.

To help speed up the writing process, you can benefit from using a powerful writing assistant like Grammarly . ( Disclosure : these are affiliate links which means I will receive a commission if you make a purchase using my referral links.) Please know that I only talk about services that I believe in and can stand behind. And this is one of those amazing products that can be of tremendous benefit to you if you are looking to get over writer’s block and avoid unnecessary slowdowns .

Okay, so quickly: what should you expect from Grammarly?

Grammarly can help save you a lot of time – especially when you are stuck looking for the right word, or the right way to phrase a sentence. Grammarly gives you a list of context-specific vocabulary suggestions/enhancements/corrections and allows you to make an informed decision about what’s best in your specific writing context. This makes your writing flow better and allow you to move forward at a faster rate.

Here are testimonies by students about how Grammarly has helped them with writing their thesis.

Just downloaded Grammarly for the first time and it has transformed my essays. I sound so smart! #Grammarly #Student — Lucy Jade ANutr (@lucyj_nutrition) March 2, 2019

#WhiteSmoke online editor combined with #Grammarly Chome extension..genius… Why didn't I discovered that earlier #Writing #Thesis #PhD — Quirina de Ruiter (@QuirinaDeRuiter) June 28, 2016

Here are some statistics on how Grammarly has helped students and writers get better results.

With Grammarly, you don’t have to worry about proofreading. It will do that for you. You don’t have to worry about manually checking for plagiarism , style, punctuation, and even wordiness. Grammarly can help you do all of that and will also offer explanations for the reasoning behind each correction.

You can also use Grammarly for better and more professional sounding emails – especially when you want to email your advisor and your committee. You can also use Grammarly across pretty much all of your social media platforms including twitter, facebook, linkedin and more.

In order to get access to all the tools that will help you write your thesis efficiently, I recommend their premium plan . The total cost comes out to 2 – 3 cups of cappuccinos… it’s worth it.

4. Don’t Reinvent the Wheel

Here’s a dose of realism.

As original as you would like to be in your thesis, someone has already written on your topic… and that’s a great thing!

Someone has read the same sources, summarized them and put them in their literature review. You can save yourself a whole lot of time by reading literature reviews. There, you will see exactly how they used those sources and how they might fit into your work. Consult the original sources briefly, but as much as necessary to get the main ideas out of them, and move on.

A literature review shouldn’t take you more than a week to complete if you plan to finish writing in 30 days, and that’s totally doable.

5. Complete a Quick First Draft

The fastest way to finish writing is to write quickly…duh.

What I mean by that is if you’re stuck and you can’t quite round up the paragraph or idea you’re working on, don’t dwell on it. Move on to other topics within your thesis and write them out. 

The most helpful tip that I can share with you is to force yourself to write a quick high school draft (first draft) of the entire thesis. Go all the way through until you have a completed first draft of your thesis in your hands.

This is going to be tremendously helpful for your progress because if you can see the conclusion of your thesis, you will a have better sense of which parts of your thesis need work, and which parts need to be completely cut out. 

In fact, that’s, in my opinion, the only way to know what your thesis really needs. I say this because imagine if you had spent tens of hours fixing a paragraph only to discover later on (or be told by your advisor) that you really don’t need it.

Let me tell you, it freakin sucks!

6. Journal Articles Are Your Best Friend

Journal articles are usually less than 25 pages in length and sometimes even less than 15 pages long. The best part about them: they’re succinct. You can pretty much read the abstract and you’ll know exactly what the main argument is and the strategy of the paper.

All you need to do then is to look for the evidence in the paper itself. It shouldn’t take you anything more than 3 hours to get this information out of the paper. And when you get good at this, it will take you even less than 3 hours.

Moreover, journal articles are a great way to help position your thesis within the literature on the topic, and you will have a much clearer destination when you do so.

See my post on  how to read faster .

7. Write (Your Thesis) Everywhere

If you’ve been following my blog, then you know that I champion using free time effectively.  

Plan to read or write everywhere : whether you’re waiting on a friend, waiting for the bus, or eating lunch. It will help you address what I’ve called elsewhere as the “familiarity deficit.” Read that post here . Don’t underestimate the value of that time. It will give you a much needed head-start when it’s time to sit down and work on the relevant chapter within your thesis.

The key to finishing your thesis in 30 days is to keep writing even when you don’t feel you’ve got much to say. It will come to you, just don’t give up too soon.

If you experience some mental roadblocks and you’re dealing with procrastination, then give this article a quick read to help you overcome procrastination and take action.

8. Bonus Tip – Join Online Writing Communities

Yes. Join online writing communities. They’re free and you will get a whole lot of support from people who are going through the same thing. Try Phinished . I’ve used it when I wrote my first thesis and it helped me a bunch. 

I need to caution that it is easy to spend a lot of time on Phinished reading what others have to say. You might find yourself reading page after page about the challenges others are going through: including what they’re doing to move through the process, and how far they are in their thesis writing. 

If you want to finish, then use it with the intention to finish  and not to waste more time or procrastinate.

Hope this will help you finish your thesis in 30 days!

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30-day thesis writing challenge: proven techniques to finish your dissertation in one month.

Embarking on a 30-day thesis writing challenge may seem daunting, but with the right strategies, it's entirely possible to complete your dissertation within a month. This article outlines proven techniques that can help you accelerate your thesis completion, manage your time effectively, enhance your writing skills, navigate the emotional aspects of the process, and prepare for success after submission. These insights are drawn from the experiences of past students, academic research on PhD productivity, and the services provided by coaching experts.

Key Takeaways

Adopt a structured writing routine and set realistic goals to complete your thesis efficiently within the tight timeframe.

Utilize productivity techniques like the Pomodoro Technique, minimize distractions, and employ time-saving templates to maximize writing sessions.

Enhance your writing by overcoming common challenges and using literature review and theory cheat sheets for quick reference.

Maintain mental balance and reduce stress through mindful practices, while building a support network to cope with the isolation of thesis writing.

Prepare for post-thesis success by planning for your defense and leveraging your dissertation to open up future academic and professional opportunities.

Strategies for Accelerated Thesis Completion

Setting realistic goals and deadlines.

Embarking on a thesis writing journey requires a clear roadmap. Setting realistic goals and deadlines is crucial for maintaining momentum and ensuring timely completion. Start by breaking down your thesis into manageable sections and assign a deadline to each. This approach not only structures your workload but also provides a sense of accomplishment as you tick off completed tasks.

Identify the main chapters and sections of your thesis.

Estimate the time required for each part, considering research, writing, and revision.

Set deadlines that are challenging yet achievable, allowing for unforeseen delays.

Remember, the key to success is consistency. Regular progress, even if small, keeps the thesis moving forward.

Regularly review and adjust your goals as needed. Life's unpredictability may require you to be flexible with your plan. However, avoid extending deadlines too frequently, as this can lead to a cycle of procrastination and stress.

Adopting a Structured Daily Writing Routine

A structured daily writing routine is pivotal for managing time effectively during the thesis writing process. By establishing a consistent schedule, you can ensure that each aspect of your work receives the attention it requires.

Create a Realistic Schedule: Develop a detailed schedule that outlines specific blocks of time for research, writing, and other aspects of the thesis process.

Consider the following steps to build your routine:

Identify your most productive hours and dedicate them to writing.

Allocate time for reading and synthesizing literature.

Schedule regular breaks to maintain mental clarity.

Set aside time for chapter outlines and feedback sessions.

Remember, flexibility is key. Life's unpredictability means your routine should accommodate occasional adjustments. However, maintaining the core structure will provide a sense of stability and progress.

Utilizing One-on-One Coaching for Personalized Guidance

Embarking on the journey of thesis writing can often feel like a solitary endeavor, but it doesn't have to be. Personalized coaching sessions tailored to your unique needs can provide the focused guidance and support that is often missing in traditional academic settings. A dissertation coach acts as a personal trainer for your academic pursuits, offering not just critical feedback but also strategies for building confidence and resilience.

Accountability : Regular check-ins keep you on track.

Customized Support : Tailored advice for your specific challenges.

Progress Boost : Structured discussions to enhance your writing.

With a dedicated coach, you can transform the thesis writing process from a daunting task into a structured and manageable project. You'll write more, worry less, and be on a clear path to graduation.

Whether you require assistance with chapter outlines, intense supervision, or simply an accountability partner, a one-on-one coaching program is designed to maximize your results. Each student's journey is unique, and so should be the support they receive. By addressing your specific pain points and struggles, a dissertation coach ensures that your academic potential is fully realized.

Mastering Productivity and Time Management

Prioritizing tasks with the pomodoro technique.

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management tool that can be particularly effective for thesis writing. It involves breaking down work into intervals, traditionally 25 minutes in length, followed by a short break. This method helps to maintain a high level of concentration by providing regular, scheduled breaks to refresh the mind.

Work Session (25 mins): Focus on a single task or aspect of your thesis.

Short Break (5 mins): Step away from your work to relax.

Repeat: Continue with subsequent Pomodoro sessions.

Long Break (15-30 mins): After four Pomodoro sessions, take a longer break to recharge.

By alternating sessions of focused work with short breaks, the Pomodoro Technique sustains concentration and prevents burnout, making it an ideal approach for the intense period of thesis writing.

Remember to adjust the lengths of the work and break periods to suit your personal rhythm and the nature of the task at hand. Some may find longer work sessions or shorter breaks more productive. The key is to find a balance that keeps you engaged and prevents fatigue.

Minimizing Distractions and Maximizing Focus

In the quest to complete a thesis in 30 days, minimizing distractions is as crucial as the writing itself . Distractions come in various forms, from digital notifications to personal commitments, and tackling them requires a strategic approach.

Identify Distractions : Start by listing all potential sources of interruption. This could include social media, emails, or household chores.

