finish your thesis

• General Post

20 Tips to Help You Finish Your Dissertation

I haven’t met many Ph.D. students who don’t like to write. Some may like writing more than others, but most enjoy writing—or, at least, the satisfaction of having written. Wherever you find yourself on the love-for-writing spectrum, a dissertation awaits completion, and you must finish. Here are a few tips to help you.

1. Write sooner.  The dissertation writing process can quickly become paralyzing because of its size and importance. It is a project that will be reviewed rigorously by your advisor and your committee, and your graduation depends on your successful completion and defense. Facing these realities can be daunting and tempt you to wait until you can determine that you’ve researched or thought enough about the topic. Yet, the longer you delay writing, the more difficult it will be to actually start the process. The answer to your paralysis is to start writing .  Are you unsure of your argument or not fully convinced you have done the requisite research? You may be right: your argument may not be airtight, and you may need to do more reading; but you will be able to determine to what degree these problems need attention when you start writing. Productivity begets productivity, and you will be amazed at how arguments take shape and the direction of your research is forged as you write.

2. Write continually.  So, don’t stop writing. Of course, you need to continue to read and study and take notes—I will talk about this more in a moment—but it is best if you keep the gears from grinding to a halt. Keep your mind working and your project moving. Your assignment is not to turn in a hundred pages of notes to your supervisor—you must produce a dissertation with complete sentences and paragraphs and chapters.  Keep writing.

3. Write in order to rewrite.  Writing sooner and writing continually can only happen if you aren’t consumed with perfection. Some of us are discouraged from writing because we think our first draft needs to be our final draft. But this is exactly the problem. Get your thoughts on paper and plan to go back and fix awkward sentences, poor word choices, and illogical or unsubstantiated arguments in your subsequent drafts.  Knowing that rewriting is part of the writing process will free you to write persistently, make progress, and look forward to fixing things later.

4. Spend adequate time determining your thesis and methodology.  This probably could fit in the number one slot, but I wanted to emphasize the importance writing right away. Besides, you might find that you modify your thesis and methodology slightly as you write and make progress in developing your overall argument. Nevertheless, the adage is true: form a solid thesis and methodology statement and your dissertation will “write itself.” Plan to spend some time writing and rewriting and rewriting (again) your thesis and methodology statements so that you will know where you are going and where you need to go.

5. If you get stuck, move to another section.  Developing a clear thesis and methodology will allow you to move around in your dissertation when you get stuck. Granted, we should not make a habit of avoiding difficult tasks, but there are times when it will be a more effective use of time to move to sections that will write easy. As you continue to make progress in your project and get words on paper, you will also help mitigate the panic that so often looms over your project when you get stuck and your writing ceases.

6.  Fight the urge to walk away from writing when it gets difficult.  Having encouraged you to move to another section when you get stuck, it is also important to add a balancing comment to encourage you to fight through the tough spots in your project. I don’t mean that you should force writing when it is clear that you may need to make some structural changes or do a little more research on a given topic. But if you find yourself dreading a particular portion of your dissertation because it will require some mind-numbing, head-on-your-desk, prayer-producing rigor, then my advice is to face these tough sections head on and sit in your chair until you make some progress. You will be amazed at how momentum will grow out of your dogged persistence to hammer out these difficult portions of your project.

7.  Strive for excellence but remember that this is not your magnum opus.  A dissertation needs to be of publishable quality and it will need to past the muster of your supervisor and committee. But it is also a graduation requirement. Do the research. Make a contribution. Finish the project. And plan to write your five-volume theology when you have 30-40 more years of study, reflection, and teaching under your belt.

8.  Take careful notes.  Taking careful notes is essential for two reasons. First, keeping a meticulous record of the knowledge you glean from your research will save you time: there will be no need to later revisit your resources and chase bibliographic information, and you will find yourself less prone to the dreaded, “Where did I read that?” Second, and most importantly, you will avoid plagiarism.  If you fail to take good notes and are not careful to accurately copy direct quotes and make proper citations, you will be liable to reproducing material in your dissertation that is not original with you. Pleading that your plagiarism was inadvertent will not help your cause. It is your responsibility to take careful notes and attribute all credit to whom it is due through proper citation.

9.  Know when to read.  Write sooner, write continually, and write in order to rewrite. But you need to know when you are churning an empty barrel. Reading and research should be a stimulus to write and you need to know when that stimulus is needed. Be willing to stop writing for a short period so that you can refresh your mind with new ideas and research.

10. Establish chunks of time to research and write.  While it is important to keep writing and make the most of the time that you have, it is best for writing projects specifically to set aside large portions of time with which to write. Writing requires momentum, and momentum gathers over time. Personally, I have found that I need at least an hour to get things rolling, and that three to four hours is ideal.

11.  Get exercise, adequate sleep, and eat well.  Because our minds and bodies are meant to function in harmony, you will probably find that your productivity suffers to the degree that you are not giving attention to your exercise, sleep, and eating habits.  Like it or not, our ability to maintain long periods of sustained concentration, think carefully over our subject matter, and find motivation to complete tasks is dependent in a significant sense upon how we are caring for our bodies.  When we neglect exercise, fail to get adequate sleep, or constantly indulge in an unhealthy diet, we will find it increasingly difficult to muster the energy and clarity with which to complete our dissertation.

12.  Stay on task.  Completing a dissertation, in large measure, is not so much a feat of the intellect as it is the result of discipline. If you are able to set aside large chunks of time with which to research and write, make sure that you are not using that time for other tasks. This means that you must strive against multi-tasking. In truth, studies have shown that multi-tasking is a cognitive impossibility.  Our brains can only concentrate on one thing at a time.  When we think we are multitasking we are actually “switch-tasking;” rather than doing several things at once, our brains are constantly toggling from one task to the other (listening to a song on the radio to reading a book, back to the song, etc.). You will be amazed at how much you can accomplish if you give an undistracted 60-90 minutes to something. Stay on task.

13.  Don’t get stuck on introductions.  This is a basic writing principle, but one that bears repeating here: write the body of a given chapter or section and then return to the introductions. It is usually easier to introduce something that you have already written for the simple fact that you now know what you are introducing. You might be tempted to write the introduction first and labor to capture your reader with a gripping illustration or perfect quote while refusing to enter into the body of your paper until your preliminary remarks are flawless. This is a sure recipe for frustration. Wait until you have completed a particular section or chapter’s content until you write introductions. This practice will save you time and loads of trouble.

14.  Use a legal pad.  There’s nothing magic about a legal pad; my only aim here is to encourage you to push back from the keyboard occasionally and stimulate your mind by sketching your argument and writing your ideas by hand. I have found my way out of many dry spells by closing the laptop for a few minutes and writing on a piece of paper. I might bullet point a few key ideas, diagram my chapter outlines, or sketch the entire dissertation with boxes and arrows and notes scribbled over several pages.

15.  Go on walks.  It has been said recently that walking promotes creativity. I agree. Whether you like to walk among the trees or besides the small coffee shops along quaint side streets, I recommend that you go on walks and think specifically about your dissertation. You might find that the change of scenery, the stimulus of a bustling community, or the refreshing quiet of a park trail is just the help you need.

16.  Make use of a capture journal.  In order to make the most of your walks, you will need a place to “capture” your ideas. You may prefer to use the voice memo or notepad feature on your smartphone, or, if you’re like me,  a small 2.5”x4” lined journal. Whatever your preference, find a method that allows you to store your ideas as they come to you during your walks or as you fall to sleep at night. I wonder how many useful ideas many of us have lost because we failed to write them down? Don’t let this happen to you. Resolve to be a good steward of your thinking time and seize those thoughts.

17.  Talk about your ideas with others.  When you are writing your dissertation, you might be tempted to lock away your ideas and avoid discussing them with others. This is unwise. Talking with others about your ideas helps you to refine and stimulate your thinking; it also creates opportunities for you to learn of important resources and how your contribution will affect other branches of scholarship. Also, as people ask questions about your project, you will begin to see where your argument is unclear or unsubstantiated.

18.  Learn how to read.  Writing a dissertation requires a massive amount of reading. You must become familiar with the arguments of several hundred resources—books, articles, reviews, and other dissertations. What will you do? You must learn how to read. Effective reading does not require that you read every book word-for-word, cover-to-cover. Indeed, sometimes very close reading of a given volume may actually impede your understanding of the author’s argument. In order to save time and cultivate a more effective approach to knowledge acquisition, you must learn how to use your resources. This means knowing when to read a book or article closely, and knowing when to skim. It means knowing how to read large books within a matter of an hour by carefully reviewing the table of contents, reading and rereading key chapters and paragraphs, and using the subject index. If you want to finish your dissertation, learn how to read.

19.  Set deadlines.  Depending on your project, you may have built in deadlines that force you to produce material at a steady clip. If you do not have built in deadlines, you must impose them on yourself.  Deadlines produce results, and results lead to completed writing projects.  Set realistic deadlines and stick to them.  You will find that you are able to accomplish much more than you anticipated if you set and stick to deadlines.

