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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.
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:
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:
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!
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).
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 😊
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:
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 .
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:
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 .
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:
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 .
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:
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 .
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:
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:
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.
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:
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:
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.
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:
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 .
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.
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:
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.
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 ...
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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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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Was it ever possible for anyone to finish writing a master thesis in 10 days? I've been struggling for a long time now to focus on my writing due to several personal problems and I'm running close to my deadline so I'm starting to freak out. I welcome any suggestions at this point.
If by "writing" you mean to do the research/experiments/studying and then write the thesis then no .
If by "writing" you mean transforming your well organized notes into one document, then yes , maybe if you have great discipline.
If by "writing" you mean to start to write-up from not-so well organized notes, then most probably not .
If you want to try to make it, stop hanging around on the internet and start working.
It can be done, but I would be dubious of the quality. That said, I can't recall a Master's thesis that set the world on fire, so I suppose quality is a poor metric.
Here are some suggestions:
Good luck to you.
Yes. You can write it in 10 days though the result won't be good. Make sure you write 1000 to 1500 words a day. So, rather than starting to freak out, you can start writing now
If it's an MFA thesis (average length: 2-3 pages) yes. If it's a science one where you're reporting on results and my impression is that the length isn't too terribly long, maybe. If it's a humanities one that's in the 100-150 page range, it's unlikely (I've written 10-15 pages in a day before, but I doubt I can keep that pace up for ten pages).
You should look into extending into next semester, even if it's just shooting off a quick email while continuing to work. If you have had a large number of personal problems that have negatively affected your ability to complete your school work (and are in the US, not sure how it would apply elsewhere), you should (a) speak with the counseling center on campus and (b) consider a withdrawal under extenuating circumstances (typically called a medical withdrawal, but at least at my school they are allowed for other reasons). If there's no penalty at all for extending into next semester, (b) might not even be necessary — it's super common for both master's and PhD students to miss their expected graduation date by a semester or two because of the thesis/dissertation.
But if you're running up against a hard time limit, the withdrawal would gain you an extra semester. If withdrawal isn't an option, at many schools you can also (c) petition the university to waive the time limit given your circumstances. I don't think I've ever really heard of those petitions being denied if the reason is even halfway reasonable.
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Speaker 1: Hey everyone and welcome back to my channel. If you are new here, my name is Amina and in today's video we are going to be going through how you can write a first class dissertation in just a matter of a few weeks. And I'm going to say four weeks because I think that is pretty realistic to be able to write a strong first class dissertation. In today's video I'm going to be going through the structure of the dissertation, the different chapters and the different sections that you need to include, a few top tips about each of those chapters as well and also I'm going to be sharing with you a perfect blank Word document template that you can download with the link down below and includes everything you need to give you that starting point for you to start writing your dissertation. So if you want to see more videos like this then don't forget to press the subscribe button to see more from me and yeah, let's get right into it. So I know that this is the time, it's December now, I know that dissertations typically tend to start around the January time point, so the last semester of university and now is the time when you are probably thinking about the title, what you're going to be writing about, maybe you're doing a bit of research and you're going to start writing a bit later on. So it's a really good time now to know what to expect and kind of pre-empt what are the things that you're going to be including in your dissertation. And dissertations are worth so much. If you're in your final year of university, it's probably worth a good chunk, sometimes even 50%, sometimes even 100% of your final year mark. So it is really important that you're taking the time to not just rush it at the last minute, but actually take time to make sure that all the sections are done really, really well. So let's start off by going through the organisation and the structure of what a dissertation looks like. And for this, I'm going to be sharing my screen so you can see everything over here to see the structure. This is actually a template that I have developed myself. And like I said, the link will be down below. So you're more than welcome to go and download it. It's got all the top tips there as well. So let's go through and look at every single chapter that you need to include in your dissertation. Okay, so let's start off with the title page. So you need a title page, which