Create a Distraction-Free Zone : Designate a specific area for writing where interruptions are kept to a minimum. This might mean a quiet room or a library.

Set Boundaries : Inform friends and family of your writing schedule so they can support you by respecting your focused time.

Use Technology Wisely : Employ apps that block distracting websites during your writing periods.

By creating a structured environment and setting clear boundaries, you can cultivate a space that supports deep focus and productivity.

Remember, the goal is to create a sustainable writing practice that allows for intense concentration. Regular breaks are also important to maintain mental clarity and avoid burnout. Use techniques like the Pomodoro Technique to intersperse writing with short, restorative breaks.

Implementing Time-Saving Templates and Tools

In the race against the clock, utilizing templates and tools can significantly expedite the thesis writing process. Templates serve as a structured starting point, eliminating the need to create documents from scratch. For instance, a 'One Page Writing Template' can streamline the drafting phase, while a 'Literature Review & Theory Cheat Sheet' provides quick references to support your arguments.

The use of tools like 'Viva Questions Template' and 'Introduction Chapter Cheat Sheet' not only saves time but also ensures consistency across different sections of your thesis. Here's a list of some valuable templates that can be integrated into your workflow:

Research Paper 1.0

Literature review template

Thesis Work Template

AI-powered Reading List

Research Paper Tracker

By adopting these resources, you can focus more on the content of your work and less on the formatting and organizational aspects, which are often time-consuming.

Remember, the goal is to work smarter, not harder. Templates and tools are there to assist you in maintaining a steady pace throughout the thesis journey, allowing you to meet your deadlines with confidence.

Enhancing Writing Skills and Effectiveness

Overcoming common writing challenges.

Thesis writing is a complex task that often involves navigating through a maze of intellectual challenges and writer's block. Don't overwhelm yourself ; it's normal to get stuck during the process. Instead of viewing these challenges as insurmountable, approach them with a problem-solving mindset. Here are some strategies to help you overcome common writing hurdles:

Identify the specific issues that are hindering your progress. Is it the structure of your thesis, or perhaps stress and anxiety?

Break down large tasks into manageable pieces. Tackling a chapter outline or a single section at a time can make the task less daunting.

Seek feedback on draft chapters from peers or a reading group. Collaborative input can provide fresh perspectives and valuable insights.

Utilize templates and cheat sheets to streamline your writing process. These tools can save time and help maintain consistency across your document.

Remember, every thesis writer faces challenges. The key is to find strategies that work for you and to keep moving forward, one step at a time.

If you're an ESL student or struggling with the nuances of academic writing, consider seeking one-on-one coaching. Personalized guidance can address your unique needs and help you improve your writing skills more effectively.

Leveraging Literature Review and Theory Cheat Sheets

Efficiently navigating through the vast sea of literature is a cornerstone of thesis writing. Utilizing literature review and theory cheat sheets can streamline this process, saving you invaluable time. These cheat sheets serve as quick reference guides, summarizing key theories and findings relevant to your research.

For instance, a well-organized Literature Review Catalog can help you keep track of various studies, their methodologies, and outcomes. Consider using a template like the Grad Coach's free literature review catalog template , which allows you to manage your literature review in an intuitive spreadsheet.

By systematically categorizing literature, you can easily identify gaps in research and align your thesis to address these areas effectively.

Here's a simple list of cheat sheet types that could be beneficial:

One Page Writing Template

Literature Review & Theory Cheat Sheet

Viva Questions Template

Introduction Chapter Cheat Sheet

Remember, the goal is not to cut corners, but to work smarter by having essential information at your fingertips.

Improving Clarity and Cohesion in Academic Writing

Achieving clarity and cohesion in academic writing is essential for conveying complex ideas effectively. Signposting language is a powerful tool that guides the reader through your argument, making the structure of your thesis apparent. It includes phrases like 'On the one hand,' 'In contrast,' and 'As a result,' which clarify the relationship between ideas.

Parallel structure is another key element that enhances readability. By maintaining a consistent pattern in lists, comparisons, and series of ideas, your writing becomes more fluid and easier to follow. For example:

Use similar grammatical structures for items in a list

Keep verb tenses consistent when discussing related concepts

Match the tone and style across different sections of your thesis

Lastly, maintaining consistent verb tenses throughout your thesis is crucial. It ensures that your reader clearly understands the timeline of research events and arguments. A common mistake is to fluctuate between past and present tenses, which can confuse the reader and disrupt the narrative flow.

By focusing on these strategies, you can significantly improve the quality of your academic writing, making your thesis more persuasive and comprehensible.

Navigating the Emotional Landscape of Thesis Writing

Finding mental balance and reducing stress.

Achieving mental balance during the thesis writing process is crucial for maintaining productivity and well-being. Incorporate relaxation techniques such as deep breathing, meditation, or yoga into your daily routine to help manage stress levels. These practices can ground you and provide a much-needed break from intense cognitive work.

Establishing a consistent self-care routine is not just beneficial; it's essential for sustaining the long-term effort required in thesis writing.

To effectively reduce stress, consider the following points:

Identify your stress triggers and develop strategies to mitigate them.

Set aside time for hobbies and activities that bring you joy and relaxation.

Ensure you get adequate sleep, as it is vital for cognitive function and stress management.

Regular physical activity can help to release tension and improve mood.

Remember, taking care of your mental health is as important as advancing your academic work. By finding your balance, you can enhance your focus and productivity, leading to a more successful thesis completion.

Coping with Isolation and Building a Support Network

Thesis writing can often feel like a solitary journey, but building a robust support network is crucial for maintaining momentum and well-being. Engaging with peers, mentors, and professional coaches can provide the camaraderie and guidance needed to navigate this challenging process.

Peer Support : Regularly connect with fellow students to share experiences and advice.

Mentorship : Seek out faculty or professionals who can offer insight and feedback on your work.

Professional Coaching : Consider personalized coaching for targeted support in areas like stress management and writing skills.

Remember, the support you choose should be tailored to your specific needs and challenges, ensuring a program that maximizes your results.

Structured discussions, whether through video or phone-based coaching, can significantly boost your progress. These sessions should challenge you, make you think, and provide the resources to overcome PhD hurdles. A flexible program, geared towards success, can include help with chapter outlines, feedback on draft chapters, and advice on structuring your work. It's essential to have an accountability partner to maintain focus and direction.

Celebrating Milestones to Maintain Motivation

Recognizing and celebrating each milestone in your thesis journey is crucial for maintaining motivation. Break down your thesis into smaller, manageable sections and set milestones for each. When you reach a milestone, take the time to celebrate your progress. This could be as simple as taking a day off, enjoying a favorite activity, or treating yourself to something special.

Outline chapter completion

Data collection finish line

Draft revision success

Celebrating these achievements helps to create a positive feedback loop that reinforces your hard work and dedication. It's not just about the end goal; it's about acknowledging the effort and progress along the way.

Remember, each milestone is a step closer to your ultimate goal. Celebrate your achievements to keep the momentum going and to remind yourself that every step forward is a victory in its own right.

Preparing for Post-Thesis Success

Planning for the mock-viva exam.

The mock-viva exam is a crucial rehearsal for the actual viva voce, where you defend your thesis before an examination panel. Prepare a clear and concise presentation that encapsulates the essence of your research, anticipating potential questions and criticisms. Practice is key to boosting your confidence and refining your defense strategy.

Understand the structure of the viva exam and the types of questions you may face.

Arrange mock sessions with peers or mentors to simulate the actual experience.

Review feedback from these sessions to identify areas for improvement.

Remember, the goal of the mock-viva is not just to survive the ordeal but to emerge with a deeper understanding of your work and how to present it effectively.

In addition to practice, consider the following resources to aid your preparation:

One-on-One Coaching

Workshops and Writing Retreats

By taking these steps, you'll be well-equipped to handle the pressures of the viva and demonstrate the value of your research.

Transitioning from Student to Scholar

The journey from being a graduate student to becoming a scholar is a pivotal phase in any academic career. It marks the transition from student to scholar , from following to leading in your field. This transformation involves not just the completion of your assignment, dissertation, or postgraduate thesis, but also a shift in mindset and responsibilities.

Recognize the difference in roles and expectations.

Develop a professional identity within your discipline.

Engage actively with scholarly communities.

The transition is an opportunity to reassess your path toward academic employment and to redefine your professional identity.

For many, this period is about learning to navigate the new terrain of academia without the safety net of student status. Those who do not continue in academia face the challenge of recalibrating their professional identity, a process that can be both daunting and liberating. The skills and expertise developed during this time are invaluable, whether they lead to a career within academia or beyond its borders.

Leveraging Your Dissertation for Future Opportunities

Your dissertation is more than just a requirement for graduation; it's a platform that can launch your career to new heights. The importance of the relevance of your dissertation topic cannot be overstated ; it is the cornerstone for future academic and professional pursuits. The first step in the process is to consider one's area of study and professional interests. From there, it is recommended to come up with preliminary ideas that align with both current academic discourse and industry needs.

By strategically selecting a dissertation topic, you create a bridge between your academic achievements and potential career paths. This foresight can significantly influence your employability and opportunities for post-thesis success.

Here are some ways to leverage your dissertation for future opportunities:

Identify potential career paths that align with your research.

Network with industry professionals during conferences and seminars.

Publish your findings in reputable journals to establish credibility.

Use your dissertation as a portfolio piece when applying for jobs or grants.

Consider further education or certifications that complement your research.

Remember, your dissertation can serve as a testament to your expertise and dedication. It's a unique opportunity to showcase your skills and knowledge to future employers or academic peers.