20.  Take productive breaks.  Instead of turning to aimless entertainment to fill your break times, try doing something that will indirectly serve your writing process. We need breaks: they refresh us and help us stay on task. In fact, studies have shown that overall productivity diminishes if employees are not allowed to take regular, brief pauses from their work during the day. What is not often mentioned, however, is that a break does not necessarily have to be unrelated to our work in order to be refreshing; it needs only to be different from what we were just doing. So, for example, if you have been writing for 90 minutes, instead of turning on YouTube to watch another mountain biking video, you could get up, stretch, and pull that book off the shelf you’ve been wanting to read, or that article that has been sitting in Pocket for the past six weeks. Maybe reorganizing your desk or taking a walk (see above) around the library with your capture journal would be helpful. Whatever you choose, try to make your breaks productive.

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How To Write A Dissertation Or Thesis

8 straightforward steps to craft an a-grade dissertation.

By: Derek Jansen (MBA) Expert Reviewed By: Dr Eunice Rautenbach | June 2020

Writing a dissertation or thesis is not a simple task. It takes time, energy and a lot of will power to get you across the finish line. It’s not easy – but it doesn’t necessarily need to be a painful process. If you understand the big-picture process of how to write a dissertation or thesis, your research journey will be a lot smoother.  

In this post, I’m going to outline the big-picture process of how to write a high-quality dissertation or thesis, without losing your mind along the way. If you’re just starting your research, this post is perfect for you. Alternatively, if you’ve already submitted your proposal, this article which covers how to structure a dissertation might be more helpful.

How To Write A Dissertation: 8 Steps

• Clearly understand what a dissertation (or thesis) is
• Find a unique and valuable research topic
• Craft a convincing research proposal
• Write up a strong introduction chapter
• Review the existing literature and compile a literature review
• Design a rigorous research strategy and undertake your own research
• Present the findings of your research
• Draw a conclusion and discuss the implications

Step 1: Understand exactly what a dissertation is

This probably sounds like a no-brainer, but all too often, students come to us for help with their research and the underlying issue is that they don’t fully understand what a dissertation (or thesis) actually is.

So, what is a dissertation?

At its simplest, a dissertation or thesis is a formal piece of research , reflecting the standard research process . But what is the standard research process, you ask? The research process involves 4 key steps:

• Ask a very specific, well-articulated question (s) (your research topic)
• See what other researchers have said about it (if they’ve already answered it)
• If they haven’t answered it adequately, undertake your own data collection and analysis in a scientifically rigorous fashion
• Answer your original question(s), based on your analysis findings

In short, the research process is simply about asking and answering questions in a systematic fashion . This probably sounds pretty obvious, but people often think they’ve done “research”, when in fact what they have done is:

• Started with a vague, poorly articulated question
• Not taken the time to see what research has already been done regarding the question
• Collected data and opinions that support their gut and undertaken a flimsy analysis
• Drawn a shaky conclusion, based on that analysis

If you want to see the perfect example of this in action, look out for the next Facebook post where someone claims they’ve done “research”… All too often, people consider reading a few blog posts to constitute research. Its no surprise then that what they end up with is an opinion piece, not research. Okay, okay – I’ll climb off my soapbox now.

The key takeaway here is that a dissertation (or thesis) is a formal piece of research, reflecting the research process. It’s not an opinion piece , nor a place to push your agenda or try to convince someone of your position. Writing a good dissertation involves asking a question and taking a systematic, rigorous approach to answering it.

If you understand this and are comfortable leaving your opinions or preconceived ideas at the door, you’re already off to a good start!

Step 2: Find a unique, valuable research topic

As we saw, the first step of the research process is to ask a specific, well-articulated question. In other words, you need to find a research topic that asks a specific question or set of questions (these are called research questions ). Sounds easy enough, right? All you’ve got to do is identify a question or two and you’ve got a winning research topic. Well, not quite…

A good dissertation or thesis topic has a few important attributes. Specifically, a solid research topic should be:

Let’s take a closer look at these:

Attribute #1: Clear

Your research topic needs to be crystal clear about what you’re planning to research, what you want to know, and within what context. There shouldn’t be any ambiguity or vagueness about what you’ll research.

Here’s an example of a clearly articulated research topic:

An analysis of consumer-based factors influencing organisational trust in British low-cost online equity brokerage firms.

As you can see in the example, its crystal clear what will be analysed (factors impacting organisational trust), amongst who (consumers) and in what context (British low-cost equity brokerage firms, based online).

Need a helping hand?

Attribute #2:   Unique

Your research should be asking a question(s) that hasn’t been asked before, or that hasn’t been asked in a specific context (for example, in a specific country or industry).

For example, sticking organisational trust topic above, it’s quite likely that organisational trust factors in the UK have been investigated before, but the context (online low-cost equity brokerages) could make this research unique. Therefore, the context makes this research original.

One caveat when using context as the basis for originality – you need to have a good reason to suspect that your findings in this context might be different from the existing research – otherwise, there’s no reason to warrant researching it.

Attribute #3: Important

Simply asking a unique or original question is not enough – the question needs to create value. In other words, successfully answering your research questions should provide some value to the field of research or the industry. You can’t research something just to satisfy your curiosity. It needs to make some form of contribution either to research or industry.

For example, researching the factors influencing consumer trust would create value by enabling businesses to tailor their operations and marketing to leverage factors that promote trust. In other words, it would have a clear benefit to industry.

So, how do you go about finding a unique and valuable research topic? We explain that in detail in this video post – How To Find A Research Topic . Yeah, we’ve got you covered 😊

Step 3: Write a convincing research proposal

Once you’ve pinned down a high-quality research topic, the next step is to convince your university to let you research it. No matter how awesome you think your topic is, it still needs to get the rubber stamp before you can move forward with your research. The research proposal is the tool you’ll use for this job.

So, what’s in a research proposal?

The main “job” of a research proposal is to convince your university, advisor or committee that your research topic is worthy of approval. But convince them of what? Well, this varies from university to university, but generally, they want to see that:

• You have a clearly articulated, unique and important topic (this might sound familiar…)
• You’ve done some initial reading of the existing literature relevant to your topic (i.e. a literature review)
• You have a provisional plan in terms of how you will collect data and analyse it (i.e. a methodology)

At the proposal stage, it’s (generally) not expected that you’ve extensively reviewed the existing literature , but you will need to show that you’ve done enough reading to identify a clear gap for original (unique) research. Similarly, they generally don’t expect that you have a rock-solid research methodology mapped out, but you should have an idea of whether you’ll be undertaking qualitative or quantitative analysis , and how you’ll collect your data (we’ll discuss this in more detail later).

Long story short – don’t stress about having every detail of your research meticulously thought out at the proposal stage – this will develop as you progress through your research. However, you do need to show that you’ve “done your homework” and that your research is worthy of approval .

So, how do you go about crafting a high-quality, convincing proposal? We cover that in detail in this video post – How To Write A Top-Class Research Proposal . We’ve also got a video walkthrough of two proposal examples here .

Step 4: Craft a strong introduction chapter

Once your proposal’s been approved, its time to get writing your actual dissertation or thesis! The good news is that if you put the time into crafting a high-quality proposal, you’ve already got a head start on your first three chapters – introduction, literature review and methodology – as you can use your proposal as the basis for these.

Handy sidenote – our free dissertation & thesis template is a great way to speed up your dissertation writing journey.

What’s the introduction chapter all about?

The purpose of the introduction chapter is to set the scene for your research (dare I say, to introduce it…) so that the reader understands what you’ll be researching and why it’s important. In other words, it covers the same ground as the research proposal in that it justifies your research topic.

What goes into the introduction chapter?

This can vary slightly between universities and degrees, but generally, the introduction chapter will include the following:

• A brief background to the study, explaining the overall area of research
• A problem statement , explaining what the problem is with the current state of research (in other words, where the knowledge gap exists)
• Your research questions – in other words, the specific questions your study will seek to answer (based on the knowledge gap)
• The significance of your study – in other words, why it’s important and how its findings will be useful in the world

As you can see, this all about explaining the “what” and the “why” of your research (as opposed to the “how”). So, your introduction chapter is basically the salesman of your study, “selling” your research to the first-time reader and (hopefully) getting them interested to read more.

How do I write the introduction chapter, you ask? We cover that in detail in this post .

Step 5: Undertake an in-depth literature review

As I mentioned earlier, you’ll need to do some initial review of the literature in Steps 2 and 3 to find your research gap and craft a convincing research proposal – but that’s just scratching the surface. Once you reach the literature review stage of your dissertation or thesis, you need to dig a lot deeper into the existing research and write up a comprehensive literature review chapter.

What’s the literature review all about?

There are two main stages in the literature review process:

Literature Review Step 1: Reading up

The first stage is for you to deep dive into the existing literature (journal articles, textbook chapters, industry reports, etc) to gain an in-depth understanding of the current state of research regarding your topic. While you don’t need to read every single article, you do need to ensure that you cover all literature that is related to your core research questions, and create a comprehensive catalogue of that literature , which you’ll use in the next step.

Reading and digesting all the relevant literature is a time consuming and intellectually demanding process. Many students underestimate just how much work goes into this step, so make sure that you allocate a good amount of time for this when planning out your research. Thankfully, there are ways to fast track the process – be sure to check out this article covering how to read journal articles quickly .