obviously includes your title. It includes your name, your year, the year it is now, or even like the fact that you're a third year student, the word count, and look out for any other details that you might need to include in this as well. So that also could include like your student ID number. Sometimes the university requires different things at the front of your title page. Just make sure that you're checking the requirements of your university, that it matches what is actually on your title page, because these are things that will lose you marks and other things, little things that mean that you won't get a first. Okay, so moving on to the next page, the next page is our contents page. And this is the contents page that includes all the chapters and the sub chapters of your dissertation. So as you can see here, we have the declaration, which I'll go through in a second, the abstract, the introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, conclusion. Then you've got your supplementary parts, which are the list of tables, list of figures, list of charts, abbreviations. And by the way, these are things that people always forget to include, but they are what is going to make your dissertation look like a PhD thesis, because this is how you would present your PhD thesis. And then obviously your appendix as well. So including all of these things in this order just means that you have a very concise plan and a very concise set of chapters. So moving on, you have your declaration as well. So the declaration essentially says that this is original work, I haven't plagiarized, and I'm saying that I've done all this work myself. So I've also left a bit of a comment here saying that if you have collaborated with anyone else, you should really include that like this work has been done in conjunction with this person. And that is also important to declare there too. Then moving on, you have the abstract. So the abstract, I have a ton of videos about the abstract. So if you want to go into more depth about that, you can. And yeah, abstract is like a good 200 to 300 word summary about what you've done. Then the next thing is the introduction. So the introduction typically includes a literature review, which forms the body of your dissertation, which forms like the background showing that you understand like the literature and the field that you're working in. And it's one of the kind of biggest parts of your dissertation and also the most challenging, I would say. Then you have a research question, also a hypothesis. The hypothesis essentially states that this is what you're doing. So I think if I do this thing, this thing's going to happen. So that's what your hypothesis is. Then moving on, you have your material and methods. So this is where you'd include any experiments that you're doing, your analysis, your stats, your procedure, your inclusion criteria, exclusion criteria, all of that good stuff is included in this section. Then you have your results. So think of it like a little story. You've given your background. You then say what the method is. You then say what the results are. So here you'd have like results depending on how many results, sub results you have. This would be three headings, four headings, five headings. Then you have your discussion section. So this is where you would say you'd go into more depth. So your methods and your results are typically just like descriptive. Then your discussion is a lot more analytical and critical and your conclusion, of course. And then you've got your list of tables, as I said, list of figures, list of charts and abbreviations. And then finally, obviously your references, which I also have a link here for a video. So this template I've done quite, I think quite in depth. It took me quite a long time actually to get it all together. And essentially what it includes is a hyperlink for all of these chapters in the contents page here. So what you can do is once you've like included that information, you've edited it, you've changed the titles, maybe the subheadings, whatever, you can very easily just refresh. And what it does is it refreshes the contents page for you. And it means that everything is aligned in terms of the page numbers and like your titles and headings and everything. So like I said, that's available to download down below. So let's move on and talk about how you would actually organise and how you're going to actually write your dissertation. So I would always recommend starting from the methods and materials section, because this is the one where you usually would have the methods already set out. It's probably one of the first things that you start to think about. So you can write those things down. They typically don't tend to change that much. Once you've picked your participants and once you've picked your research group or once you've picked your method, that tends to be quite stable, secure, and that doesn't really change that much. So you can start writing your methods and materials really as soon as possible. Then I would recommend going on to writing the literature review. So this is something that you kind of will do in conjunction. So whilst you're doing your research and you're looking at your methods and you're trying to get some results, you can also obviously read some papers and gather those papers. You might have like a reading list and you've written down like the sources, what their methods are, what the limitations are, what's missing from their research and the critical discussion and kind of put those together into a literature review. So you're writing your methods and whilst you're doing that, you're writing your literature review or you're reading papers at least to get yourself started. Then once you have done your methods and you've started to actually apply that and you're starting to do your research or your experiments, you then will have some results pop up. So this is where you start to develop those results. So as soon as you get some results, put them into charts, put them into graphs, put them into tables, start to compile them. If it's a survey, start to make it look nice. Think about how you want to present it. So that's all going on in the background. So you're reading your papers for your literature review and then of course you're writing your literature review. You're starting to think about the different chapters and at the same time you're thinking about your methods and you're starting to develop your results as to whatever's coming in. Then you want to make sure that you've now finished your literature review and that everything that reflects in the results is reflected in the literature review. If you