Embarking on the 30-Day Thesis Writing Challenge is a bold step towards conquering the monumental task of completing your dissertation. By identifying your pain points, setting clear goals, and adhering to a structured plan, you can significantly increase your productivity and write more effectively. Remember, the journey to obtaining your PhD doesn't have to be prolonged by unnecessary burdens. With the right techniques, support systems like coaching, and a focus on mental balance, you can navigate the doctoral journey with confidence. Whether you're utilizing templates, seeking one-on-one coaching, or attending workshops, the key is to maintain momentum and stay committed to your end goal. As you implement the proven strategies discussed, keep in mind that early completion not only aligns with academic incentives but also positions you for success in the job market. Write more, worry less, and graduate sooner—your thesis is within reach, and the finish line is closer than you think.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are common challenges faced during thesis writing, and how can i overcome them.

Common challenges include time management, writer's block, and maintaining motivation. Overcoming these can be achieved by setting realistic goals, adopting a structured writing routine, and seeking personalized guidance through coaching.

How can the Pomodoro Technique help me with my thesis writing?

The Pomodoro Technique can enhance productivity by breaking work into focused intervals, typically 25 minutes, followed by short breaks. This can help you maintain concentration and prevent burnout during prolonged writing sessions.

What types of templates and tools can save time during the writing process?

Time-saving templates include one-page writing templates, literature review and theory cheat sheets, introduction chapter cheat sheets, and viva questions templates. Tools like reference management software can also streamline the writing process.

How can I maintain mental balance and reduce stress while writing my thesis?

Maintaining mental balance can be achieved by scheduling regular breaks, practicing mindfulness or relaxation techniques, and building a support network of peers, mentors, and professionals to share your experiences and challenges.

What is a mock-viva exam, and how should I prepare for it?

A mock-viva exam is a practice defense of your thesis, simulating the questioning you'll face in the actual viva voce. Preparation involves reviewing your work thoroughly, practicing potential questions, and receiving feedback from advisors or coaches.

How can I leverage my dissertation for future opportunities after graduation?

You can leverage your dissertation by publishing your research in academic journals, presenting at conferences, networking within your field, and highlighting your specialized knowledge and skills when applying for postdoctoral or industry positions.

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4 Strategies for Completing Your Dissertation

Students take about eight years to complete a doctoral degree — twice the time of a bachelor’s degree. Also, the average age of a doctoral student is 33. Many doctoral students work full-time and have families and outside responsibilities than can make completing a dissertation an impossible task. In fact, almost half of all doctoral students complete their course work but not their dissertation.

This article explains how to avoid the dreaded doctoral degree attrition — by being your own manager, surrounding yourself with wise people, developing a professional relationship with your chair and creating good habits. You can increase your odds of finishing your dissertation by following these four steps.

No. 1. Practice time management, be organized and meet deadlines.  Time management is essential. Make two-week deadlines for every part of the dissertation process, including reading, writing, edits and meetings. Set your own goals for dates on writing your proposal, defending your proposal, seeking IRB approval, conducting your research, conducting your analysis, writing chapters and preparing for your defense. Create deadlines for each week and always stick to them.

Once you start dissertating, don’t spend fewer than 10 hours a week researching, writing, editing and  repeat . Schedule this time in. Dissertating now becomes your priority and routine. Cut out extra noise in your life. Trying to be a rock star at work, doing PTA work for your kids or committee work, teaching extra courses, taking lunch breaks, working out and sleeping all need to get cut out of your life. I’m kidding … OK, only a little. Make your dissertation a priority to be done in a year. Dragging this out even longer will make you feel like you are scratching your nails on a chalkboard.

Organize a folder on your cloud drive that has subfolders for chapters, presentations, tables, figures, meeting notes and example dissertations. You might create at least five drafts of every chapter, so this will help keep you organized.

Know your graduate school’s deadlines. There is the defense notification deadline, the abstract deadline, the application to graduate deadline, commencement RSVP, regalia purchases at the bookstore deadline, the defense deadline, submission of dissertation for formatting review and the defer commencement walk deadline (optional). Oh, and you need to complete forms for all these deadlines. Knowing all this information — and your faculty or staff liaisons in the graduate school and your college — is important. It is not your chair’s job to remind you.

No. 2. Surround yourself with wise and supportive people.  Get your life partner on board with you. Let your partner read this article and let them say to you, “I love you, I support you, I’m right here to help you to the finish line.” Then specifically outline what you need from your partner. I told my husband to do all the dishes, take out all the trash, take our son to school, grocery shop every Saturday (I wrote the list), help me prepare meals on Sundays and let me shower once a day in peace. I also let him know I’d need to write on some Sundays, so he’d better prepare for life as a single dad. You need a “unicorn partner,” so turn yours into one for a year.

Second to your life partner, get your boss on board with you. I told my boss I was ready to finish and asked him to give me one working day a week to complete my dissertation. He agreed, and I promised him I would always put work first, use lunch breaks if needed and come in to work early.

Before bothering your chair with questions, first ask other sources — such as your other doctoral candidate friends or your graduate school writing center — and research answers online. Also ask your doctoral friends for their favorite statistical analysis books. This will help you with references for your methodology chapter.

Hire a tutor if you are deficient in one area, like statistics, before bothering your chair with endless minor questions. It’s not their job to teach or reteach you statistics. For example, I hired a graduate student that knew STATA statistical software and paid him $400 cash for 16 hours of consulting. We met for four hours every Friday for a month.

Also, get help editing the final draft. Hire a professional editor if needed. In addition, have a staff member in the graduate school writing center help you. After staring at this document for more than a year, you are bound to make a few extra spaces, forget a comma or spell “from” as “form.” Get it perfect, and get it right … just one last time.

Read/skim at least 10 different dissertations using the methodology you like — whether quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods. Then pick your top three favorites. Do not plagiarize, but use the structure of your favorite dissertations as a guide for your own. This isn’t rocket science — don’t reinvent the wheel.

Finally, attend a dissertation proposal and defense. That will help you see the room, prepare you for what you need to bring, help you understand the flow of the process and help ease your fears.

No. 3. Develop a professional relationship with your chair.  Understand your department chair has a research agenda, courses to teach, service committees to deal with and a plethora of other dissertating students just like you. You are a small part of their life. Don’t take advantage of this, because you will wear them out for future students.

Have a solid conversation with your chair at least once a year, either face-to-face or on Skype. Get your check-ins with your chair down to every two weeks and make good use of their time and expertise for the 20 minutes you have their attention. Remember, meetings with your chair are effective by phone or online. Learn Zoom and Skype for Business.

When your chair says, “You might want to …,” “investigate …,” “maybe I suggest …,” know that isn’t really an invitation to intellectually debate. Don’t argue — rather, write down what they have to say, and go do it. At this point, your chair has listened to you and is giving you words of wisdom, not merely making suggestions. Take notes in every meeting with every committee member, then come back to your desk and type out your notes. This information is crucial to how you will prepare for your defense.

No. 4. Create excellent dissertation habits.  Before you solidify your topic, you need to research. Don’t bore your chair with endless conversations about what you could research. Simply present your chair with three ideas, and then let your chair pick one.

Save research articles on Mendeley or a system that works for you. I eventually printed out my 100-plus sources and put them in binders alphabetically.

The next step is to write an annotated bibliography of at least 30 peer-reviewed articles. Create at least three headings of general topics you are going to talk about. Then write a draft of your literature review. Present this to your chair and ask them about theories to use. Then go with the suggestions you receive and just start writing.

Take care of yourself physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Close the door to social media to simplify your life. Write when it’s a good time of day for you. Carry a notebook and pen to write things down, as you will start obsessing over your dissertation.

Know your APA manual; keep it close. Refer to it often. Also, keep the book  Complete Your Dissertation or Thesis in Two Semesters or Less  with you at all times. Read it often.

When presenting your proposal and your defense presentation, practice out loud at least five times. Type out what you will say in the notes section of your PowerPoint. Ask a recently graduated professor whom you respect for a copy of their PowerPoint, and use it as a template.

No single piece of advice will help you complete your dissertation, but these suggestions may help. Know that, in the end, completing your dissertation is worth it. You may finally feel like you have a seat at the table, and others finally listen to your wisdom and insight. A raise and promotion may even come your way. Good luck.

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Trapped in dissertation revisions?

Dissertation timeline, published by steve tippins on june 26, 2022 june 26, 2022.

Last Updated on: 2nd February 2024, 05:21 am

So, you’re writing a dissertation? Amazing! Congratulations! (Also, I’m sorry. And good luck.). 

If you’re embarking on this difficult journey, you need to go where you’re going. Every treasure hunt begins with a good map. (This particular treasure hunt happens to be for information that fills an extremely specific gap in the scholarly literature ).

Your dissertation timeline is the map you’ll rely on as you navigate the stormy waters of your dissertation journey. It will tell you what you need to be working on at any given stage of the process, and what you should prepare for when you’re done with your current task.

Expect the Unexpected

Remember that the map is not the journey. You can plan everything out perfectly, but life happens. Life even happens to doctoral students, who have ostensibly given up having a life.

The point is, don’t beat yourself up when your experience doesn’t match up with your dissertation timeline. The timeline is there to guide you and provide useful goals, but it can be adapted along the way as things come up. 

Perhaps your proposal needs five rounds of revision instead of the one or two you planned for (a common occurrence, except for those who have the foresight to hire a dissertation editor ). Maybe your committee chair decides to take an unexpected vacation. Maybe an unexpected family event happens.

All of these bumps are normal parts of the dissertation process. Don’t worry if you don’t live up to your own expectations as far as how quickly you finish. The important thing is not to go quickly, but to get to completion. 

Here are the major steps you’ll need to take when writing your dissertation, from ideation to graduation.

Over 50% of doctoral candidates don’t finish their dissertations.

Step 1: Prospectus

The timeline for a dissertation begins with the generation of your idea. This usually takes the form of a prospectus . A prospectus explains, What are you planning to do? Then, you get your chair and committee to agree that it’s a reasonable topic. Most people go through more than one idea before settling on their topic, and that can take some time. 