Literature Review Step 2: Writing up

Once you’ve worked through the literature and digested it all, you’ll need to write up your literature review chapter. Many students make the mistake of thinking that the literature review chapter is simply a summary of what other researchers have said. While this is partly true, a literature review is much more than just a summary. To pull off a good literature review chapter, you’ll need to achieve at least 3 things:

• You need to synthesise the existing research , not just summarise it. In other words, you need to show how different pieces of theory fit together, what’s agreed on by researchers, what’s not.
• You need to highlight a research gap that your research is going to fill. In other words, you’ve got to outline the problem so that your research topic can provide a solution.
• You need to use the existing research to inform your methodology and approach to your own research design. For example, you might use questions or Likert scales from previous studies in your your own survey design .

As you can see, a good literature review is more than just a summary of the published research. It’s the foundation on which your own research is built, so it deserves a lot of love and attention. Take the time to craft a comprehensive literature review with a suitable structure .

But, how do I actually write the literature review chapter, you ask? We cover that in detail in this video post .

Step 6: Carry out your own research

Once you’ve completed your literature review and have a sound understanding of the existing research, its time to develop your own research (finally!). You’ll design this research specifically so that you can find the answers to your unique research question.

There are two steps here – designing your research strategy and executing on it:

1 – Design your research strategy

The first step is to design your research strategy and craft a methodology chapter . I won’t get into the technicalities of the methodology chapter here, but in simple terms, this chapter is about explaining the “how” of your research. If you recall, the introduction and literature review chapters discussed the “what” and the “why”, so it makes sense that the next point to cover is the “how” –that’s what the methodology chapter is all about.

In this section, you’ll need to make firm decisions about your research design. This includes things like:

• Your research philosophy (e.g. positivism or interpretivism )
• Your overall methodology (e.g. qualitative , quantitative or mixed methods)
• Your data collection strategy (e.g. interviews , focus groups, surveys)
• Your data analysis strategy (e.g. content analysis , correlation analysis, regression)

If these words have got your head spinning, don’t worry! We’ll explain these in plain language in other posts. It’s not essential that you understand the intricacies of research design (yet!). The key takeaway here is that you’ll need to make decisions about how you’ll design your own research, and you’ll need to describe (and justify) your decisions in your methodology chapter.

2 – Execute: Collect and analyse your data

Once you’ve worked out your research design, you’ll put it into action and start collecting your data. This might mean undertaking interviews, hosting an online survey or any other data collection method. Data collection can take quite a bit of time (especially if you host in-person interviews), so be sure to factor sufficient time into your project plan for this. Oftentimes, things don’t go 100% to plan (for example, you don’t get as many survey responses as you hoped for), so bake a little extra time into your budget here.

Once you’ve collected your data, you’ll need to do some data preparation before you can sink your teeth into the analysis. For example:

• If you carry out interviews or focus groups, you’ll need to transcribe your audio data to text (i.e. a Word document).
• If you collect quantitative survey data, you’ll need to clean up your data and get it into the right format for whichever analysis software you use (for example, SPSS, R or STATA).

Once you’ve completed your data prep, you’ll undertake your analysis, using the techniques that you described in your methodology. Depending on what you find in your analysis, you might also do some additional forms of analysis that you hadn’t planned for. For example, you might see something in the data that raises new questions or that requires clarification with further analysis.

The type(s) of analysis that you’ll use depend entirely on the nature of your research and your research questions. For example:

• If your research if exploratory in nature, you’ll often use qualitative analysis techniques .
• If your research is confirmatory in nature, you’ll often use quantitative analysis techniques
• If your research involves a mix of both, you might use a mixed methods approach

Again, if these words have got your head spinning, don’t worry! We’ll explain these concepts and techniques in other posts. The key takeaway is simply that there’s no “one size fits all” for research design and methodology – it all depends on your topic, your research questions and your data. So, don’t be surprised if your study colleagues take a completely different approach to yours.

Step 7: Present your findings

Once you’ve completed your analysis, it’s time to present your findings (finally!). In a dissertation or thesis, you’ll typically present your findings in two chapters – the results chapter and the discussion chapter .

What’s the difference between the results chapter and the discussion chapter?

While these two chapters are similar, the results chapter generally just presents the processed data neatly and clearly without interpretation, while the discussion chapter explains the story the data are telling  – in other words, it provides your interpretation of the results.

For example, if you were researching the factors that influence consumer trust, you might have used a quantitative approach to identify the relationship between potential factors (e.g. perceived integrity and competence of the organisation) and consumer trust. In this case:

• Your results chapter would just present the results of the statistical tests. For example, correlation results or differences between groups. In other words, the processed numbers.
• Your discussion chapter would explain what the numbers mean in relation to your research question(s). For example, Factor 1 has a weak relationship with consumer trust, while Factor 2 has a strong relationship.

Depending on the university and degree, these two chapters (results and discussion) are sometimes merged into one , so be sure to check with your institution what their preference is. Regardless of the chapter structure, this section is about presenting the findings of your research in a clear, easy to understand fashion.

Importantly, your discussion here needs to link back to your research questions (which you outlined in the introduction or literature review chapter). In other words, it needs to answer the key questions you asked (or at least attempt to answer them).

For example, if we look at the sample research topic:

In this case, the discussion section would clearly outline which factors seem to have a noteworthy influence on organisational trust. By doing so, they are answering the overarching question and fulfilling the purpose of the research .

For more information about the results chapter , check out this post for qualitative studies and this post for quantitative studies .

Step 8: The Final Step Draw a conclusion and discuss the implications

Last but not least, you’ll need to wrap up your research with the conclusion chapter . In this chapter, you’ll bring your research full circle by highlighting the key findings of your study and explaining what the implications of these findings are.

What exactly are key findings? The key findings are those findings which directly relate to your original research questions and overall research objectives (which you discussed in your introduction chapter). The implications, on the other hand, explain what your findings mean for industry, or for research in your area.

Sticking with the consumer trust topic example, the conclusion might look something like this:

Key findings

This study set out to identify which factors influence consumer-based trust in British low-cost online equity brokerage firms. The results suggest that the following factors have a large impact on consumer trust:

While the following factors have a very limited impact on consumer trust:

Notably, within the 25-30 age groups, Factors E had a noticeably larger impact, which may be explained by…

Implications

The findings having noteworthy implications for British low-cost online equity brokers. Specifically:

The large impact of Factors X and Y implies that brokers need to consider….

The limited impact of Factor E implies that brokers need to…

As you can see, the conclusion chapter is basically explaining the “what” (what your study found) and the “so what?” (what the findings mean for the industry or research). This brings the study full circle and closes off the document.

Let’s recap – how to write a dissertation or thesis

You’re still with me? Impressive! I know that this post was a long one, but hopefully you’ve learnt a thing or two about how to write a dissertation or thesis, and are now better equipped to start your own research.

To recap, the 8 steps to writing a quality dissertation (or thesis) are as follows:

• Understand what a dissertation (or thesis) is – a research project that follows the research process.
• Find a unique (original) and important research topic
• Craft a convincing dissertation or thesis research proposal
• Write a clear, compelling introduction chapter
• Undertake a thorough review of the existing research and write up a literature review
• Undertake your own research
• Present and interpret your findings

Once you’ve wrapped up the core chapters, all that’s typically left is the abstract , reference list and appendices. As always, be sure to check with your university if they have any additional requirements in terms of structure or content.  

Psst... there’s more!

This post was based on one of our popular Research Bootcamps . If you're working on a research project, you'll definitely want to check this out ...

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20 Comments

thankfull >>>this is very useful

Thank you, it was really helpful

unquestionably, this amazing simplified way of teaching. Really , I couldn’t find in the literature words that fully explicit my great thanks to you. However, I could only say thanks a-lot.

Great to hear that – thanks for the feedback. Good luck writing your dissertation/thesis.

This is the most comprehensive explanation of how to write a dissertation. Many thanks for sharing it free of charge.

Very rich presentation. Thank you

Thanks Derek Jansen|GRADCOACH, I find it very useful guide to arrange my activities and proceed to research!

Thank you so much for such a marvelous teaching .I am so convinced that am going to write a comprehensive and a distinct masters dissertation

It is an amazing comprehensive explanation

This was straightforward. Thank you!

I can say that your explanations are simple and enlightening – understanding what you have done here is easy for me. Could you write more about the different types of research methods specific to the three methodologies: quan, qual and MM. I look forward to interacting with this website more in the future.

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions 🙂

Hello, your write ups is quite educative. However, l have challenges in going about my research questions which is below; *Building the enablers of organisational growth through effective governance and purposeful leadership.*

Very educating.

Just listening to the name of the dissertation makes the student nervous. As writing a top-quality dissertation is a difficult task as it is a lengthy topic, requires a lot of research and understanding and is usually around 10,000 to 15000 words. Sometimes due to studies, unbalanced workload or lack of research and writing skill students look for dissertation submission from professional writers.

Thank you 💕😊 very much. I was confused but your comprehensive explanation has cleared my doubts of ever presenting a good thesis. Thank you.

thank you so much, that was so useful

Hi. Where is the excel spread sheet ark?

could you please help me look at your thesis paper to enable me to do the portion that has to do with the specification

my topic is “the impact of domestic revenue mobilization.

