How to Focus on Writing a Dissertation Text

Jonathan Friesen - Writing Coach

dear dissertation diva, i am supposed to be writing, but every time i try to set aside time, i get antsy. Instead of writing, i check my email 1,0 times or get up to make tea, or play with the cats. Bottom line, how can i get focused enough to actually write something?! sincerely, hyper girl with a touch of add hyper girl: the dictum that the way to write your dissertation is to spread crazy glue on your chair and sit down until you have 300 pages does not work for energetic, add addled smart people like yourself. While i cannot diagnose or treat add or other disorders my lawyer makes me say that , as a dissertation coach, i can identify challenges and craft personalized strategies to help your particular situation. Working from home, as indicated by getting up to make tea and play with the cats 2.

May i offer you three interrelated solutions? first of all, dissertate outside the home. Coffeeshop, university library, public library, rented office, or shared office space at your department. Disable your wireless connection, unplug your modem, and/or work from a place with no internet access whatsoever. Third, exercise and socialize before and after dissertation work sessions. Integrating these three strategies into your day might look something like this: in the morning, bring your laptop and notes, ride your bike to your favorite gym/karate/yoga/swim class, and work out hard.

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Eat a healthy snack, then ride your bike to your chosen dissertation work place, which allows you no internet. If you're in city with free wireless connections bouncing off all the buildings, then literally disable your connection. Another idea is to work from a cafe that requires you to pay for wireless internet access i.e. So now you are too tired to want to run around, glad to be sitting after all that biking and exercising, nowhere near your cats, and you can't even check your email! darn! what are you going to do now? if you are still wondering how do i start? i will be talking more about writing strategies later on in the blog. End your day with plans with friends! invite them over, cook dinner together, play with your cats, and make endless cups of herbal tea. Fun with friends will give you human interaction, something to look forward to while you are in the coffee shop or library drafting dissertation notes. You can promise yourself that you can talk about everything else besides how your dissertation is going.

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Whether its e mails, hunting down additional resources on the net, fixing a software issue to make writing easier, you name it, all of these things can keep us from our real goals of creating good drafts of sections or chapters in our dissertation. You would be surprised how much you can get done when you have 3 4 straight hours of free, uninterrupted time.  those unannounced e mails can be monumental time killers.  whats more, they interrupt the flow of your thinking. Lets face it, were not that important, and being unplugged is probably something we all need a little more of 2 turn off your wireless connection this would take care of your e mail problem as well, but it is a separate issue.  having your wireless on just gives you permission to start tracking something down on the internet that you feel you need at the moment.

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Again, nothing is that critical.  just make a note in your text make it a different color if need be that lets you know what book, author, idea or content is so important.  gather those up at the end of the day and track them down all at once.  the goal is to keep thinking and writing. 3 give yourself permission to just write it has been said that the best writing is simply rewriting.  there is a lot of truth to that.  if you start with a good outline, sometimes your best bet for cranking out some good content is to write ideas freely without care for grammar, punctuation, choosing the right word or organizing every last thought. It doesnt have to be perfect the first or second time out.  what is important is that you begin to sort out the main ideas and to make the connections between sections.

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In addition, when you finally start to get something down on paper besides a bunch of random notes you will quickly realize where you have gaps in your thinking and research. Id love to hear any ideas you have for staying focused while writing!  please feel free to leave your comments below. stalled on your thesis or dissertation? here are some books that may help you get inspired to start writing again. this text focuses on helping readers/writers discover a personal writing process, rather than imposing a process on them. The author offers advice on beginning to write, choosing an advisor and dealing with problems that may come up with an advisor, free writing and drafting, dealing with interruptions, funky exercises for times when you're stuck, revising, and finishing the dissertation. Includes different writing exercises as warm ups practice for getting words down on paper. Chapters focus on drafting, revising, considering the audience, soliciting, and using feedback written in an informal, humorous tone, this text offers many examples of doctoral students' dissertation experiences.