It may take you a month to come up with your idea because you’re going to be looking for a gap in the research. Once you find a gap in the research, see whether you could complete a relevant study within a reasonable time period. 

A tip – most students try to tackle topics that are entirely too broad. Look at past dissertation topics in your department, and you’ll see just how specific you need to be. 

Step 2: Proposal (Chapters 1 to 3)

After your prospectus, you move on to the proposal stage. At most universities, that means writing Chapters 1, 2, and 3. These three chapters are going to be about 60 to 70 pages total. You are going to have to do a lot of writing and research and get committee approval. 

A timeline might say you can do your dissertation proposal in three to four months, but that is only true as long as what you’re submitting is well-written and your committee approves it. For argument’s sake, we’ll say it takes four months. The next level of your dissertation is to collect data. But before you can collect data, you have to get IRB approval. 

Step 3: Institutional Review Board Approval

Approval from the Institutional Review Board, or IRB, states that what you’re going to be doing will not harm any participants in your study. IRB approval is usually relatively quick, depending on what type of research you’re doing. If you want to research small children, for example, it’s going to take longer to get approval. There must be safeguards in place to protect those children. Once you have IRB approval, you move on to collecting your data. 

Step 4: Data Collection

Collecting data can be as short as a couple of hours if you are accessing data for a quantitative study from a secondary data source . In that case, you would just be getting the data you need from the database. Then, take that data, make sure it’s in the format you need, and enter it into the appropriate statistical software package. If you need help with this, check out our quantitative data analysis services.

On the other hand, if you’re doing a qualitative study and you have to track people down, it can take several months in order to just find and interview them. Then, you can process those interviews by transcribing and entering them into the appropriate statistical or software program to come up with themes. 

Step 5: Analysis and Conclusion (Chapters 4 and 5)

Once you have statistical results and themes, you can write Chapter 4 and report your findings. Then, write Chapter 5 , in which you analyze your findings. Say what they mean and how it fits in the literature. Compare your findings to the literature you used to begin your study and address what future research should be done. 

This phase could take anywhere from three to nine months, depending on how quickly you can collect your data. It is conceivable that you could finish your dissertation within a year or a year and a half. All of these time periods we’ve presented so far assume you’re working on your dissertation full-time. If you have a job and a family and are also working on a dissertation, it can take longer.

Step 6: Defense

Once you have finished your dissertation (Chapters 1 through 5) you have to go back to your committee, get approval, and then do your dissertation defense. This process can be as short as a month. But if your committee has problems with what you’ve done or it needs more work, it could take several months. 

Variables in the Dissertation Timeline

There are a number of variables outside your control. For example, you might finish in July and then one or two of your committee members are off on research projects of their own and won’t be back until September. But in an ideal timeline, a year to a year and a half is reasonable.

While we can present ideals and hypotheticals, you do have a lot of control over the timeline. If you dedicate yourself and work ahead, you can minimize the amount of time it will take to have “Dr.” in front of your name. 

Dealing With Unexpected Events

Unexpected things can come up as well. First of all, if you’re not a full-time student, life can throw many things in your way. Somebody could become sick, a pandemic could come about, or your job could increase its demands on you. 

You don’t control your committee’s time, and they may have other things going on that prevent them from responding quickly. Funding interruptions can also happen. Being good at handling details is going to help you stay on track as much as possible. 

That’s where a dissertation timeline comes in. Get this together from the very beginning, and you’ll be better-equipped to deal with unexpected events and finish your dissertation in as little time as possible.

Steve Tippins

Steve Tippins, PhD, has thrived in academia for over thirty years. He continues to love teaching in addition to coaching recent PhD graduates as well as students writing their dissertations. Learn more about his dissertation coaching and career coaching services. Book a Free Consultation with Steve Tippins

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Dissertating Like a Distance Runner: Ten Tips for Finishing Your PhD

The above photo is of Sir Mo Farah running past Buckingham Palace into the home stretch of the London Marathon. I took the photo two days after my viva, in which I defended my PhD dissertation. Farah become a British hero when he and his training partner, Galen Rupp, won the gold and silver medals in the 10k at the London Olympic Games.

I had the honor of racing against Rupp at Nike’s Boarder Clash meet between the fastest high school distance runners in my home state of Washington and Rupp’s home state of Oregon. I’m happy to provide a link to the results and photos of our teenage selves since I beat Galen and Washington won the meet. (Note: In the results, ‘Owen’ is misspelled with the commonly added s , which I, as a fan of Jesse Owens, feel is an honor.) By the time we were running in college—Rupp for the University of Oregon and myself for the University of Washington—he was on an entirely different level. I never achieved anything close to the kind of running success Rupp has had. Yet, for most of us mortals, the real value in athletics is the character traits and principles that sports instill in us, and how those principles carry over to other aspects of life. Here I want to share ten principles that the sport of distance running teaches, which I found to be quite transferrable to writing my doctoral dissertation.

To provide some personal context, I began as a doctoral researcher at the University of Birmingham in 2014. At that time my grandparents, who helped my single father raise my sister and me, continued their ongoing struggle with my Grandfather’s Alzheimer’s. It was becoming increasingly apparent that they would benefit from having my wife and I nearby. So, in 2015 we moved to my hometown of Yakima, Washington. That fall I began a 2/2 teaching load at a small university on the Yakama Nation Reservation as I continued to write my dissertation. Since finishing my PhD four years ago, in 2018, I have published one book , five research articles , and two edited volume chapters related in various ways to my dissertation. As someone living in rural Eastern Washington, who is a first-gen college grad, I had to find ways to stay self-motivated and to keep chipping away at my academic work. I found the following principles that I learned through distance running very helpful.

(1) Establish community . There are various explanations, some of which border on superstitious, for why Kenyan distance runners have been so dominant. Yet one factor is certainly the running community great Kenyan distance runners benefit from at their elite training camps, as discussed in Train Hard, Win Easy: The Kenyan Way . Having a community that values distance running can compel each member of the community to pursue athletic excellence over a long period of time. The same can be said for academic work. Many doctoral researchers have built-in community in their university departments, but for various reasons this is not true for everyone. Thankfully, alternative ways to establish community have never been easier, predominantly due to technology.

Since my dissertation applied Aristotelian causation and neo-Thomistic hylomorphism to mental causation and neural correlates of consciousness, I found it immensely helpful to meet consistently with neuroscientist, Christof Koch, and philosopher of mind, Mihretu Guta. Mihretu does work on the philosophy of consciousness and Christof propelled the dawn of the neurobiology of consciousness with Francis Crick . Though Mihretu lives in Southern California, we met monthly through Skype, and I would drive over the Cascade Mountains once a month to meet with Christof in Seattle. As my dissertation examiner, Anna Marmodoro, once reminded me: the world is small—it’s easier than ever before to connect with other researchers.

It can also be helpful to keep in mind that your community can be large or small. As some athletes train in large camps consisting of many runners, others have small training groups, such as the three Ingebrigtsen brothers . Likewise, your community could be a whole philosophy department or several close friends. You can also mix it up. As an introvert, I enjoyed my relatively small consistent community, but I also benefitted from attending annual regional philosophy conferences where I could see the same folks each year. And I especially enjoyed developing relationships with other international researchers interested in Aristotelian philosophy of mind at a summer school hosted by the University of Oxford in Naples, which Marmodoro directed. For a brief period, we all stayed in a small villa and talked about hylomorphism all day, each day, while enjoying delicious Italian food.

Whatever your community looks like, whatever shape it takes, what matters is that you’re encouraged toward accomplishing your academic goal.

(2) Know your goal. Like writing a dissertation, becoming a good distance runner requires a lot of tedious and monotonous work. If you don’t have a clear goal of what you want to achieve, you won’t get up early, lace up your running shoes, and enter the frosty morning air as you take the first of many steps in your morning run. There are, after all, more enticing and perhaps even more pressing things to do. Similarly, if you don’t have a clear goal of when you want to finish your dissertation, it is easy to put off your daily writing for another day, which can easily become more distant into the future.

(3) Be realistic about your goal . While it is important to have a clear goal as a distance runner and as a doctoral researcher, it is important for your goal to be realistic. This means your goal should take into account the fact that you are human and therefore have both particular strengths and limitations. Everyone enters the sport of distance running with different strengths and weaknesses. When Diddy ran the city it would have been unrealistic for him to try to break the two-hour barrier in the marathon, as Eliud Kipchoge did . If Diddy made that his goal, he probably would have lost all hope in the first mile of the marathon and never finished. Because he set a more realistic goal of breaking four hours, not two hours, he paced himself accordingly and actually finished.

The parent of two young children who is teaching part-time can certainly finish a dissertation. But the parent will have a greater likelihood of doing so with a reasonable goal that fits that individual’s strengths and limitations. If the parent expects to finish on the same timescale as someone who is single with no children nor teaching responsibilities, this will likely lead to disappointment and less motivation in the middle of the process. Motivation will remain higher, and correspondingly so will productivity that is fueled by motivation, if one’s goal is realistic and achievable.

Another element of having a realistic goal is being willing to adapt the goal as your circumstances change. Sometimes a runner might enter a race expecting to place in the top five and midway through the race realize that she has a great chance of winning (consider, for example, Des Linden’s victory at the Boston Marathon ). At that point, it would be wise to revise one’s goal to be ‘win the race’ rather than simply placing in the top five. At other times, a runner might expect to win the race or be on the podium and midway realize that is no longer possible. Yet, if she is nevertheless within striking distance of placing in the top five, then she can make that her new goal, which is realistic given her current situation and will therefore sustain her motivation to the finish line. Sara Hall, who could have and wanted to crack the top three, held on for fifth at the World Championships marathon because she adjusted her goal midrace.