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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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Tips for finishing your PhD thesis on time

Scholar siân lindsay’s research on doctoral completion has yielded valuable insights and practical advice.

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The problems of meeting deadlines are as acute in academia as in any other line of work – if not more so. And perhaps the first high-stakes encounter academics have with this difficult-to-master discipline is the PhD.

Siân Lindsay, lecturer in educational development at City University London, has investigated the process of doctoral completion. She interviewed several PhD candidates at her institution as they were writing up their theses, in a bid to understand the factors that facilitate or obstruct their progress.

Dr Lindsay – who will speak about her project at a Society for Research into Higher Education event in London on 13 June – shared some of her discoveries with Times Higher Education .

“Overwhelmingly, students who were on track to complete their thesis on time had actually written their thesis as they went along,” she said.

“It seems really obvious to say, but the reason students don’t complete on time is because they don’t tend to have their thesis ready.”

She added that it was not particularly important what form such continual writing took, whether drafting chapters or keeping an academic diary, which is what she herself did.

“Every single day I’d write down what I’d done and why I’d done it, because when you write up your thesis you have to justify why you’ve gone in certain directions,” she said.

“Looking back on the diary helped me, particularly in the viva. I could use it to rationalise my decision not to approach it in a certain way.”

Dr Lindsay said she believed that “serial writing”, a term used by Rowena Murray in her book How to Write a Thesis , helped with the development of a thesis because you are not “just ‘telling’ knowledge, you’re ‘developing’ it”.

The second key factor she identified was a proactive supervisor who offered encouragement and feedback during the write-up.

“When you’re writing your thesis it’s very strange because you don’t know where the goalposts are. You can look at other examples of students’ theses, but it’s hard to figure out how your thesis needs to look. So your supervisor is key to guiding you towards what the end product should look like.”

Acknowledging that it was too simplistic to say “make sure you have a good supervisor”, she advised students to be “making and sustaining contact with your supervisor, particularly during write-up”.

“Then there are self-based factors: being motivated, organised, having self-discipline – strategies to understand how you work best,” she said. “Feeling overwhelmed” is common among PhD students, so breaking work into chunks can be a very productive approach.

“Having support and encouragement from friends and family and a good working environment are crucial too,” she added.

Immersing oneself in academic culture was a factor Dr Lindsay also rated highly. “At City we have an annual research symposium and students can present their work and talk about their research,” she said. “That’s so important because it not only prepares you for the viva, but it’s fun to do. Avoiding those offerings by universities is going to tempt you into isolation and wanting to leave the whole process. When you’re talking to other people, you’re getting new ideas and perspectives. It’s refreshing your isolated state of mind.”

Meanwhile, Dr Lindsay said that she was surprised at how few students had told her that they had “let their thesis fall by the wayside” because they had run out of money.

“A lot of the students went and sought part-time work anyway,” she said. “While they were writing they could have that part-time job as a distraction and it helped to structure the process. But being in full-time employment was a big no-no.”

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The done deal: Siân Lindsay’s top tips on finishing your thesis on time

• Continual writing during your research project is key; don’t leave writing to the very end, as then the task of writing your thesis may seem impossible. Remember that the very act of writing things down can help you develop your ideas.
• Making and sustaining supervisor contact and supervisory support is essential, especially when nearing the end.
• Immerse yourself in academic culture and get talking about your research at conferences and research symposia. It is worth trying to publish in a peer-reviewed journal. This will be a valuable confidence boost for your viva.
• Don’t get a full-time job, even if you are sorely tempted. However, a part-time job could work in your favour because it could help to structure your time, providing a break from unhelpful spells of isolation and giving you an anchor to the rest of the world.
• Support and understanding from friends and family is important. Talk to them about the challenges you may be experiencing, especially during the final stages.
• Find a writing-up environment that works best for you and minimises unhelpful distractions.
• Reflect on what drives you to write your thesis. Breaking the task into manageable chunks with self-imposed deadlines works well for most, and being organised is paramount.

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Tips for Completing Your PhD Thesis on Time

Completing a PhD course is undoubtedly one of the most fulfilling pursuits for academics. Recently, however, a new term arose: ABD (“All but Dissertation”). ABD refers to students who have completed their coursework and passed the exam, but have yet to complete and defend their theses. Indeed, ABD students are more common than previously thought. The PhD Completion Project revealed that the ten-year cumulative completion rate for PhD students ranges from 64% (engineering) to 49% (humanities). While not all students advance to the doctoral writing stage before dropping out, a significant portion do, based on these numbers. Leaving graduate school without finishing your thesis has psychological and occupational consequences. Completing your thesis on time is, therefore, essential for career advancement and personal growth.

Overcoming a Time Crunch

Being pressed for time will likely happen, especially if you are holding down a part-time job during your doctoral studies. The pressure to finish is greatest during the last year of your PhD and this is usually the time when conflicts and tensions arise. There are tips that can help you finish your PhD on time , even when you’re pressed for it.

• Prepare an action plan for your last year. This will help you optimize the time that you have left and avoid feeling overwhelmed by all the things that you have to do.
• Clarify your priorities. Ask yourself what you intend to finish first and stick to it. It may be helpful to break down your priorities into smaller and simpler tasks.
• “The truth can wait.” That is, it is vital to start writing your doctoral thesis once you have your data, even if more can be done.
• Know all the rules and regulations of the university. Prepare a list of all the documents and papers that you will need before you need them. This will help you avoid pitfalls in your last year.
• Familiarize yourself with software. Producing scientific documents entails the use of specific programs, such as LaTeX. While the program may not be as easy to understand as other editors, there are marked advantages such as ease in publication and faster manipulation of images.
• Pay attention to your career. While you may think that this is not the best time to think about your career , it is. Your career should follow suit after your doctoral studies, and focusing on what lies ahead will help you frame the current situation.

Key Tasks for Finishing Your PhD on Time

Finishing your PhD thesis on time is not as daunting as it sounds. Although many students will be pressed for time, completing your study is possible with a little ingenuity from your part.

• First, ensure that you meet all the PhD requirements set by your institution. Never presume anything without double-checking with your institution and your supervisor. This can save you from a lot of wasted time and stress.
• Keep a good perspective. Your peers are unlikely to read your thesis , but they are likely to read journals and articles resulting from it.
• Contrary to what most people say, your introduction should be written last. Breaking your thesis into defined stages is important for success. On that same note, your conclusion also should be written last.
• Get familiar with project management applications, such as Trello.
• Buy your own laser printer. This will save you from having to rush elsewhere to have your drafts printed. It will save you time and money as well.
• Get feedback on the entire thesis—from start to finish. Getting feedback for individual chapters is fine, but you should aim to get feedback on the entire work.
• “Begin with the end in mind.” Make sure you know when your doctoral studies are supposed to end, and when your work will be considered as done.

Planning and Writing Your Thesis

Breaking down your tasks into manageable blocks is one way to ensure that you actually finish the entire thing. There are plenty of techniques to help you along the way, such as the 25-minute Pomodoro for academic writing. Undoubtedly, writing your thesis is at least as hard as performing the actual study, but it is never impossible. With the right tools at your disposal and a positive mindset, you can finish your PhD on time. Below is a checklist of things that you need to do to get to graduation day.

• Draft your proposal and research design
• Acquire IRB consent
• Pilot study
• Gather data and information for your study
• Analyze your data
• Write, write, and write some more . Ideally, aim to write for a minimum of 30 minutes a day
• Defend your thesis

Completing your PhD paper on time is definitely possible. Knowing the tips and tricks of the trade can help you to get on your way towards a life in academia.

Thanks for the very useful article to complete the Ph.D. thesis before the deadline. The doctorate course is very difficult for the student so the student could not able to complete the work on time. But your article helps to finish the article to complete the work for the students.

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5 Tips on How to Finish your PhD Thesis in 8 Weeks

For many PhD students, the journey to complete their thesis can feel like running a never-ending marathon. Fortunately, with the right strategies and motivation, you can tackle the task of finishing your thesis in less than 8 weeks. In this blog post, we’ll give you 5 tips that will help you power through to the finish line. So lace up and get ready—your PhD is almost complete!

1. Establishing a Time Management Plan

For successful completion of a thesis, it is essential to establish a structured and efficient time management plan. Start by creating a timeline that is tailored to the topic being researched and goals that need to be met by the end of the eight-week period. Identify the tasks and steps that are needed to be completed including data collection, analysis, forming arguments, outlining main ideas, writing drafts and proofreading and make sure they fit logically in the timeline so you can refer back to it while completing the work.

Organize your workspace to help you stay on task. Small organizational tools like sticky notes or index cards can help quickly direct tasks when needed. Working with limited time also requires perseverance; stay focused on short-term goals rather than overwhelm yourself with long-term ones. Lastly, consider limiting distractions such as checking emails or messages or frequent social media breaks during your focus period; create designated off time for these activities which will help you allocate a more realistic amount of time for research and writing.