Part i addresses issues of content and process proposal, methodology, selecting committee members, collecting data and part ii addresses the secrets to maintaining sanity and good humor support groups, staying organized, using technology, defending the dissertation, and avoiding sudden stops. The text will be most helpful for students in soft sciences, but includes information for students in the hard sciences as well. A general guide for students in all disciplines, this text focuses on guiding students through the dissertation process. Part i: getting started offers advice on the research process, selecting a topic, and choosing methods of inquiry part ii: working with content deals with the different required parts of the dissertation literature review, methods, etc. Part i: working with process is focused on informing the student of what she or he needs to know to make the dissertation process easier.

Published in 2010, this guide is one of the most up to date guides on the steps of the dissertation in social work. It covers all the steps from selection of a committee to defending the dissertation, and everything in between. A practical and comprehensive guide to planning, writing, and defending your dissertatio n. Roberts this guide, written from the perspective of a faculty member who taught organizational leadership, discusses aspects of the dissertation process such as support groups for students, emotional issues, and writing problems. It focuses less on research design or methodology than the personal issues involved in the writing process. With an informal tone, this text provides help for the doctoral student who feels that she or he is wandering around the dissertation process with no clear purpose.

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Helps students to translate what dissertation supervisors say about good referencing and clean research questions. Smith this book maps the entire process of graduate education from the perspective of faculty advisors or mentors. Different authors describe different approaches to mentoring from the more direct and formal to the more personal and discusses how these styles affect the dissertation process. This author acknowledges that writing is hard work and can be difficult to wedge into a frenetic academic schedule. Drawing examples from the field of psychology, the author shows readers how to overcome motivational roadblocks he describes strategies for writing productively and gives detailed advice on how to write and revise, how to improve writing quality, and how to write and publish academic work. This is a general guide for all disciplines, but is most suitable for students in social and behavioral sciences. The text is organized according to the stages of the research and writing process as defined by the authors: preparation, choosing a topic, collecting information, organizing information, interpreting results, and presenting the finished product.

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From the back cover, in her 93 remarkable years, veteran freelance writer, memoirist, and writing teacher brenda ueland published some six million words. She once said there were two simple rules that she followed absolutely: to tell the truth, and not do anything she didn't want to do. Her bestselling classic that first appeared in the late 1930s and has inspired thousands to find their own creative center. As carl sandburg once remarked, ueland's primer is the best book ever written on how to write. Written in an informal style, this book offers strategies on getting writing done, no matter how busy or how blocked the writer is. The solution that the author proposes is to make a writing schedule and then follow it staying slightly flexible , writing outlines and drafts, and writing to deadlines. The author argues that the personal voice can and should be integrated into academic writing.

Offers guidelines for writing personal narrative as well as examples from students and published writers. Chapters focus on overcoming common obstacles, completing a dissertation, defining and developing a topic, using library resources, selecting committee members, writing the proposal, organizing and rewriting, and preparing for the defense. The text provides a sample timeline for completing a dissertation and advice on using computers and other sources of research assistance.

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This book is geared towards students who are writing dissertations in education while also working in the field professionally, or practitioner scholars. So in addition to traditional advice on choosing a topic, doing research and defending a dissertation, it has suggestions for balancing research and work responsibilities. by judith burnett this book provides a thorough walk through of the dissertation process in the social sciences, from topic generation, proposals, and research design, to carrying out the research, drawing conclusions, and defending the dissertation. by malcolm carey while many dissertation guides focus on the issues relating to quantitative research, this guide focuses on the challenges for those students undertaking smaller, qualitative research studies. In its attempt to be accessible and jargon free, it focuses on real students’ experiences, case studies, and relevant research areas for this type of project.

Chapters focus on ethics and writing, general writing techniques, writing each part of the academic paper introduction, literature review, methods, results, discussion, and abstract , listing references, formatting, revising, and preparing a poster presentation. A general writing guide that addresses the importance of writing well, includes writing exercises to help students get started, instructs the reader on how to use the library and other sources, and gives advice on how to complete a final project. The authors offer specific sources to read and consider for students in anthropology, psychology, social work, and sociology. In addition to describing the research and writing process, it also introduces students to key reference sources in social science disciplines.