The PhD candidate who initially plans to finish her dissertation in three years but then finds herself in the midst of a pandemic or dealing with a medical issue or a family crisis may not need to give up on her goal of finishing her dissertation. Perhaps, she only needs to revise her goal so that it allows more time, so she finishes in five years rather than three. A PhD finished in five years is certainly more valuable than no PhD.

(4) Know why you want to achieve your goal . My high school cross-country coach, Mr. Steiner, once gave me a book about distance running entitled “Motivation is the Name of the Game.” It is one of those books you don’t really need to read because the main takeaway is in the title. Distance running requires much-delayed gratification—you must do many things that are not intrinsically enjoyable (such as running itself, ice baths, going to bed early, etc.) in order to achieve success. If you don’t have a solid reason for why you want to achieve your running goal, you won’t do the numerous things you do not want to do but must do to achieve your goal. The same is true for finishing a PhD. Therefore, it is important to know the reason(s) why you want to finish your dissertation and why you want a PhD.

As a side note, it can also be immensely helpful to choose a dissertation topic that you are personally very interested in, rather than a topic that will simply make you more employable. Of course, being employable is something many of us must consider. Yet, if you pick a topic that is so boring to you that you have significant difficulty finding the motivation to finish your dissertation, then picking an “employable dissertation topic” will be anything but employable.

(5) Prioritize your goal . “Be selfish” were the words of exhortation my college cross-country team heard from our coaches before we returned home for Christmas break. As someone who teaches ethics courses, I feel compelled to clarify that “be selfish” is not typically good advice. However, to be fair to my coaches, the realistic point they were trying to convey was that at home we would be surrounded by family and friends who may not fully understand our running goals and what it takes to accomplish them. For example, during my first Christmas break home from college, I was trying to run eighty miles per week. Because I was trying to fit these miles into my social schedule without much compromise, many of these miles were run in freezing temps, in the dark, on concrete sidewalks with streetlights, rather than dirt trails. After returning to campus following the holidays, I raced my first indoor track race with a terribly sore groin, which an MRI scan soon revealed was due to a stress fracture in my femur. I learned the hard way that I have limits to what I can do, which entails I must say “no thanks” to some invitations, even though that may appear selfish to some.

A PhD researcher writing a dissertation has a substantial goal before her. Yet, many people writing a dissertation have additional responsibilities, such as teaching, being a loving spouse, a faithful friend, or a present parent. As I was teaching while writing my dissertation, I often heard the mantra “put students first.” Yet, I knew if I prioritized my current students over and above finishing my dissertation, I would, like many, never finish my dissertation. However, I knew it would be best for my future students to be taught by an expert who has earned a PhD. So, I put my future students first by prioritizing finishing my PhD . This meant that I had to limit the teaching responsibilities I took on. Now, my current students are benefitting from my decision, as they are taught by an expert in my field.

While prioritizing your dissertation can mean putting it above some things in life, it also means putting it below other things. A friend once told me he would fail in a lot of areas in life before he fails as a father, which is often what it means to practically prioritize one goal above another. Prioritizing family and close friendships need not mean that you say ‘yes’ to every request, but that you intentionally build consistent time into your schedule to foster relationships with the people closest to you. For me, this practically meant not working past 6:00pm on weekdays and taking weekends off to hang out with family and friends. This relieved pressure, because I knew that if something went eschew with my plan to finish my PhD, I would still have the people in my life who I care most about. I could then work toward my goal without undue anxiety about the possibility of failing and the loss that would entail. I was positively motivated by the likely prospect that I would, in time, finish my PhD, and be able to celebrate it with others who supported me along the way.

(6) Just start writing . Yesterday morning, it was five degrees below freezing when I did my morning run. I wanted to skip my run and go straight to my heated office. So, I employed a veteran distance running trick to successfully finish my run. I went out the door and just started running. That is the hardest part, and once I do it, 99.9% of the time I finish my run.

You may not know what exactly you think about a specific topic in the chapter you need to write, nor what you are going to write each day. But perhaps the most simple and helpful dissertation advice I ever received was from David Horner, who earned his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Oxford. He told me: “just start writing.” Sometimes PhD researchers think they must have all their ideas solidified in their mind before they start writing their dissertation. In fact, writing your dissertation can actually help clarify what you think. So “just start writing” is not only simple but also sage advice.

(7) Never write a dissertation . No great marathoner focuses on running 26.2 miles. Great distance runners are masters of breaking up major goals into smaller goals and then focusing on accomplishing one small goal at a time, until they have achieved the major goal. Philosophers can understand this easily, as we take small, calculated steps through minor premises that support major premises to arrive at an overall conclusion in an argument.

Contained within each chapter of a dissertation is a premise(s) in an overall argument and individual sections can contain sub-premises supporting the major premise of each chapter. When you first start out as a doctoral researcher working on your dissertation, you have to construct an outline of your dissertation that maps out the various chapters and how they will relate to your overall conclusion. Once you have that outline in place, keep it in the back of your mind. But do not focus on writing the whole, which would be overwhelming and discouraging. Rather, focus on writing whichever chapter you are working on. The fastest American marathoner, Ryan Hall, wrote a book that sums up the only way to run long distances in the title Run the Mile You’re In . And Galen Rupp discusses in this interview how he mentally breaks up a marathon into segments and focuses on just finishing one segment at a time. Whatever chapter you’re writing, make it your goal to write that chapter. Once you’ve accomplished that goal, set a new goal: write the next chapter. Repeat that process several times and you will be halfway through your dissertation. Repeat the process a few more times, and you will be done.

By the time you have finished a master’s degree, you have written many chapter-length papers. To finish a dissertation, you essentially write about eight interconnected papers, one at a time, just as you have done many times before. If you just write the chapter (which you could call a “paper” if that feels like a lighter load) you’re writing, before you know it, you will have written a dissertation.

(8) Harness the power of habits . Becoming a great distance runner requires running an inordinate number of miles, which no one has the willpower to do. The best marathoners in the world regularly run well over one hundred miles a week, in addition to stretching, lifting weights, taking ice baths, and eating healthy. Not even the most tough-minded distance runner has the gumption to make all the individual decisions that would be required in order to get out the door for every run and climb into every ice bath apart from the development of habits. The most reliable way around each distance runner’s weakness of will, or akrasia , is developing and employing habits. The same can be true for writing.

If you simply try to write a little bit each weekday around the same time, you will develop a habit of writing at that time each day. Once you have that habit, the decision to write each weekday at that time will require less and less willpower over time. Eventually, it will take some willpower to not write at that time. I have found it helpful to develop the routine of freewriting for a few minutes just before starting my daily writing session of thirty minutes during which I write new content, before working on editing or revising existing content for about thirty minutes. My routine helped me develop the daily habit of writing, which removes the daily decision to write, as I “just do it” (to use Nike’s famous line) each day.

I have also found it helpful to divide my days up according to routines. As a morning person, I do well writing and researching in the morning, doing teaching prep and teaching during the middle of the day, and then doing mundane tasks such as email at the end of the day.

(9) Write for today and for tomorrow . Successful distance runners train for two reasons. One reason—to win upcoming races—is obvious. However, in addition to training for upcoming races, the successful distance runner trains today for the training that they want to be capable of months and years ahead. You cannot simply jump into running eighty, ninety, or one-hundred-mile weeks. It takes time to condition your body to sustain the stress of running high mileage weeks. A runner must have a long-term perspective and plan ahead as she works toward her immediate goals on the way to achieving her long-term goals. Similarly, for the PhD researcher, writing a dissertation lays the groundwork for future success.

For one, if the PhD candidate develops healthy, sustainable, productive habits while writing a dissertation, these habits can be continued once they land an academic job. It is no secret that the initial years on the job market, or in a new academic position, can be just as (or more) challenging than finishing a PhD. Effective habits developed while writing a dissertation can be invaluable during such seasons, allowing one to continue researching and writing even with more responsibilities and less time.

It is also worth noting that there is a sense in which research writing becomes easier, as one becomes accustomed to the work. A distance runner who has been running for decades, logging thousands of miles throughout their career, can run relatively fast without much effort. For example, my college roommate, Travis Boyd, decided to set the world record for running a half marathon pushing a baby stroller nearly a decade after we ran for the University of Washington. His training was no longer what it once was during our collegiate days. Nevertheless, his past training made it much easier for him to set the record, even though his focus had shifted to his full-time business career and being a present husband and father of two. I once asked my doctoral supervisors, Nikk Effingham and Jussi Suikkanen, how they were able to publish so much. They basically said it gets easier, as the work you have done in the past contributes to your future publications. Granted, not everyone is going to finish their PhD and then become a research super human like Liz Jackson , who finished her PhD in 2019, and published four articles that same year, three the next, and six the following year. Nevertheless, writing and publishing does become easier as you gain years of experience.

(10) Go running . As Cal Newport discusses in Deep Work , having solid boundaries around the time we work is conducive for highly effective academic work. And there is nothing more refreshing while dissertating than an athletic hobby with cognitive benefits . So, perhaps the best way to dissertate like a distance runner is to stop writing and go for a run.

Acknowledgments : Thanks are due to Aryn Owen and Jaden Anderson for their constructive feedback on a prior draft of this post.

• Matthew Owen

Matthew Owen (PhD, University of Birmingham) is a faculty member in the philosophy department at Yakima Valley College in Washington State. He is also an affiliate faculty member at the Center for Consciousness Science, University of Michigan. Matthew’s latest book is Measuring the Immeasurable Mind: Where Contemporary Neuroscience Meets the Aristotelian Tradition .

