By Noelle Sterne
In your dissertation writing, you’ve probably experienced the all-too-common range of emotions from initial elation to paralyzing fear to plunging despair, and between many starts, stops, and freezes. Here I suggest how to at least cut down on those maddening swings and invite, coax, and, toward more consistent and actually enjoyable writing, entice . . . the Flow.
By Noelle Sterne, PhD
You’re writing along like butter, and suddenly a thunderous voice in your head rebukes: “THAT’S THE WORST, MOST HORRIBLE PHRASE SINCE . . . .” And you’re in a hammerlock of immobilization.
Such a message doesn’t have to lay you flat on the mat in a full writing block. Recognize that voice: it’s your ever-present inner editor—often old programming, parental censures, or frustrated-poet English teachers’ decrees. And it proclaims that you’ll never be a writer and you should go sell burner phones (if you don’t already).
By Noelle Sterne, PhD
You’re ready to begin your dissertation, and you deserve congratulations! But realize, though, that your current lifestyle must change.
No Structure
Doctoral students beginning this coveted stage are often shocked at the lack of external structure. No prescheduled class meetings, specific assignments, or grades to goad you on. No classmates to remind you to tackle the next assignment. You’ve got to make your own schedule and follow through.
If you work away from home, you’ve already got some structure. You can easily figure out your dissertation time: evenings, weekends, and an occasional call-in-sick day.
Dr. Laura Markos, owner, writing coach, and editor at WrittenHouse, and founder of Sage’s Journal of Transformative Education, shares the following advice for stating the purpose of the study in a dissertation proposal:
“When crafting the dissertation proposal, it’s important to focus, focus, focus on the research question(s) as narrowly as appropriate, but also on the statement of the purpose of the study, which has implications for both theory and practice. It can be tempting to overstate the purpose, to make the study sound like a larger potential contribution than one discrete, doable study.
One discussion during a December 2023 TAA Conversation Circle on Writing a Dissertation centered on why writing should be integrated early in the process of earning a doctorate. Three academics who have earned their doctorates weighed in. Here are their thoughts.
Dr. Vernetta K. Mosley, a consultant and writing coach with Cultivate the Writer, explains that in her experience, students in non-writing intensive PhD programs tend to wait until the very end of the program to focus on writing, when it should be part of the process from the beginning.
It’s undeniable: writing your dissertation is hard. All that time you devote to research is a worthy endeavor but, no matter how many brilliant analyses you’ve collected, at some point you know you’re stalling. In my longtime dissertation coaching and editing practice, I have witnessed, cautioned, and counseled many dissertation writers on the difficulties of the actual writing. A new doctoral candidate who came from the corporate world confided, “I struggle daily with understanding the shift from business and occupational writing to writing as a researcher according to certain expectations and standards.”