2. Utilizing Available Resources

A doctoral thesis can often seem like a mammoth task that is impossible to finish in 8 weeks or less. However, with careful planning, use of available resources and discipline, it is possible to complete an impressive thesis in a short period of time. In order to achieve this goal, here are five valuable tips:

• Take advantage of all the available resources: Many universities offer resources such as dedicated staff from the academic writing team and library services that can help reduce the amount of work you need to do. Make sure you’re taking advantage of what’s there so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
• Utilize online research platforms: Technology has made researching much easier and faster than ever before. Utilizing online research tools such as Google Scholar , Academic Search Engine Optimizer (SEO) and others will allow you to quickly find quality sources for your paper without spending time in libraries or digging through bookshelves for knowledge.
• Create a timeline: You’ll need an organized plan in order to write an effective dissertation in 8 weeks or less. Creating a timeline will help break up the work into manageable chunks that won’t overwhelm you and will make sure you stay on track throughout the writing process
• Stay organized with folders: Keeping folders for each section of your dissertation will help manage your content so it is easier for you to focus on writing when needed instead of rummaging through documents trying to locate something specific during key moments when time is precious

3. Developing a Writing Schedule

Developing a writing schedule is one of the most important things you can do when attempting to finish your PhD thesis in a short amount of time. This schedule should include all the components of writing and revision, from researching to creating an outline, drafting to editing. It should also account for activities like taking breaks and going for short walks or getting enough sleep.

Creating a well-defined timeline gives you something tangible that you can set goals around and helps ensure that your workflow is consistent, focused and maintained throughout your allotted time frame. Generally speaking, it’s wise to plan out how many hours per day you will devote to the process and how long each task will take. For example, if research takes two hours, drafting takes three hours and editing takes one hour, block out six hours in your schedule.

It helps if you find an accountability partner who can help keep you consistent in completing these tasks. Communication with your mentor/supervisor can also ensure that you’re staying on track. Creating deadlines and clear objectives for every task helps you stay focused until completion, thus staying ahead of schedule with your dissertation writing services .

Keep in mind that any unforeseen changes in your work can affect this timeline; plan extra time into each part of the process for unexpected setbacks or distractions. Additionally, give yourself permission to adjust tasks as needed when necessary — this could include taking breaks or revisiting topics that you did not fully understand previously — so that your progress stays on track as best it can.

4. Eliminating Distractions

First, set aside an uninterrupted period of time where you will only be working on your thesis and nothing else. Make sure that your study space is distraction-free and comfortable. If you feel too comfortable, like in bed or on the sofa, do not work there since working in those environments may tempt you to take naps instead of staying productive. Establish a strict routine where you set limits over Internet use, TV viewing and other activities that can easily distract you from concentrating on your work. Give yourself regular breaks and reward yourself after completing tasks or chapters. Create a timeline and plan when tasks need to be completed so that you don’t fall behind schedule. You can also seek help from writing professionals if you feel overwhelmed at any point in the process.

5. Completing the Final Touches

Once you have finished the bulk of your PhD thesis writing, there are several fine-tuning aspects that need to be considered in order to make sure that your paper is a polished and professional piece of work. This can often be the most time-consuming part of the process, but it is essential for submitting a high-quality document for examination. Here are five tips that may help you make those final touches:

• Proofread thoroughly: Make sure to check for grammar, spelling, punctuation and typos; consistently run spell checks and proofread multiple times. If possible, ask someone else to review your document as well.
• Neaten up the formatting: Pay attention to layout and make sure all pages are consistent with regard to font type, margin size and structure of headings/subheadings; include page numbers as well as references at the end of each section or chapter.
• Consider adding figures/diagrams: Review your text again; if appropriate – visuals (e.g. diagrams) can often assist in explaining complicated topics/concepts more succinctly than written text alone – though ensure accuracy where appropriate in any accompanying text as sometimes images take readers away from the main message being relayed.
• Update your existing bibliography: Add new sources gathered during data analysis or from other recent research (if applicable) – be precise with any references added; include full source details without fail so that readers can find information easily if desired; it may help to use a referencing software like EndNote or Zotero in order to save time when updating your bibliography entries quickly.
• Check file format specifications: It is essential that any specified format across all sections of your thesis adheres meticulously – these might include saving all pages on A4 paper size using appropriate margins (eg 12 pt Times New Roman); save documents correctly (.docx or .pdf) when sending files electronically; request advice on hard copy submission methods too if required – eg providing a printed copy versus binding specifics etc).

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What to do with your finished thesis

Introduction.

So you have recently finished writing your thesis or dissertation – huge congratulations! What’s next? How can you make the most of your thesis? If you’ve done a good job researching your topic, now it’s time to take steps to ensure your thesis will not end up in a drawer and will instead see the world. How can you do that?

We want to help you make the most of the value you’ve created with your research and get recognition for your hard work, so we’ve put together some ideas about how you can get your research out there.

Publishing your research on our website

Firstly, if you have worked on a topic related to some of our recommended research directions, you might be interested in publishing your research on our Finished Theses page so others can read your research and learn from your experience of writing your thesis or dissertation. If you’re interested in this option, please message [email protected] .

This option does not exclude the others below, since you do not need to publish the full text of your thesis on our website, just your ‘Author’s note’ and a message that people can reach out to you if they want to read the full text. Therefore, we would recommend reaching out to us to have your thesis published on our website even if you consider some of the other options below. We would love to hear from you and share your work with others.

Publishing a post on the EA Forum

If you have worked on a topic related to some of our recommended research directions, we also recommend publishing part of your research or learnings on the Effective Altruism Forum . If you’re not already familiar with the EA Forum, it’s the central place for collaborative discussion in the EA community – a community of people interested in using evidence and reason to do as much good as possible.

Why publish on the EA Forum?

If your research is related to one of our recommended research directions, this means you wrote on a topic that many people in the EA community likely will be interested in, as it’s a topic on which further research is particularly likely to improve the world. So the EA Forum is a place where you’re likely to get engagement and feedback.

How could sharing your research help you and others?

Posting on the EA Forum could help you connect with other talented, motivated people who are also interested in the topic you did your research on. You could connect with future collaborators, organisations who might want to hire you, people whose work could benefit if they know about your research, and others who could give you feedback and ideas for future research.

Here is an encouraging talk by Aaron Gertler, who moderates the EA Forum, on Why you (yes, you) should post on the EA Forum (our tips below are taken from this talk). Posting on the EA forum would mean summarising your main learnings from your thesis, so this could be compatible with the other options mentioned in this post such as publishing your research on our website or in an academic journal (since for each of these channels you would probably use slightly different text/parts of your thesis).

How do I write a good forum post?

Start by considering what you most want to get out of posting on the Forum. You could summarise  the parts of your work which encapsulate your best ideas or the main parts you are uncertain about in order to get feedback on them. For inspiration, we recommend reading through Aaron’s advice for posting on the EA Forum . We’ve summarised some of these tips on how to construct a good EA Forum post from your research below.

Beginning your post

Begin in a way that quickly gives readers context on what your post will be about.

• Write a brief summary of the key points of your post (a few sentences or bullet points).. This lets readers more easily figure out whether they want to invest time in reading the post, and lets you draw attention to a few key points (action items, counterintuitive ideas, etc.).
• Further points you could address in this top section are why you have written the post and how confident you are in your results.
• For examples of posts with nice ‘top of the post’- sections see this , this or this post.

The main part

• Be concise. Explain what is necessary to convey the points you would like to make and leave out anything that (even though very interesting) does not do that job. Provide a link to your full thesis or dissertation, or if it isn’t publicly accessible, consider providing your email address and let people know they can reach out to you if they would like access to the full version.
• It is okay to be more informal here – remember you’re explaining your ideas to a friendly community. Think about how you would explain your points to a friend without losing much precision and clarity.
• Consider that people with no background in your field will see your post.Think about whether you want to make the post accessible to people with no background in your field or if you want to only address people working in this field.

After you publish

Are there any questions you’d like readers to answer for you? If so, try putting each question in a separate comment at the end of the post. This makes it easier to coordinate discussion around certain questions. 

Getting further advice

You could join the EA Editing and Review Facebook group to get feedback before publishing your post on the Forum.

Publishing in a peer-reviewed journal

You could also publish a paper based on your research in a peer-reviewed journal. This is one way to get more people to see your research, contributing to global scientific knowledge. It’s great career enhancement if you want a research career or to apply for a PhD. It’s also a way of getting feedback from reviewers and teaching you more about the academic publishing process. Sometimes supervisors will help you publish your work or publish with you. This is an opportunity you should take if it’s available. Publishing is a lot easier if someone with a more established reputation is the co-author of your paper.

The publishing process

Here is a brief summary of the process for publishing in a journal, along with a few other resources:

Finding a journal 

The first strategic decision you will have to make is to select suitable journals. The resources below can help you evaluate journals using relevant criteria.

• JournalGuide and Jane are sites that suggest suitable journals based on your abstract, title or keywords.
• Here are some journal selection tips
• Here is an article on the impact factor , which is one factor you may want to use when selecting a journal to publish in.

Prepare your paper for submission

Every journal has specific guidelines with which you need to conform. Transforming your research into a paper will take some time. The resources below should help you with this writing process.

• Get published quick guide from Researcher Academy 
• Thoughts on which audiences to address from Stuart Armstrong
• Your one-stop resource to writing a great research paper from editage insights

Submit and revise

In most cases you simply upload your final paper online. Your paper will be peer reviewed and either be rejected, accepted or most likely before acceptance you will be asked to revise your paper and include feedback from reviewers.