• Dissertating
• Finishing your PhD
• graduate students
• Sabrina D. MisirHiralall

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2010-05-23 Daniel Circus Ponies Notebook , Doing Science , Learning to do Science , Science , Scrivener , Tools , Writing 41

“Writing a book is an adventure: to begin with it is a toy and amusement; then it becomes a master, and than it becomes a tyrant; and the last phase is just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude – you kill the monster and fling him to the public.” Winston Churchill

Last year I took a vacation for a month to write my dissertation thesis. And it took me that one month to come up with the first draft, which made it into the final version with only minor alterations (but a lot of error checking ). While the lack of major alterations might be in part due to my academic advisers (and my) wish to finish the work as soon as possible, I think the major part of this is due to the way it was written, or rather structured.

Doing a dissertation thesis is a major project, the writing itself is a different but not less complicated animal. I think it is a mistake to start writing in sentences unless you know the structure and the content. Once you write sentences, they stick together and are hard to change. And I think it is nearly impossible to write a 200+ pages work if you do not structure it beforehand, and there is a great way to do so: Outlines.

Most people know outlines from school. Many teachers try to give this valuable hint for exams. Plan what you write before you start writing. An outline for a dissertation is similar, but not quite the same. For one thing, it is much more detailed .

How detailed? Well, everything you want to write later should be included in it, without the actual sentences. Metaphorically it should contain the bones of the text, the whole skeleton, and hints for everything else. This means

• the order you want to write the different pieces of information that make your theory
• the notes you made about your studies, the design, the participants, the instruments, the procedure
• the results of any statistical analysis you made
• the ideas for and the issues you want to raise in the discussion

It also includes any notes you do not want to forget and any ideas, e.g., for further studies even if you cannot realize them (a valuable hint from my informal academic adviser: you will have ideas of things you want to realize but you cannot realize everything, so make notes and raise these points in “future work”).

Given that the outline only contains the information, but not the sentences, it is easily changeable. And once you get in the flow of adding flesh to the bones, you can write really fast. An additional benefit of using outlines: I used the same outline as a basis for the articles I wrote about my dissertation. The outline also allows you to focus only on the relevant part by using the hierarchical structure: You can arrange the information similar to the structure you use for your PhD thesis and simply fold in the parts you do not need at the moment. This way, thousands of lines of text become easily manageable. For example, you can fold the parts between the introduction and the discussion to write parts of the discussion while simulateneously seeing parts of the introduction. Sure, you could do something similar with Word’s “split view”, but not as easy and with this focus on the parts you want to see.

Personally, my outline for my dissertation was a 66.5 MB Circus Ponies Notebook file, containing 333,215 words (> 2.2 million characters, equivalent of about 1305 pages). I made sure to write down everything I did, the results of any analysis, etc. It was more or less structured in the way I wanted to write my dissertation. With this outline next to my writing program ( Scrivener ), it was possible to come up with a good first draft within a month. Why? Because I first read the whole outline, taking care to move the information that did not fit where it was to the correct place, then sorted each sub-point (e.g,, theory, results of Study 1) in the correct order, and then used this sorted outline that contained all the information I needed to write it as a guideline to write that chapter. Given that the sources were marked in the outline (see Academic Workflow ) I did not have to check other sources for the actual writing. I didn’t even have to re-check statistical printouts — it was all in that one huge outline (and then in a smaller one that dealt only with the chapter).

I created the outline before I started to write, during the last year of my PhD. But thinking back, it would have been much easier to create the outline during the whole PhD thesis time, as soon as the topic and the first experiments were decided. Noting the decisions (and the reasons for doing so), the results, etc. while planning and doing the studies would have made it much easier in the end, but it also worked this way.

So, I can only highly recommend creating a detailed outline prior to writing and using it for the writing process. It makes an insanely complex work manageable. 🙂

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15 Comments

I received a question regarding the transfer of notes from other programs to Circus Ponies Notebook:

Hi Daniel! My name is Chris and I´m working on my dissertation manuscript for my MD at the moment. I´m using Scrivener for writing, Bookends as BibRef tool for Scrivener and Papers for getting and sorting my papers. Yet, I´ve done a lot of work, writing on my self and using associated project scripts of my Institute. My question is, how can I import the manuscript´s status quo of Outline, BibRef and Content into CPN for not losing so much time by starting again from the beginning… Thx a lot, Chris

Hmmm, if I understand the question correctly you are currently using three different programs for writing your dissertation (Bookends, Scrivener and Papers) and now you want to create an outline in CPN … good question … hmm, first, do you really want to take a step back? An outline makes sense to organize the material you have in a red thread and collect all information in one place that you can use (with Scrivener) to write you dissertation in one go. At the moment, you already have written text … hmmm …

Okay, it’s difficult to say (will be influenced by a lot of factors I don’t know, like the rules of your field for dissertations, the time you have left, your goals, your working habits, etc. pp.) and I wouldn’t bet my dissertation on it, but I would probably go alone the lines of this:

1. What is the problem? Do I have problems making a coherent package out of my material? In this case, going back to an outline might be one way to solve it. If, however, I’m just not motivated to write, I don’t want to finish it or I’m looking for some other thing to do, I’d grind my teeth and punch through writing the way I did before.

2. If it’s the first case and now I have to put my material in one CPN file, I’d create one outlining page, start with the sections of the dissertation (title page, abstract, introduction …), highlight them, and then manually copy the text I have already written into this outline. The reason is that if the structure is a problem (it usually is), you need little cells of text (one argument per cell) that you can organize hierarchically and move really easily. You can try to automate it by copying your whole text first (depending on the fonts you have used, e.g., for formulas or the importance of formatting you have already used by compiling a draft from Scrivener and using this as a starting point), then paste it into a pure text editor (like TextWrangler) and then copy it onto the notebook page with “Edit – Paste – Paste Text as Outline” to avoid switching between two applications, but the division into cells you’ll have to do yourself.

3. While pasting I would use the situation to make notes (using a cell on its own with text in another color). You might have some ideas what to do and what you still need to check, use that moment.

x. optional: If I need the references as keywords (only if you want to write what they have said as text and keep the reference in the margin) I’d copy all references (only author and year or however they are cited in the text in your discipline, mind the Miller 1999a, Miller 1999b, etc. if one author has published multiple papers in one year) at the end of the outline, and then — for each reference — highlight it in the text (not the cell) and make a keyword out of it (assign as keyword). This way CPN already knows the keywords and I can assign them to the margins easily (you have to leave at least one occurrence of the keyword in the file, so give the references a top cell like “refs” and fold this in and keep it at the end of the outline where it doesn’t bug you. But this is a large step backwards in the process, as I would tag cells with only one reference. This means splitting up/copying sentences if you refer to multiple sources.

4. Then I’d resort the cells in a fitting order. I’d make sure that the whole structure has a hierarchical order and let’s me easily see the gist of the different sections (summaries in the higher cells). I’d make sure that the whole picture is coherent and invest work in the parts that aren’t. Perhaps changing the structure, perhaps hitting literature again.

5. Once I’m sure I have a coherent work that is “enough” to get me the grad I need (for me: “magna cum laude” to stay in research, which luckily worked out) and after checking with my supervisor, I’d write the whole text (I can recommend taking a month off and copying the text sectionwise into a new CPN file and then checking the order again. If you stumble during writing it’s often the order/structure that’s a problem. Try to catch this first.)

6. While writing I’d put the text citations into the text (or use the Reference Manager that you have assigned to Scrivener). After writing the text, if I did the references manually, I’d put in the references at the end of the document.

But like said, I’d only do this if structure really is a problem. CPN is great for making an outline that really deserves the name — that contains all the information in one huge structure you need to write. A good outline (yup, like said, this means manual work) allows you to see the structure on the higher levels, allowing you to fold in the sublevels and concentrate on whether your arguments make sense. This is often lost in the text.

One important aspect: Keep your papers (with notes regarding the papers) sorted the way you did it (if it works for you). The dissertation is a project that will be finished. The outline you create for writing it can be used as a starting point for articles and future work, but one day you’ll have to go back to the place you have sorted your papers in. I have tried using CPN for organizing papers I read and while some aspects worked really well (like tagging each cell with the reference) it got slow fast. I switched to a Wiki (and highly automated some functions with Javascript/PHP, i.e., Ferret) to make it usable. Currently I have over 1000 papers/books/whatever in my literature section — DokuWiki can handle it, CPN would probably have been slow as hell. So, whatever you do, use CPN’s outline function to get the structure in order and get all your material for this project in one place if you need to, but keep your literature in a separate collection.

I hope this answers your question.

Best regards

This is the third often read posting I have in my blog. I think (and am pretty certain) that outlines, especially using Circus Ponies Notebook, helped me — or rather enabled me — to finish not only my diploma thesis but also my dissertation thesis, not only in a month but ever . I’m curious, what are your experiences? Did it work for you? If now, why? If you found another solution, what worked for you? It would be nice to hear a comment from you if you have read this posting. 🙂

Very useful. Concerning your most recent comment: I think it’s the third most read article in your blog because it’s the number 1 google search result for : how to write a dissertation thesis in 1 month –> which brought me here.. Add millions of other lazy bastards who work at the last minute and voila!

thank you for the comment — I didn’t know that Google liked this posting that much, cool 🙂

Best regards (and good luck for your thesis)

PS: The writing took one month, the preparation for the writing phase took a little longer. 😉

I commend your spirit and your nice expressions. I do really enjoy every single word you wrote. I’m working right now on my thesis and I’m totally frustrated, bored, don’t know how to finish it and how to manage my time. What you wrote made me think that writing a thesis is not so hard but it needs time, outlining and most important optimism!

Thanks for sharing this with us.

