Dissertation Tips: Getting On With The Writing
The number one reason that PhD students take longer than anticipated to finish their degrees is procrastination. A dissertation is a massive task, and some people find the scope of the job too intimidating to effectively tackle. This leads to a vicious cycle of pushing back deadlines, getting negative feedback, and further procrastinating out of shame.
Don’t let this be you! You can finish your dissertation on time, if you simply make sure to write frequently, on a regular schedule. Follow these steps to keep your progress going at a respectable rate. These methods have been recommended by graduate students, recent PhD graduates, and academic advisers throughout academia.
Step 1: Set a Rigorous Writing Schedule
If you have a large writing task at hand, the best way to accomplish it is to write every single day. You may not make substantial, impressive practice on an individual day, but chipping away at your goals will rapidly accumulate into significant academic progress if you do not waver. Find time each day to write, and give yourself no exceptions until you meet your next deadline. It can be an hour, or three hours, or even twenty minutes, depending on your life and your schedule. But make sure to write a bit each day!
Step 2: Know What Works For You
As you write, track your progress using a spreadsheet program or a calendar. Write down how much you wrote in a given day, and note the conditions that you were writing under. Where did you write? Was it quiet, or was there music? What time of day was it? Did you have coffee? Were you sitting, or were you using a standing desk? How did you feel that day?
Using this data, determine the optimal conditions for your writing. You may be the most productive first thing in the morning, if you start writing before you even have the chance to shower or make coffee. Or you might be a night owl, who prefers to write on campus in a quiet office. Perhaps you need loud techno music or a cup of earl grey to be the best writer you can be. It doesn’t matter what the best circumstances are -- just follow them as often as possible.
Step 3: Do Not Edit Until You Are Done
A lot of graduate students are perfectionists. This desire for perfect writing causes many PhD students to edit their papers while they compose them, which causes all kinds of self-doubt, confusion, and delay. Do not waste time editing until you have a sense of what the whole paper will actually look like. Until then, just keep writing.
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