Here are a few additional resources to help you understand the whole publishing process further: 

• How to Publish a Research Paper from wikiHow
• Online course: Free Research Academy by Elsevier
• How to get your research published and then noticed by Elsevier

Types of journals and publishing fees

Different types of journals use different business models. Open Access journals  make money from charging authors (you) a large article processing fee (APC) of up to 4000$, with an average of approximately 2000$ per article. The benefit is that everyone can access your research without barriers.

On the other hand, subscription-based journals earn money from their readers, who pay for reading the journal regularly. This means that it is cheaper and sometimes free for authors to publish there. You will also find hybrid models.

You should also look at journals that do not use any common business model. Here are some no-fee open access journals  and here is another collection of journals where you can submit without fees, however, these are often less established (unless subscription based) and there may be some risk involved. Beware of predatory journals and check whether the journal you’re interested in is legitimate before publishing with them. Think, Check, Submit supports you in avoiding journals which exploit inexperienced researchers and these lists can help you identify predatory journals.

Another class of journals are student journals . There are a handful of journals which publish student research . This is usually free (or you may need to pay a small processing cost) and it is easier to get published, however these journals are not as well known, so you may want to try established journals first. 

How to cover the cost of publishing in open access journals

• Apply for help from your university: Universities usually have funds to which members of the university can apply to cover the cost of open access publishing. There’s a list of open access publication funds here . Universities also sometimes have “deals” with publishers, giving you the opportunity to publish for free in some open access journals. You could also try asking your supervisor whether your university offers either of these. 
• Waivers: Some publishers waive fees (partly or fully) for low-income/lower-middle-income countries, and sometimes for other reasons, although this is not a widespread practice. Here and here are two examples of such policies.

Publishing on a pre-print platform

Pre-print platforms allow you to quickly publish a final draft of your research paper, before it has gone through the often lengthy process of peer-review and being published in an academic journal. While the papers on a pre-print platform have not gone through a peer-review process, there are advantages to pre-prints, both to you as an individual researcher and to the research community, so this is an option we encourage you to explore.

Publishing to a pre-print platform can be useful for reasons such as:

• Providing evidence of your research output for grant applications
• Informing others about your findings as soon as possible so they know what research has already been done
• Establishing scientific priority for discoveries
• Making it easier for other researchers to read and cite your research, and the platforms are open access
• Allowing you to receive feedback from a wide range of researchers, helping you to improve the manuscript

Before you publish in a pre-print journal, however, check the submission guidelines of the peer-reviewed journals you will ultimately try to publish in. Some journals will consider preprints to be prior publications and this may harm your ability to publish your paper later.

Here are some pre-print journals you may want to consider:

• bioRxiv for biology
• Arxiv for physics, maths and computer science
• The Open Science Framework for medicine and health sciences
• Preprints.org , the multidisciplinary preprint platform

Applying for prizes and awards

Prizes and awards give you another kind of validation and recognition of your work and are a good thing to put on your CV to increase your career prospects both within academia and outside. Some awards may come with the opportunity to present your paper at a conference, and can result in you becoming part of a network of other researchers.

Bear in mind that submitting a paper to a journal and submitting it for awards are sometimes mutually exclusive – check the submission requirements for any awards and journals to which you want to submit your research.

What can I apply for?

We have a list of awards here and also encourage you to apply for our Effective Thesis Exceptional Research Award . You can also sign up to our newsletter to hear about awards related to your research direction.

Your next steps and staying in touch

If you continue to pursue an academic career, we can offer you further support. Please do not hesitate to reach out , for example if you want guidance on choosing a PhD programme or a supervisor. Also don’t forget about our database of potential supervisors and PhD funding database . It might also be helpful to you to hear about relevant internships, scholarships, research job offers, conferences and other interesting opportunities via our ECRON newsletter . Finally, we would also very much recommend joining our online community of students who are interested in the research directions we recommend, so you can create new connections, learn from others’ experiences and share what you learned during your research journey.

If you’ve had a positive experience with a supervisor who you think would be a good fit to supervise students working on at least one of our research directions, please let us know via this form . If you completed a PhD and would be interested in supporting students working in your area of expertise yourself, you could also apply to join our expert network . Our experts provide valuable guidance to students – they might help students identify most important and impactful open research questions, offer feedback on a research proposal or student’s ideas, or provide ongoing mentorship throughout the thesis-writing process – the role is very flexible and you can choose the level of commitment.

Congratulations on your finished research and good luck with whatever next steps you take!

Read next: Testing your fit for a research career →

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Could your research findings inform the decisions of stakeholders outside of academia? In this post we cover who you could reach out to and how to make your research more accessible.

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Pursuing a PhD, working in a think tank and finding a research role in industry are just some of the options you could explore. 

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Home · Article · 20 Tips to help you finish your dissertation

20 Tips to help you finish your dissertation

  i haven’t met many ph.d. students who don’t like to write. some may like writing more than others, but most enjoy writing—or, at least, the satisfaction of having written. wherever you find yourself on the love-for-writing spectrum, a dissertation awaits completion, and you must finish. here are a few tips to help you. 1. write sooner. the….

I haven’t met many Ph.D. students who don’t like to write. Some may like writing more than others, but most enjoy writing—or, at least, the satisfaction of having written. Wherever you find yourself on the love-for-writing spectrum, a dissertation awaits completion, and you must finish. Here are a few tips to help you.

1. Write sooner.  The dissertation writing process can quickly become paralyzing because of its size and importance. It is a project that will be reviewed rigorously by your advisor and your committee, and your graduation depends on your successful completion and defense. Facing these realities can be daunting and tempt you to wait until you can determine that you’ve researched or thought enough about the topic. Yet, the longer you delay writing, the more difficult it will be to actually start the process. The answer to your paralysis is to start writing .  Are you unsure of your argument or not fully convinced you have done the requisite research? You may be right: your argument may not be airtight, and you may need to do more reading; but you will be able to determine to what degree these problems need attention when you start writing. Productivity begets productivity, and you will be amazed at how arguments take shape and the direction of your research is forged as you write.

2. Write continually.  So, don’t stop writing. Of course, you need to continue to read and study and take notes—I will talk about this more in a moment—but it is best if you keep the gears from grinding to a halt. Keep your mind working and your project moving. Your assignment is not to turn in a hundred pages of notes to your supervisor—you must produce a dissertation with complete sentences and paragraphs and chapters.  Keep writing.

3. Write in order to rewrite.  Writing sooner and writing continually can only happen if you aren’t consumed with perfection. Some of us are discouraged from writing because we think our first draft needs to be our final draft. But this is exactly the problem. Get your thoughts on paper and plan to go back and fix awkward sentences, poor word choices, and illogical or unsubstantiated arguments in your subsequent drafts.  Knowing that rewriting is part of the writing process will free you to write persistently, make progress, and look forward to fixing things later.

4. Spend adequate time determining your thesis and methodology.  This probably could fit in the number one slot, but I wanted to emphasize the importance writing right away. Besides, you might find that you modify your thesis and methodology slightly as you write and make progress in developing your overall argument. Nevertheless, the adage is true: form a solid thesis and methodology statement and your dissertation will “write itself.” Plan to spend some time writing and rewriting and rewriting (again) your thesis and methodology statements so that you will know where you are going and where you need to go.

5. If you get stuck, move to another section.  Developing a clear thesis and methodology will allow you to move around in your dissertation when you get stuck. Granted, we should not make a habit of avoiding difficult tasks, but there are times when it will be a more effective use of time to move to sections that will write easy. As you continue to make progress in your project and get words on paper, you will also help mitigate the panic that so often looms over your project when you get stuck and your writing ceases.

6.  Fight the urge to walk away from writing when it gets difficult.  Having encouraged you to move to another section when you get stuck, it is also important to add a balancing comment to encourage you to fight through the tough spots in your project. I don’t mean that you should force writing when it is clear that you may need to make some structural changes or do a little more research on a given topic. But if you find yourself dreading a particular portion of your dissertation because it will require some mind-numbing, head-on-your-desk, prayer-producing rigor, then my advice is to face these tough sections head on and sit in your chair until you make some progress. You will be amazed at how momentum will grow out of your dogged persistence to hammer out these difficult portions of your project.

7.  Strive for excellence but remember that this is not your magnum opus.  A dissertation needs to be of publishable quality and it will need to past the muster of your supervisor and committee. But it is also a graduation requirement. Do the research. Make a contribution. Finish the project. And plan to write your five-volume theology when you have 30-40 more years of study, reflection, and teaching under your belt.

8.  Take careful notes.  Taking careful notes is essential for two reasons. First, keeping a meticulous record of the knowledge you glean from your research will save you time: there will be no need to later revisit your resources and chase bibliographic information, and you will find yourself less prone to the dreaded, “Where did I read that?” Second, and most importantly, you will avoid plagiarism.  If you fail to take good notes and are not careful to accurately copy direct quotes and make proper citations, you will be liable to reproducing material in your dissertation that is not original with you. Pleading that your plagiarism was inadvertent will not help your cause. It is your responsibility to take careful notes and attribute all credit to whom it is due through proper citation.

