If you’re beginning or in the throes of your dissertation, you may know from other long-suffering students that the work engenders a love-hate relationship, with all the exasperations, frustrations, teeth-clenching, and eye-rolling, and occasional affection, elation, and fulfillment (eventually) of a primary human relationship. Therefore, your topic, like your partner, should be one that initially excites you and sustains you throughout the inevitable rages and reconciliations, desires to divorce yourself from it or run back to its scholarly arms, and finally settle into a consistent satisfying relationship.
The most useful textbook & academic writing posts of the week: October 16, 2015
I have had an awful cold since Monday. When I’m this sick I can barely function as a human—or at…
The most useful textbook & academic writing posts of the week: October 2, 2015
Happy October! Are you staying on track with your fall writing projects? Whether you are or you aren’t, Jodi Picoult’s advice—”You might not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.”—seems an appropriate reminder. We may not always write things worth keeping or it may need heavy editing, but at least it is down on paper. Something is there that is workable and moldable. A blank page cannot offer that.
Make your dissertation your priority
As you undoubtedly already know, writing a dissertation is different from anything you’ve ever done. This enterprise requires you to adjust, if not radically change, your lifestyle. If you ever really want to complete the dissertation, and in a timely manner (if that isn’t an oxymoron), you need to rethink your priorities.
Your a full-time job, of course, should be high on the priority list. You may have been used to putting family first. But rethink this priority. Heartless and psychologically suspect as this statement may sound, you can make it up to them in many other ways—later (that’s another article).
The most useful textbook & academic writing posts of the week: September 18, 2015
“The best way to learn about writing is to study the work of other writers you admire.” –Jeffery Deaver
Isn’t this an excellent bit of advice that Jeffery Deaver gives us? Do we not do this in our own writing, but also in other aspects of our lives? I think one piece is missing from his advice, however. I believe that you also have to find and study writers that have a similar tone, style, and voice to that of your own. All of those things make up who you are and who you are as a writer.
The most useful textbook & academic writing posts of the week: September 4, 2015
Do you enjoy writing? Or do you dread the thought of having to do it? I was thinking about how many of you probably don’t particularly enjoy writing, but rather enjoy having written. You have to write for your job, to further your career. Writing is a “have to” activity for you, not a “want to” one. So what can you do to make this process less painful? Change your mindset. Don’t focus on the feeling of dread leading up to or while writing. Instead, focus on how you’ll feel after. You may never enjoy the process, but you’ll be proud when you are done and feel accomplished in having completed the task you had set for yourself.