Thank you for the positive feedback 🙂

I think it’s quite normal to feel this way when doing a dissertation thesis — there are many crises (e.g., Dissertation Crises , or Dissertation Crisis — Past the Mountain ) and while a dissertation is (supposed to be) difficult, it’s good to keep it in perspective. For example:

“A PhD is a stepping stone into a research career. All you need to do is to demonstrate your capacity for independent, critical thinking. That’s all you need to do. A PhD is three years of solid work, not a Nobel Prize” Maths–Eng/Female/18, in Mullins & Kiley, 2002

“Das Kapital wasn’t Marx’s thesis: and my PhD thesis doesn’t have to be my life’s work. It’s a training ground.” catspyjamas on phinished.org

“The only good dissertation is a DONE dissertation.” Capella faculty quote

So, if you are stuck, perhaps creating an outline will help. And like Churchill said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” I wish you the best 🙂

Hi Daniel. I read your story about your thesis writing and understood you write about 333000 words in just one month,how did you do that?I am a PhD student in engineering really struggling with my writing up, I almost have not written anything because of my depression problems. I have about a month and half to submit, I have no limit but want to write at least 100 pages except the bibliography and appendices. I appreciate if you advice me how to do it.many thanks Hannah

Mai I mention here that I do have outlines and kind of know the structure of thesis writing.

Hoi Hannah,

nope, writing 333k words in a month would be a feat beyond me. 😉 I created the outline during my dissertation prior to sitting down to write the thesis. What I did write in that month was the dissertation thesis itself which was 250 pages long and had about 71000 words. I did not use all the material I had in my outline and the hierarchical structure made it possible (and fairly easy) to select among the material I wanted to use.

Regarding your case — difficult. If you have a depression (in the clinical term, not in the colloquial meaning), then this should probably be a priority (and not my field of expertise, that’s something for the local health service). Regarding the writing — personally it helped me a lot to use the outliner to create a content outline . This goes beyond the structure — it externalizes all what you want to write and allows you to resort the content in the structure that fits best, without starting to write sentences that stick together. Then you can focus on the criteria on scientific writing (e.g., Alley’s criteria, see here or the other postings in that series ). However, there is a huge risk here if you have a deadline looming: It stays pre-text for a long time. For me writing the thesis from the content outline was quick (I can type with 10 fingers and am reasonably fast), but it was easy for me to sort the material and I had no looming deadline. So, using the same strategy might be a way that might work, but nobody can guarantee success.

All the best

Well i completed my thesis in few weeks, but i adopted a unique method, I had the draft out sourced and when i got it back i made my own changes to it and it was ready. I used [URL REMOVED] They were right on money and topic

Normally such a comment would be sorted into the spam folder, but after removing the I’ve approved it to make a point. Outsourcing is not a unique method — it’s unfortunately common with some people who think they can buy an academic degree. Well, some are paying for college and some will pay for others to do their work later, so why not for the thesis too? Well, because it’s plagiarism. Unless you stated that you used a ghostwriting service in your thesis — which I doubt that you did, because any university worth the name would not accept that work as yours — you lied about who did the work. And the academic work should be your own. Not only did you not learn the necessary skills — nope, seeing the result is easy, doing it on your own is something completely different — you betrayed yourself of the chance to do a difficult high-level piece of work. Something like this is frequently a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and you blew it. The funny thing, I am willing to bet that in the future — give it 5 to 10 years — some hackers or whistleblowers will make the customers of these ‘services’ public. Or Google/Plagiarism software will improve so much that it will detect these kinds of plagiarisms. And then a lot of people who thought they could buy their title, or a huge chunk of the work necessary will lose it. So, congratulations, you not only blew an academic adventure that you could have had with the right mindset, you also put a time bomb in your CV. Tick-tock-tick-tock … have fun.

Love, love, love your comment to Jenni. Writing my dissertation is proving to be extremely hard but mainly because I want it to be the best possible representation of my body of knowledge. The idea of outsourcing a dissertation is ridiculous. Sooner or later the truth will come out. If Jenni had her “own details” to begin with, she should have used them to produce her own work!

Thank you, I doubt that it will change anything given that “she” seems to be the companies ad/spam person (received another spam message disguised as “PhD student testimonial”), but perhaps other readers will think twice on “outsourcing” the work. 🙂

Thank you, very useful, informative articles. I only have one question is how to write an essay on a topic that you do not know and do not lose face? How to write a good informative article in a short period of time and not to make mistakes? In internet many articles which give different advice, such as, this article https://thesiswhisperer.com/2011/03/24/how-to-write-1000-words-a-day-and-not-go-bat-shit-crazy/ , but they can not really help me and answer my questions. I study at the Institute and I need in a short time write a good dissertation. Now I do not know what to do … looking for a different article in internet about thesis writing. There I found this article http://phdify.com/blog/how-many-chapters-in-a-dissertation on how to write a dissertation, but it do not tell me how to write a dissertation 2 months. Can you give me some good advice?

Hoi Jenifer,

the only (honest) advice I can give you is to talk to your advisor. They (and the committee) are the ones determining what is necessary for your dissertation. I am recommending this because it seems to me that the problem is not how to write a certain amount of words, or how to write a thesis in a certain amount of time, but because I think there is some confusion about what the dissertation is about. And I might be wrong here! I think for most writing tips to work you have to be clear about what your contribution in your thesis is — and for that you need discussions with your supervisor. Once that is determined, you can do an outline (as I would recommend) or use Mewburn’s tips.

(And as for outlines — yup, I think there are great, but they will not work for everyone. They are an option you should know about. And while I did write my thesis in a month — the first and nearly final draft that is — I did it with an outline I had created during nearly three years of studying.)

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13 Tips to Prepare for Your PhD Dissertation Defense

How well do you know your project? Years of experiments, analysis of results, and tons of literature study, leads you to how well you know your research study. And, PhD dissertation defense is a finale to your PhD years. Often, researchers question how to excel at their thesis defense and spend countless hours on it. Days, weeks, months, and probably years of practice to complete your doctorate, needs to surpass the dissertation defense hurdle.

In this article, we will discuss details of how to excel at PhD dissertation defense and list down some interesting tips to prepare for your thesis defense.

Table of Contents

What Is Dissertation Defense?

Dissertation defense or Thesis defense is an opportunity to defend your research study amidst the academic professionals who will evaluate of your academic work. While a thesis defense can sometimes be like a cross-examination session, but in reality you need not fear the thesis defense process and be well prepared.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/c/JamesHaytonPhDacademy

What are the expectations of committee members.

Choosing the dissertation committee is one of the most important decision for a research student. However, putting your dissertation committee becomes easier once you understand the expectations of committee members.

The basic function of your dissertation committee is to guide you through the process of proposing, writing, and revising your dissertation. Moreover, the committee members serve as mentors, giving constructive feedback on your writing and research, also guiding your revision efforts.

The dissertation committee is usually formed once the academic coursework is completed. Furthermore, by the time you begin your dissertation research, you get acquainted to the faculty members who will serve on your dissertation committee. Ultimately, who serves on your dissertation committee depends upon you.

Some universities allow an outside expert (a former professor or academic mentor) to serve on your committee. It is advisable to choose a faculty member who knows you and your research work.

How to Choose a Dissertation Committee Member?

• Avoid popular and eminent faculty member
• Choose the one you know very well and can approach whenever you need them
• A faculty member whom you can learn from is apt.
• Members of the committee can be your future mentors, co-authors, and research collaborators. Choose them keeping your future in mind.

How to Prepare for Dissertation Defense?

1. Start Your Preparations Early

Thesis defense is not a 3 or 6 months’ exercise. Don’t wait until you have completed all your research objectives. Start your preparation well in advance, and make sure you know all the intricacies of your thesis and reasons to all the research experiments you conducted.

2. Attend Presentations by Other Candidates

Look out for open dissertation presentations at your university. In fact, you can attend open dissertation presentations at other universities too. Firstly, this will help you realize how thesis defense is not a scary process. Secondly, you will get the tricks and hacks on how other researchers are defending their thesis. Finally, you will understand why dissertation defense is necessary for the university, as well as the scientific community.

3. Take Enough Time to Prepare the Slides

Dissertation defense process harder than submitting your thesis well before the deadline. Ideally, you could start preparing the slides after finalizing your thesis. Spend more time in preparing the slides. Make sure you got the right data on the slides and rephrase your inferences, to create a logical flow to your presentation.

4. Structure the Presentation

Do not be haphazard in designing your presentation. Take time to create a good structured presentation. Furthermore, create high-quality slides which impresses the committee members. Make slides that hold your audience’s attention. Keep the presentation thorough and accurate, and use smart art to create better slides.

5. Practice Breathing Techniques

Watch a few TED talk videos and you will notice that speakers and orators are very fluent at their speech. In fact, you will not notice them taking a breath or falling short of breath. The only reason behind such effortless oratory skill is practice — practice in breathing technique.

Moreover, every speaker knows how to control their breath. Long and steady breaths are crucial. Pay attention to your breathing and slow it down. All you need I some practice prior to this moment.

6. Create an Impactful Introduction

The audience expects a lot from you. So your opening statement should enthrall the audience. Furthermore, your thesis should create an impact on the members; they should be thrilled by your thesis and the way you expose it.

The introduction answers most important questions, and most important of all “Is this presentation worth the time?” Therefore, it is important to make a good first impression , because the first few minutes sets the tone for your entire presentation.

7. Maintain Your Own List of Questions

While preparing for the presentation, make a note of all the questions that you ask yourself. Try to approach all the questions from a reader’s point of view. You could pretend like you do not know the topic and think of questions that could help you know the topic much better.

The list of questions will prepare you for the questions the members may pose while trying to understand your research. Attending other candidates’ open discussion will also help you assume the dissertation defense questions.

8. Practice Speech and Body Language

After successfully preparing your slides and practicing, you could start focusing on how you look while presenting your thesis. This exercise is not for your appearance but to know your body language and relax if need be.

Pay attention to your body language. Stand with your back straight, but relax your shoulders. The correct posture will give you the feel of self-confidence. So, observe yourself in the mirror and pay attention to movements you make.

