xe02c twitter xe037 facebook xe036 linkedin xe039 google+ xe024 e mail march 6, 2014 want to swap writing strategies? we're starting a discussion group on scholarly writing. Join us! start a thread! as a former journalist, assistant professor, and seasoned dissertation writing workshop coach at new york university, i can promise you there is only one fail safe method, one secret, one guaranteed trick that you need in order to finish your dissertation: write. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there are no magical shortcuts to the production of prose, academic or otherwise. If you want to complete your dissertation in a reasonable amount of time and trust me, you do you must learn to prioritize the act of writing itself and write every day.

Academic Position Paper

Here’s the basic, scalable program that i recommend: sit your butt down in a chair, preferably in a quiet and distraction free room. Come into your writing space having already done the research you need for that day’s writing task. You will not be researching or looking anything up during your writing time research and editing are discrete tasks, believe it or not, and should be done in separate blocks. Don’t do poms timed sessions of 25 minutes with five minute breaks in between for writing. They work well for other discrete tasks, like research or formatting or getting your bibliography together, but not here.

In nyu’s workshops, we write for 50 minutes straight, with 10 minute breaks, for 4 hours daily. That might not be feasible if you work or have young children, but plan on writing five days a week, no matter what, for a minimum of two hours each day. The biggest mistake i’ve seen most graduate students make is to mythologize what i call the moment of genius. Because writing is thinking, brilliant thoughts do not just appear on the page after long hours of arduous musing on a subject. In my experience, the best ideas almost always come about through the act of writing itself usually just at that moment when you’ve run out of steam and are staring down a seemingly intractable problem, desperately wanting to quit. When you’re writing a dissertation, one of the most difficult intellectual tasks a person can do, commitment to the writing process is far more important than genius. If the smartest person in the world cannot learn to write, then she won’t be a successful academic.

Candidates from diverse departments from computer science to french literature, from anthropology to political science. And despite the differences in discipline and style of writing, the process and my advice remain the same. Everyone struggles with similar technical and emotional issues: procrastination, distraction, anxiety, structuring an argument, finding their voice, integrating theory and evidence.

The greatest obstacle to any dissertation writer, by far, is the all too common tendency conscious or not to try to avoid the negative feelings associated with the difficult stages of the writing process. If you make writing a part of your work week routine, there will be good and bad days. On the good days, the prose will flow out of you at a rate that you didn’t think was possible. Or you’ll realize that what you thought was one chapter is actually two or three different ones. You’ll hit the backspace and delete keys so much that they’ll start sticking. You’ll move the same paragraph five times before you delete it out of frustration. I often advise the students in my workshops to get comfortable being uncomfortable.

You will wrangle with disparate sources, gargantuan amounts of data, and difficult theoretical concepts. The successful writer knows that feeling lost, frustrated, and tired is just a part of the process of coming up with something great. If you feel shitty about the writing and force yourself to write anyway, you will not only finish your dissertation, you will allow yourself the opportunity to work through complicated arguments and say something interesting or even something pretty great. All professional writers know that good books and interesting articles are the product of several drafts. In fact, the dissertation is better thought of as the lousy first draft of an eventual book.

Trust me, most of us remember all too well what our dissertations were like mostly terrible: just ask your advisor if you can read a copy of hers! , and we can empathize with your struggles. But we also know that the only path to a completed dissertation and a blossoming career is through writing putting ideas down on a page, and wrestling them into shape. In fact, it’s the most important thing you can do for yourself and for your future. Want to swap strategies and share insights with other academics? sign up for vitae and join the conversation in one of our new discussion groups: adjunct life. july 15th, 2010 if the whole thesis writing can be divided into different parts, it would be an enigma trying to determine which part outdoes all the others in terms of difficulty to execute or accomplish. But looking at all the stages of completing the dissertation, you can find one common thing research. It would then be safe to say that your whole project is a collective process of dissertation research.

How to Write a Great College Scholarship Essay

Not all students find it easy to maneuver through the task of completing a research project. We, therefore, present to you ways that will guide you through and guarantee you a slot in the list of graduates. You have to know how to take the easier and more convenient route to get you to your final destination. Deciding to choose this option has saved many people so much time and stress doing their dissertation researches. Can you imagine taking your first big leap without knowing what direction to take next? you lift your foot ready to take the next step but you do not exactly know where toso you get stuck. You would not want to get stranded knowing that the clock is ticking by the minute and you might be losing money with every wrong turn you make.