Projectsdeal UK Reviews
Surviving the Dissertation: Tips
The final tip is, “You can do this,” a hopeful message to
not give up. I am proud to say, at this point, that I have, indeed, mostly done
this. There’s still a long way to go between here and the final submission. But
I have an actual draft! Whole and complete. Sitting right there on my hard
drive (and in dropbox, and on a USB drive, and my backup hard drive, and on my
friend’s computer…).
This post isn’t just to brag about my
accomplishments, but to offer tips for getting through the dissertation process
from someone who mostly has and is now looking back on the places where I
struggled the most. The (occasionally contradictory) tips below represent the
things I would have done differently, if I could have.
Set deadlines early on in the process. Having a goal to work towards is incredibly
important for sustaining motivation over a long period of time. As someone who
needs the pressure of a deadline to get anything done, I found that a list of
due dates was essential for keeping me on track.
But make sure those goals are flexible. That said, I pretty much immediately blew past my
deadlines and had to keep adjusting them back. Life unexpectedly happens often
over a year-long period (or more!), and knowing that your deadlines will likely
change will help to prevent you feeling guilty about that. If you’ve set early
deadlines, you should be able to move things around without throwing off your
schedule.
Ask for feedback early, and often. The sooner you can be communicating with your
committee about your writing, the smoother your editing stages will go. Sit
with your advisor with just a rough outline of the chapter and find out if it
works. Send partial drafts to anyone willing to read them. This will not only
prevent feelings of isolation as you write, as it will keep you connected to
your committee and other writers, but it will also help prevent situations
where you have to rewrite entire chapters.
As long as you can handle feedback, anyway. There may be times when you don’t need actual
criticism, and instead just need to write, or to have someone say something
encouraging. One of my biggest stumbling blocks while drafting came from
receiving negative feedback on a chapter. My fragile ego interpreted the
critique as a condemnation of my viability as a scholar, and I moped around for
several weeks, wasting time assuming I was worthless. At a time when I needed
encouragement, hearing any criticism, no matter how constructive, hurt my
productivity. Knowing yourself and the kinds of feedback you need as you write
is important on a project like this. If you need someone to say “yay, good
job!” find someone to say that to you.
Find out what your committee wants and
expects from your work. Following
the advice about feedback above, find out what kind of writing your committee
expects. Read dissertations completed by students they have worked with before.
Ask them often what kinds of expectations they have for your chapters, and your
project: what kinds of sources, how footnotes get used, the structure of
chapters, how they feel about headings, and more. Knowing expectations will
help you write effectively to your audience, and communication is key to
avoiding potential pitfalls.
But remember that this is your dissertation.
At the end of the day, this is your work. It represents who you are as a
scholar (for now, anyway). Stand up for what you think is important, and for
what you want to say. Trying to please the entirety of your committee may be
impossible, and at the end of the day it is up to you to know what you need to
write.
Take time off when you need it. As Katy
Meyers mentioned in her post last week, taking time off is important to
personal happiness, and you should do so as guilt free as possible.
Dissertations take time, and you will need to take breaks and recharge at some
point. There will be times where you have to focus your energies elsewhere:
teaching, the job market, writing publishable articles, sitting on committees,
taking care of your family, watching cartoons. It is important to understand
that short breaks in writing will happen, and you can take those breaks without
feeling guilty.
But remember to start writing again. Short breaks are
awesome! Take a week off to focus on grading 150 papers. Take off two weeks to
prepare for job interviews. But then start writing again. Academic work is
always a balancing act between various pressures, and you have to get used to
carving out time for writing next to all of your responsibilities. We likely
all know that guy who is on his 7th year of writing because he “can’t find the
time” to write. Don’t be that guy. To that end…
Claim writing time by learning to say no. One of the challenges of writing a dissertation is
being surrounded by people who don’t understand; some of your colleagues,
friends, and family likely have no idea what writing a long form project like a
dissertation is like. It is hugely overwhelming and distracting, and you need
to be able to say “Go away, I’m writing.” Sometimes this means turning down a
seat on that committee, choosing not to go to that concert, or kicking your
friends out of your office. My friends often struggle with the fact that I
don’t have the free time to spend with them that I used to, but it is important
to my sanity to say “no” every now and then, as much as I hate it.
But say yes sometimes too. As I said above,
taking breaks is essential. Next time someone asks you to go for a beer, close
your computer and say yes.
Carve out little bits of writing time. As I mentioned in my previous post, dissertation
writing is a marathon, not a sprint. Writing often happens in little bits
spread out over time. No matter how busy you are, take the time to write for
half an hour a day. You can find half an hour somewhere. Get up early if you
have to. If you write about a page a day, you can finish a chapter in a month.
Stop making excuses. There will always be a million reasons to use dissertation
writing services uk. You have other work to do, you have papers
to grade, you have jobs to apply for, you have meetings to go to, your back
hurts, your computer is acting funny, the stars aren’t in the right position.
There will always be reasons not to write. And it’s hard, but sometimes you
pretty much just have to tell these reasons to shut up. Sitting down to write,
even when it seems like you can’t, is the only way to get anything written.
You can instantly get quote from Most Trusted
Dissertation Writing Service :
Comments
Post a Comment