are not talking about it in your results or you're not really discussing it, then it shouldn't really go in your literature review and vice versa. So just making sure that everything matches. Then once you've done those three main sections, you then want to think about the conclusion. So how are you concluding this research? What is it that you've found? What are the takeaway messages? What are the limitations? What has happened in your research? The conclusion is the next thing. Then the last thing of the main chapters is the abstract. So the abstract is the absolute final thing that you do that is essentially a summary of everything. So the abstract talks about what your research aims are, what the hypothesis is, what the missing gap in literature is, and then the methods, what approach you're taking to overcome that gap, then your results, and then the conclusion and the future implications and directions. So that is your abstract. And that is the last thing you do because that is something that is determined by everything else. So you can't write the abstract first without having the results and without having the discussion and the conclusion. Then you want to, of course, obviously format. If you use this template, everything's basically there for you. So all you need to do is add in your references. Now, adding in your references is something that you should be doing throughout, and this will save you a ton of time. If you were to ask me, how can I write my dissertation really quickly? I would say, sort out your references before you even start writing. So what I'd recommend is when you download this template, I would recommend downloading the Mendeley plugin, the Word plugin. So you can use it side by side. So as you are writing your literature review and as you're writing your results and getting all your data in, you can also input your references at the same time. So it's very, very easy. I have a whole video about this, and I've also talked about a little bit in the guide as well that accompanies this template. And I think it's the easiest way possible. If you delete a reference, it deletes automatically. If you have to change your references from Harvard to APA or something else, it does it automatically. It lists it all for you in alphabetical order. To get a first, the thing that you need to understand is that for the top level for a first, the key characteristic of a first in a dissertation for final year is that it is publishable. That's like the top. So if you ask yourself, is this work publishable? There's a few things that mean that it's publishable. Firstly, it needs to be accurate. It needs to be clear and concise and written academically with the correct structure. But the most important thing is also the fact that the references have to be written really well. You can't publish a paper without references being strong. So if you can guarantee that your references are written well using something like Mendeley or any others, EndNote, there's a few other ones as well, but I would recommend Mendeley because it's free. It's easy to use. It seamlessly gets added into your Word document, so you can use it at the same time. Those are little things that will mean that you are aiming towards a first. And so keeping your references clean and up to date and updated is something I'd highly recommend thinking about before you even started writing anything. So we've spoken about the organisation and the structure of your dissertation. We've spoken about the order that you want to write things in. And we've spoken about referencing. The last thing I wanted to mention is that to be able to get a first, your dissertation has to be very heavily critiqued, especially in the discussion and not in the results. And now this is something that I've spoken about again in the guide, but I really want you to remember that the results section is purely you stating what the results are. I am wearing a black jumper. That's it. That's a result. There's no critique. There's no she's wearing black because it's winter and she wants to be a little bit dark, because she's in a bad mood, because she's feeling low, because she likes the colour. No, I'm just wearing black. That is my result. In the discussion, that is where you can say she's wearing black because, right? So if you have a result and you're doing an experiment, the temperature increased. In the result, all you need to say is the temperature has increased by five degrees. Look at figure one. In the discussion, as you can see in figure one, the temperature has increased by five degrees, which could be a result of the fact that it is winter now, right? And that is a critique. And then you want to expand on that and say, also, Jonas et al have also similarly reported that the temperature increased by five degrees when they looked at it in mice, right? And so you're adding extra layers to it. And that is what happens in your discussion. In the results, it's purely, purely descriptive and evaluative. So you're just evaluating, describing. You're not going into any detail as to why you think that happened at all. So that's something that you want to really think about when writing your dissertation. It can be an afterthought. So I'd recommend just like getting started, get started in your research and then take a look again, go back and look again at your results section and your discussion and make sure that you are being really distinct in the way that you write those two sections. I am going to do more detailed videos on each of those chapters. This video is very much just kind of going through the overall structure and making sure you have like a start point from where you can start from. But I am going to be doing videos in all through January, a full series on each of those sections for the dissertation. So if you do want to make sure that you catch those, then please subscribe to my channel and I'll make it into a nice little playlist for you. But otherwise, I hope that you found this video helpful for giving you a start point as to where you can even begin when it comes to writing the dissertation. Because I do feel like just that initial, like having the title page, having something on paper is sometimes the most difficult part. And I'm providing you with a template that I have designed myself. So that hopefully will give you that first step up. And then you can obviously go from there, do your research, add them in. And yeah, that's a dissertation done, hopefully in a few weeks. Yeah, let me know if you have any other tips and if you want to see any other templates from me as well. And I'll see you guys in my next video. Okay, bye.
What this handout is about.