9. Give Mock Presentation

Giving a trial defense in advance is a good practice. The most important factor for the mock defense is its similarity to your real defense, so that you get the experience that prepares for the actual defense.

10. Learn How to Handle Mistakes

Everyone makes mistakes. However, it is important to carry on. Do not let the mistakes affect your thesis defense. Take a deep breath and move on to the next point.

11. Do Not Run Through the Presentation

If you are nervous, you would want to end the presentation as soon as possible. However, this situation will give rise to anxiety and you will speak too fast, skipping the essential details. Eventually, creating a fiasco of your dissertation defense .

12. Get Plenty of Rest

Out of the dissertation defense preparation points, this one is extremely important. Obviously, sleeping a day before your big event is hard, but you have to focus and go to bed early, with the clear intentions of getting the rest you deserve.

13. Visualize Yourself Defending Your Thesis

This simple exercise creates an immense impact on your self-confidence. All you have to do is visualize yourself giving a successful presentation each evening before going to sleep. Everyday till the day of your thesis defense, see yourself standing in front of the audience and going from one point to another.

This exercise takes a lot of commitment and persistence, but the results in the end are worth it. Visualization makes you see yourself doing the scary thing of defending your thesis.

If you have taken all these points into consideration, you are ready for your big day. You have worked relentlessly for your PhD degree , and you will definitely give your best in this final step.

Have you completed your thesis defense? How did you prepare for it and how was your experience throughout your dissertation defense ? Do write to us or comment below.

The tips are very useful.I will recomend it to our students.

Excellent. As a therapist trying to help a parent of a candidate, I am very impressed and thankful your concise, clear, action-oriented article. Thank you.

Thanks for your sharing. It is so good. I can learn a lot from your ideas. Hope that in my dissertation defense next time I can pass

The tips are effective. Will definitely apply them in my dissertation.

My dissertation defense is coming up in less than two weeks from now, I find this tips quite instructive, I’ll definitely apply them. Thank you so much.

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May 15, 2024

Tips and Resources for a Successful Summer of Dissertation Writing

By Yana Zlochistaya

Summer can be a strange time for graduate students. Gone are the seminars and workshops, the student clubs, and the working group, that structured the semester and provided us with a sense of community. Instead, we’re faced with a three-month expanse of time that can feel equal parts liberating and intimidating. This double-edged freedom is only exacerbated for those of us in the writing stage of our dissertation, when isolation and a lack of discipline can have a particularly big impact. For those hoping not to enter another summer with lofty plans, only to blink and find ourselves in August disappointed with our progress, we’ve compiled some tips and resources that can help.

According to Graduate Writing Center Director Sabrina Soracco, the most important thing you can do to set yourself up for writing success is to clarify your goals. She recommends starting this process by looking at departmental requirements for a completed dissertation. Consider when you would like to file and work backwards from that point, determining what you have to get done in order to hit that target. Next, check in with your dissertation committee members to set up an accountability structure. Would they prefer an end-of-summer update to the whole committee? A monthly check-in with your chair or one of your readers? Setting up explicit expectations that work for you and your committee can cut through the aimlessness that comes with a major writing project.

For those early on in their dissertation-writing process, a committee meeting is also a valuable opportunity to set parameters. “One of the problems with the excitement for the discipline that happens post-quals is that it results in too many ideas,” says Director. Soracco. Your committee members should give you input on productive research directions so that you can begin to hone in on your project. It is also important to remember that your dissertation does not have to be the end-all-and-be-all of your academic research. Ideas that do not fit into its scope can end up becoming conference papers or even book chapters.

Once you have a clear goal that you have discussed with your committee, the hard part begins: you have to actually write. The Graduate Writing Center offers several resources to make that process easier:

• The Graduate Writing Community. This is a totally remote, two-month program that is based on a model of “gentle accountability.” When you sign up, you are added to a bCourses site moderated by a Graduate Writing Consultant. At the beginning of the week, everyone sets their goals in a discussion post, and by the end of the week, everyone checks in with progress updates. During the week, the writing consultants offer nine hours of remote synchronous writing sessions. As a writing community member, you can attend whichever sessions work best for your schedule. All that’s required is that you show up, set a goal for that hour, and work towards that goal for the length of two 25-minute Pomodoro sessions . This year’s summer writing community will begin in June. Keep your eye on your email for the registration link!
• Writing Consultations : As a graduate student, you can sign up for an individual meeting with a Graduate Writing Consultant. They can give you feedback on your work, help you figure out the structure of a chapter, or just talk through how to get started on a writing project. 
• Independent Writing Groups: If you would prefer to write with specific friends or colleagues, you can contact Graduate Writing Center Director Sabrina Soracco at [email protected] so that she can help you set up your own writing group. The structure and length of these groups can differ; often, members will send each other one to five pages of writing weekly and meet the next day for two hours to provide feedback and get advice. Sometimes, groups will meet up not only to share writing, but to work in a common space before coming together to debrief. Regardless of what the groups look like, the important thing is to create a guilt-free space. Some weeks, you might submit an outline; other weeks, it might be the roughest of rough drafts; sometimes, you might come to a session without having submitted anything. As long as we continue to make progress (and show up even when we don’t), we’re doing what we need to. As Director Soracco puts it, “it often takes slogging through a lot of stuff to get to that great epiphany.”

Yana Zlochistaya is a fifth-year graduate student in the Department of Comparative Literature and a Professional Development Liaison with the Graduate Division. She previously served as a co-director for Beyond Academia.

Brooklyn's Prospect Park Zoo set to reopen this month following storm damage

T he Prospect Park Zoo in Brooklyn will reopen to the public this month after closing nearly eight months ago due to flooding from Tropical Storm Ophelia.

The 400 animals weren't harmed, but the floodwaters damaged the zoo's boilers, HVAC, and electrical systems.

"We had flooding in the outdoor habitats," said Craig Piper, Vice President of City Zoos for the Wildlife Conservation Society.

The repairs included measures to protect the animals and zoo equipment from future extreme weather.

The zoo recently posted a Mother's Day message to its patrons over the weekend featuring a baby baboon, Nyani, and her mother.

"We look forward to welcoming mothers and their families back to Prospect Park Zoo as soon as possible," the post on X (formerly Twitter) read.

Eyewitness News got a sneak peek at the zoo before it officially reopened and got to check out a few of the exhibits, like the red pandas.

"Well, we're enjoying this beautiful day on the Discovery Trail at Prospect Park Zoo, which was one of the most favorite exhibits for all of our guests to come here. Red pandas are rare. A special, you know, a unique animal, just a beautiful animal that's native to Asia, especially China. They're enjoying some bamboo as as we're talking today," Piper said. "But we have been so sad that we haven't been able to have guests joining us since last September when the flood hit."

They also showed Eyewitness News where the dingoes are housed.

"We were able to operate and take care of the animals during this entire time. No animals were impacted by the storm, thank goodness, but we were operating off of temporary generators that had to be fueled every day and that was not... we couldn't open at that time because they were all over the public areas," Piper said. "We're now back on grid power, which is a key thing to make it safe and stable, to be able to open the park. We've been doing repairs to all the exhibit buildings, so the good news is we're opening the entire zoo. All of our exhibits will be open."

The renovation and repairs to the Prospect Park Zoo are expected to cost $20 million. So far, they've spent a little more than a quarter of that.

"We've spent $6.5 million so far on the initial recovery. That gets us so we can reopen the public areas," Piper said. "But there's so much more still to be done."

FEMA has covered the repair costs so far, but the zoo is looking for fund flood mitigation so humans and their furry friends don't have to be separated again.

"We want people to come here and fall in love with animals, you know, the animals that are all around us because we know we'll protect the things that we care about," Piper said.

ALSO READ | Rutgers doctoral student gives birth on same day she defends dissertation

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Mom Gives Birth and Defends Dissertation on Same Day – Now She’s Graduating on Mother’s Day: 'A Whirlwind'

"He is a healthy bundle of joy who has brought so much happiness into our home," Tamiah Brevard-Rodriguez tells PEOPLE

Nick Romanenko/Rutgers University

Tamiah Brevard-Rodriguez had a plan, but her son had another, which is how she ended up defending her doctoral dissertation and giving birth all in one day.

"Although it's been a whirlwind, baby Enzo and I are doing very well," Brevard-Rodriguez tells PEOPLE in a statement. "He is a healthy bundle of joy who has brought so much happiness into our home."

The Rutgers-New Brunswick Graduate School of Education student, who's also the director of the school's Aresty Research Center, felt "off" the night before she was expected to defend her dissertation presentation, according to the university . Then, early in the morning of March 25, her water broke. 

“My wife is trying to keep me calm, and telling me that maybe we have time, because now I'm physically shaking. I'm about to have a baby on the biggest day,” she told school officials. “I tried to lay down. And then I was like, no, I'm in active labor. This baby's coming today.”

She thought she had some time before delivery, but before she knew it, Brevard-Rodriguez — who is also mom to a 4-year-old daughter — realized her son was crowning.

And it turned out baby Enzo really couldn't wait because she gave birth on the way to the hospital in the front seat of her wife’s car. "She's going like 120 mph and didn’t get a chance to pull over," she told officials. "In three pushes, he was in my arms."

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And after welcoming her son four weeks early, the mom said she felt prepared enough to go ahead and defend her dissertation from the hospital about seven hours later.

“I told my wife, go get me some clothes, my laptop, and bring the charger," she recalled.

Courtesy of Tamiah Brevard-Rodriguez

As for what's next, Brevard-Rodriguez will face another big double day — albeit one's that's hopefully less stressful — celebrating Mother's Day and her graduation on Sunday, May 12.

"I am excited to officially graduate on Mother's Day and even more excited to see what the future holds professionally," she tells PEOPLE. "But right now, I'm just looking forward to the remaining months of my maternity leave with my beautiful family."

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