Why are dissertations hard

The first few days in archives, I felt like everything I was unearthing was a gem, and when I sat down to write, it seemed as if it was all gold. But a brutal editing down to the word count has left much of that early material at the wayside. If you're using a university or library printer, it will start to affect your weekly budget in a big way. If you're printing from your room, "paper jam" will come to be the most dreaded two words in the English language. Don't even try and give up biscuits for Lent, they'll basically become their own food group when you're too busy to cook and desperate for sugar.

Even if you're super-organised, plan your time down to the last hour and don't have a single moment of deadline panic, you'll still find that thoughts of your dissertation will creep up on you when you least expect it.

You'll fall asleep thinking about it, dream about it and wake up thinking about. You'll feel guilty when you're not working on it, and mired in self-doubt when you are.

It's worth the hard work to know you've completed what's likely to be your biggest, most important, single piece of work. Be proud of it. Ten things I wish I'd known before starting my dissertation. Are you putting the final touches to a dissertation? Let's pass on some tips to those who'll be doing them next year.

Knowledge displayed is good and shows independent thought but may have some omissions. Use of source material is good and shows independent thought but may have some omissions. Dissertations are not graded, and the GPA includes only course grades. Dissertation quality is measured by reading it, gauging where it was published, or reading letters of recommendation. Typically dissertations are blind double marked. So that each marker judges the work independently and only then discusses with a colleague, the definitive mark to be awarded.

They usually take around six-to-eight years to finish, but there are plenty of benefits to taking the long road to your doctorate. Part-time students dedicate between hours a week to their studies, which leaves plenty of time for work or raising a young family. This means that your work will be interest to other scholars and that your results could be worth presenting at academic conferences.

Doing this is very worthwhile, whatever your career plans. 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 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.

To that end Claim writing time by learning to say no. 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 not write. There will always be reasons not to write. Read everything you can. Read this post. Read the one I wrote in August. Read this one by Kaitlin Gallagher about PhD thesis project management, or the one she wrote on sucstress.

Read this post by Amy Rubens about Exit Strategies. Browse our dissertation or productivity tags. Read this book , or this book , or this book.