9.  Know when to read.  Write sooner, write continually, and write in order to rewrite. But you need to know when you are churning an empty barrel. Reading and research should be a stimulus to write and you need to know when that stimulus is needed. Be willing to stop writing for a short period so that you can refresh your mind with new ideas and research.

10. Establish chunks of time to research and write.  While it is important to keep writing and make the most of the time that you have, it is best for writing projects specifically to set aside large portions of time with which to write. Writing requires momentum, and momentum gathers over time. Personally, I have found that I need at least an hour to get things rolling, and that three to four hours is ideal.

Related: Learn more about our Research Doctoral Studies Degrees ( D.Miss., Ed.D., Th.M., Ph.D). See also the Doctoral Studies viewbook .

11.  Get exercise, adequate sleep, and eat well.  Because our minds and bodies are meant to function in harmony, you will probably find that your productivity suffers to the degree that you are not giving attention to your exercise, sleep, and eating habits.  Like it or not, our ability to maintain long periods of sustained concentration, think carefully over our subject matter, and find motivation to complete tasks is dependent in a significant sense upon how we are caring for our bodies.  When we neglect exercise, fail to get adequate sleep, or constantly indulge in an unhealthy diet, we will find it increasingly difficult to muster the energy and clarity with which to complete our dissertation.

12.  Stay on task.  Completing a dissertation, in large measure, is not so much a feat of the intellect as it is the result of discipline. If you are able to set aside large chunks of time with which to research and write, make sure that you are not using that time for other tasks. This means that you must strive against multi-tasking. In truth, studies have shown that multi-tasking is a cognitive impossibility.  Our brains can only concentrate on one thing at a time.  When we think we are multitasking we are actually “switch-tasking;” rather than doing several things at once, our brains are constantly toggling from one task to the other (listening to a song on the radio to reading a book, back to the song, etc.). You will be amazed at how much you can accomplish if you give an undistracted 60-90 minutes to something. Stay on task.

13.  Don’t get stuck on introductions.  This is a basic writing principle, but one that bears repeating here: write the body of a given chapter or section and then return to the introductions. It is usually easier to introduce something that you have already written for the simple fact that you now know what you are introducing. You might be tempted to write the introduction first and labor to capture your reader with a gripping illustration or perfect quote while refusing to enter into the body of your paper until your preliminary remarks are flawless. This is a sure recipe for frustration. Wait until you have completed a particular section or chapter’s content until you write introductions. This practice will save you time and loads of trouble.

14.  Use a legal pad.  There’s nothing magic about a legal pad; my only aim here is to encourage you to push back from the keyboard occasionally and stimulate your mind by sketching your argument and writing your ideas by hand. I have found my way out of many dry spells by closing the laptop for a few minutes and writing on a piece of paper. I might bullet point a few key ideas, diagram my chapter outlines, or sketch the entire dissertation with boxes and arrows and notes scribbled over several pages.

15.  Go on walks.  It has been  said recently that walking promotes creativity . I agree. Whether you like to walk among the trees or besides the small coffee shops along quaint side streets, I recommend that you go on walks and think specifically about your dissertation. You might find that the change of scenery, the stimulus of a bustling community, or the refreshing quiet of a park trail is just the help you need.

16.  Make use of a capture journal.  In order to make the most of your walks, you will need a place to “capture” your ideas. You may prefer to use the voice memo or notepad feature on your smartphone, or, if you’re like me,   a small 2.5”x4” lined journal . Whatever your preference, find a method that allows you to store your ideas as they come to you during your walks or as you fall to sleep at night. I wonder how many useful ideas many of us have lost because we failed to write them down? Don’t let this happen to you. Resolve to be a good steward of your thinking time and seize those thoughts.

17.  Talk about your ideas with others.  When you are writing your dissertation, you might be tempted to lock away your ideas and avoid discussing them with others. This is unwise. Talking with others about your ideas helps you to refine and stimulate your thinking; it also creates opportunities for you to learn of important resources and how your contribution will affect other branches of scholarship. Also, as people ask questions about your project, you will begin to see where your argument is unclear or unsubstantiated.

18.  Learn how to read.  Writing a dissertation requires a massive amount of reading. You must become familiar with the arguments of several hundred resources—books, articles, reviews, and other dissertations. What will you do? You must learn how to read. Effective reading does not require that you read every book word-for-word, cover-to-cover. Indeed, sometimes very close reading of a given volume may actually impede your understanding of the author’s argument. In order to save time and cultivate a more effective approach to knowledge acquisition, you must learn how to use your resources. This means knowing when to read a book or article closely, and knowing when to skim. It means knowing how to read large books within a matter of an hour by carefully reviewing the table of contents, reading and rereading key chapters and paragraphs, and using the subject index. If you want to finish your dissertation, learn how to read.

19.  Set deadlines.  Depending on your project, you may have built in deadlines that force you to produce material at a steady clip. If you do not have built in deadlines, you must impose them on yourself.  Deadlines produce results, and results lead to completed writing projects.  Set realistic deadlines and stick to them.  You will find that you are able to accomplish much more than you anticipated if you set and stick to deadlines.

20.  Take productive breaks.  Instead of turning to aimless entertainment to fill your break times, try doing something that will indirectly serve your writing process. We need breaks: they refresh us and help us stay on task. In fact, studies have shown that overall productivity diminishes if employees are not allowed to take regular, brief pauses from their work during the day. What is not often mentioned, however, is that a break does not necessarily have to be unrelated to our work in order to be refreshing; it needs only to be different from what we were just doing. So, for example, if you have been writing for 90 minutes, instead of turning on YouTube to watch another mountain biking video, you could get up, stretch, and pull that book off the shelf you’ve been wanting to read, or that article that has been sitting in  Pocket  for the past six weeks. Maybe reorganizing your desk or taking a walk (see above) around the library with your capture journal would be helpful. Whatever you choose, try to make your breaks productive.

Derek J. Brown  is an M.Div and Ph.D graduate of Southern Seminary and is currently serving as pastoral assistant at  Grace Bible Fellowship  of Silicon Valley overseeing their young adult ministry,  Grace Campus Ministries , mid-week Bible studies, website, and social media.  He is also an adjunct professor of Christian Theology at Southern Seminary. This article was originally published on his blog  www.derekjamesbrown.com . Follow Derek on twitter at  @DerekBrown24 .

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You Can’t Avoid Finishing Your Thesis If You Follow These Steps

October 10, 2021 by Dora Farkas, PhD 8 Comments

Finishing Your Thesis When You Believe You Can’t

When it comes to finishing your thesis, the last couple of months (or years) are a mental challenge of persistence and commitment:

“How do I force myself to write, when I can’t stand looking at my thesis anymore?”

“I feel so guilty dragging my whole family down with this thesis writing, and I don’t even know when I’ll be done.”

“No matter how much I do, there is always more. Will this EVER end?”

I have seen this cycle hundreds of times.

You start working on your thesis, pick up momentum, make progress, and then you hit a dead-end, or open a can of worms.

Something that was supposed to take 2 days, takes 2 weeks or 1 month.

You feel guilty, maybe even ashamed.

“Why can’t I just get this DONE? Everyone else is finishing up, what’s wrong with me?”

You want to give up, but you are too far along to throw all this time and money away.

So you sit down and start working, and you feel like you are on track until (for one reason or another), you fall off the wagon.

This cycle can happen 10, 20 or 50 times

The bad news is that each time you go through the cycle you get more frustrated, angry, bitter, resentful, and doubtful that will ever graduate.

After repeated disappointments, you really start believing that you will never finish your thesis.

You can’t even imagine what your life would be like without worrying about your thesis.

So, what’s the good news?

The good news is that you have what it takes to finish your thesis.

Once you recognize that you are in this cycle you can break the habits that feed the cycle.

I have seen hundreds of desperate grad students make slight changes to their daily habits and finish your thesis more quickly than they had expected – without working longer hours.

You can be one of these students too.

The only thing standing between you and finishing your thesis is your self-confidence.

That’s right: it’s not just about your time or your thesis supervisor or your thesis committee.

When you have self-confidence and know beyond the shadow of any doubt that you have what it takes to finish your thesis, you can leap over  obstacles. 

“But, how I can be confident when I am way behind?,” you may be asking.

Here is something you may not have known:

Your self-confidence has nothing to do with how successful you are.

You would be surprised at how many over-achieving students, who have published extensively, have very little self-confidence.

They may think that they just got “lucky” when their papers were accepted, and they tremble at the thought of presenting their work at their next committee meeting.

On the other hand, there are students who have encountered every obstacle you can think of: dead-end projects, change of supervisor (if their previous supervisor moved), limited funding, family commitments, personal challenges, but they are still confident that they will find a way to finish their thesis.

Who decides how confident you are?

Self-confidence is the antidote to the stress, anxiety, and writer’s block that are holding you back now.

You can be confident no matter what.

Your self-confidence does not have to be shaken up after realizing that you messed up (again) or that you just lost 6 months of work.

I know, because this happened to me.

I was supervising an undergraduate student, and after we had been collecting data for 6 months we realized that the labels on bottles used in the experiments had been switched.

Six months of work…literally down the drain.

I expected my supervisor to be very disappointed in me for not noticing this earlier, and wasting so many lab resources.

Instead, he put his hand on my shoulder and said:

“Dora, have you seen the sign on my door that says: Crisis = Danger + Opportunity? Now you know why it’s there. You just learned one of the most valuable lessons about mentoring others.”

On a scale of 0 to 10, my self-confidence went from a 0 to a 20 in that instant.

There was no way to save the data we had generated previously, but I could change the way I mentored students.

Needless to day, my undergrad student felt very guilty too, but we rewrote the protocol to minimize the chances of mistakes in the future.

In fact, after this experience, we developed a deeper level of trust, which helped us to turn the data we generated later on into one of the chapters in my thesis (and a publication).

Your self-confidence is your most important asset in grad school.

Without it, you will feel like a victim.

With it, you will become unstoppable, and you thesis will be DONE too.

5 Steps that Will Inevitably Lead to Finishing Your Thesis

Step #1: get a crystal clear vision of what is expected from you.

It is impossible to hit a target that you don’t have, yet that is what many grad students try to do.

They plan on graduating in 6 or 12 months, but when I ask them what they need to do to finish their thesis they reply something like:

“I am not entirely sure…” or “I haven’t brought it up with my committee…”

I know how intimidating it can be to have the “talk” with your supervisor or stand in front of a committee.

But isn’t the uncertainty of your future more intimidating?

How can you plan on finishing your thesis if you don’t know what to do?

By definition, research is uncertain, and the requirements for your thesis will change as you collect and analyze data.

However, you can only adjust your trajectory when you are in motion.

You cannot make adjustments if you are standing still.

You need a vision, a starting point, that will help you to pick up momentum in your thesis.

What if you thesis supervisor or committee is evasive, and you cannot get a clear answer?

Then, go to step 2 below.

Step #2: Don’t take “not now” for an answer from your thesis supervisor or committee

It is never too early to get clear on the requirements for finishing your thesis.

I worked with several students who, for personal or financial reasons, had to finish their thesis in 4 years in a department where the average time to graduate was 6-7 years.

How could these students finish their thesis  so “quickly”?

They weren’t smarter, nor did they work longer hours than their peers.

What set them apart from other students was a sense of urgency, because they had a firm deadline for their thesis.

These students started thinking about the requirements for their thesis in their first year.

They didn’t take “not now” for an answer if their supervisor was too busy to meet with them.

They were persistent starting on day 1, and got clear on the requirements even as they had to make adjustments along the way.

While I did not have a similar sense of urgency, I had to apply this principle in my last semester as well.

I had three very busy professors in my committee and  there was literally only 1 hour during the entire month of April when they could all meet for my final committee meeting. 

They gave me the green light to defend, but then I needed their signatures on my thesis so I could submit it officially.

It took me several weeks of persistent follow-ups (by email, phone, and in person), until I got all three signatures – just a few days before the final deadline!

I couldn’t take “not now” for an answer if they were too busy.

I needed a signature from each one of them so I wouldn’t need to stay in school for an extra semester.

You may feel guilty about taking up your professor’s time, especially if you need to “hunt them down.”

But, keep in mind that it is also in their interest that you do good work and produce publishable research.

Also remember that being persistent does not mean that you have to be rude.

You can be “politely persistent” until they give you the answer, feedback or mentoring you need.

Or, if you already have all the help you need, you are ready for step 3.

Step #3: rise and grind daily.

I wish there was a nicer way of saying this, but there isn’t.

There is no substitute for taking action daily.

If you working full-time or if you have a family, then working on your thesis daily may seem impossible.

It isn’t.

I work with students who have multiple jobs, or several kids, yet they found a way to work on their thesis everyday.

They didn’t necessarily work on it for hours, but they made a commitment to work on it at least a little bit every single day.

So, what is a “little bit” of time that you need to commit to your thesis daily?

It depends – the closer you are to finishing it, the more time you need to spend on it.

However, there is something magical about devoting at least 15 minutes a day to your thesis.

No matter how busy you are you can always find 15 minutes somewhere during your day.

It may be first thing in the morning, during your lunch hour at work, or in the evening (instead of TV or social media).

Why 15 minutes?

Fifteen minutes is long enough that if you are focused you can make measurable progress (write several paragraphs), but it is a short amount of time,  so it seems doable every day.

Spending only 15 minutes a day on your thesis will probably not get you very far in the long run.

Most students with jobs or families spent at least 15 minutes a day on their thesis during the week, and then a longer block of time on the weekend.

So, what’s the point of these short work sessions during the week (5 x 15 minutes is barely more than 1 hour)?

The point of daily commitment is continuity.

Continuity helps you to pick up where you left off, so that you don’t have to spend 15-30 minutes trying to figure out what you are supposed to be doing.

When you spend at least a little time on your thesis every day, you get more creative, more ideas, and more insights that will help you to resolve problems that may have seemed impossible before.

Step #4  Focus on results, no “to-do”s

Do you feel like you are being pulled in 47 different directions each week?

Most grad students (and people in general), operate from a to-do list.

They write down all the work and non-related things that “should” do, but they give little thought to the tangible result they want to see.

When you let a “to-do” list run your life, you will always feel exhausted, and playing catch up.

In fact, the more to-do’s you cross off your list, the more to-do’s you realize you need to get done.

As long as you live your life by a to-do list, you can’t win, no matter how efficient you are.

It’s time to try something new.

Instead of following a to-do list and cramming as much as possible into each day, write down what is the end result that you want.

For example, instead of writing in your calendar “Work on slides for committee meeting”, write “Create an outstanding presentation for committee meeting to show them that my data is solid, and I am ready to move onto the next phase  of my research.”

Then, you can list the actions necessary to achieve that result.

An action plan with a well-defined goal for finishing your thesis is much more motivating than a random list of chores.

With a results-oriented action plan you will be able to prioritize better and take the actions that will help you to make the most progress in your thesis.

After all, you don’t want to become a slave to your to-list – you just want a finished your thesis!

Step #5 Soak up the energy you need from a support group

The number one complaint of grad students is that they feel isolated and lost their motivation to do work.

In college there are support groups in the form of study groups, office hours, and the residential community.

In graduate school many student do not have any type of support.

First-year students usually start out with enthusiasm, but due to lack of accountability they lose track of time and fall behind on their milestones.

In contrast, the students who did join a support group thought that being part of a community was one of the best ways to  keep themselves motivated.

There is no shame in getting support, whether it is academic or emotional support to help you focus on finishing your thesis.

Don’t take my word for it.

The #1 advice from PhDs for graduate students for finishing your thesis is to join a support group.

The more people you “worry” with, the more perspectives you get and the smaller your problems seem.

When you live in your own head you can blow a minor issue out of proportion.

Suddenly, taking off two days from work because you didn’t feel well may seem like a huge setback until you hear from others that what you are going through is normal for a graduate student.

There will be times when you feel so burnt out that you will not want to work for weeks.

Or, you may start doubting the point of grad school when you don’t know what you’ll do afterwards.

Without a context, these situations can rob you of your self-confidence and your motivation.

How could you be motivated when you identify yourself as “lazy” and think there is no point in finishing your thesis anyway?

You can sort out these sticky situations by sharing with others, especially graduate students who are going through similar experiences, and feel better about your experience in grad school.

So if you are wondering how to get motivated to write a thesis, when you would rather do anything else, a support group with  other graduate students is one of the best resources.

Just knowing that you are not the only one going through these tribulations, can already take most of the pressure off that has been keeping you from being motivated to work on your thesis.

No one writes their thesis alone. Get support. You have what it takes.

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Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article Paperback – Large Print, December 28, 2012

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• Part of series Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing
• Print length 288 pages
• Language English
• Publication date December 28, 2012
• Dimensions 7.75 x 0.65 x 10 inches
• ISBN-10 1459605551
• ISBN-13 978-1459605558
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Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ ReadHowYouWant; 16th ed. edition (December 28, 2012)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1459605551
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1459605558
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.25 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.75 x 0.65 x 10 inches
• #820 in Social Sciences Reference
• #6,496 in Writing Skill Reference (Books)
• #10,132 in Fiction Writing Reference (Books)

About the author

Howard s. becker.

I was born in Chicago, IL on April 18, 1928. Went to the Robert Emmet grammar school in Austin (a neighborhood of Chicago, and to two years of high school at Austin High School before starting, in 1943, as a freshman in the University of Chicago College, which I graduated from in 1946. I got a master's degree in sociology from Chicago in 1949 and a Ph. D, in 1951. I kicked around as what was then called a "research bum" for 14 years, doing research on marijuana use, medical students and college students, until I became Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University in 1965. I left there in 1991 to join the faculty of the University of Washington in Seattle, and retired from Washington in 1999. SInce then I've lived in San Francisco and now spend about three months a year in Paris as well.I've received a number of honorary degrees (from the Université de Paris 8, Université Pierre-Mendes France (Grenoble, France), Erasmus University (Rotterdam, Netherlands), and École Normal Superiure (Lyon, France).

As many people know, I was a professional piano player-in bars, strip joints, etc.--for some years before becoming an academic, and I continued to play for many years. That has showed up in my research and writing in a number of ways, most recently in the book I co-authored with Robert R. Faulkner called "Do You Know . . . ? The Jazz Repertoire in Action."

You can get more information and access to many of my articles on my web page: http://home.earthlink.net/~hsbecker/

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