This handout suggests strategies for developing healthy writing habits during your dissertation journey. These habits can help you maintain your writing momentum, overcome anxiety and procrastination, and foster wellbeing during one of the most challenging times in graduate school.
Because dissertations are, of course, big projects, it’s no surprise that planning, writing, and revising one can pose some challenges! It can help to think of your dissertation as an expanded version of a long essay: at the end of the day, it is simply another piece of writing. You’ve written your way this far into your degree, so you’ve got the skills! You’ll develop a great deal of expertise on your topic, but you may still be a novice with this genre and writing at this length. Remember to give yourself some grace throughout the project. As you begin, it’s helpful to consider two overarching strategies throughout the process.
First, take stock of how you learn and your own writing processes. What strategies have worked and have not worked for you? Why? What kind of learner and writer are you? Capitalize on what’s working and experiment with new strategies when something’s not working. Keep in mind that trying out new strategies can take some trial-and-error, and it’s okay if a new strategy that you try doesn’t work for you. Consider why it may not have been the best for you, and use that reflection to consider other strategies that might be helpful to you.
Second, break the project into manageable chunks. At every stage of the process, try to identify specific tasks, set small, feasible goals, and have clear, concrete strategies for achieving each goal. Small victories can help you establish and maintain the momentum you need to keep yourself going.
Below, we discuss some possible strategies to keep you moving forward in the dissertation process.
Get familiar with the Graduate School’s Thesis and Dissertation Resources .
Create a template that’s properly formatted. The Grad School offers workshops on formatting in Word for PC and formatting in Word for Mac . There are online templates for LaTeX users, but if you use a template, save your work where you can recover it if the template has corrruption issues.
Learn how to use a citation-manager and a synthesis matrix to keep track of all of your source information.
Skim other dissertations from your department, program, and advisor. Enlist the help of a librarian or ask your advisor for a list of recent graduates whose work you can look up. Seeing what other people have done to earn their PhD can make the project much less abstract and daunting. A concrete sense of expectations will help you envision and plan. When you know what you’ll be doing, try to find a dissertation from your department that is similar enough that you can use it as a reference model when you run into concerns about formatting, structure, level of detail, etc.
Think carefully about your committee . Ideally, you’ll be able to select a group of people who work well with you and with each other. Consult with your advisor about who might be good collaborators for your project and who might not be the best fit. Consider what classes you’ve taken and how you “vibe” with those professors or those you’ve met outside of class. Try to learn what you can about how they’ve worked with other students. Ask about feedback style, turnaround time, level of involvement, etc., and imagine how that would work for you.
Sketch out a sensible drafting order for your project. Be open to writing chapters in “the wrong order” if it makes sense to start somewhere other than the beginning. You could begin with the section that seems easiest for you to write to gain momentum.
Design a productivity alliance with your advisor . Talk with them about potential projects and a reasonable timeline. Discuss how you’ll work together to keep your work moving forward. You might discuss having a standing meeting to discuss ideas or drafts or issues (bi-weekly? monthly?), your advisor’s preferences for drafts (rough? polished?), your preferences for what you’d like feedback on (early or late drafts?), reasonable turnaround time for feedback (a week? two?), and anything else you can think of to enter the collaboration mindfully.
Design a productivity alliance with your colleagues . Dissertation writing can be lonely, but writing with friends, meeting for updates over your beverage of choice, and scheduling non-working social times can help you maintain healthy energy. See our tips on accountability strategies for ideas to support each other.
Write when you’re most productive. When do you have the most energy? Focus? Creativity? When are you most able to concentrate, either because of your body rhythms or because there are fewer demands on your time? Once you determine the hours that are most productive for you (you may need to experiment at first), try to schedule those hours for dissertation work. See the collection of time management tools and planning calendars on the Learning Center’s Tips & Tools page to help you think through the possibilities. If at all possible, plan your work schedule, errands and chores so that you reserve your productive hours for the dissertation.
Put your writing time firmly on your calendar . Guard your writing time diligently. You’ll probably be invited to do other things during your productive writing times, but do your absolute best to say no and to offer alternatives. No one would hold it against you if you said no because you’re teaching a class at that time—and you wouldn’t feel guilty about saying no. Cultivating the same hard, guilt-free boundaries around your writing time will allow you preserve the time you need to get this thing done!
Develop habits that foster balance . You’ll have to work very hard to get this dissertation finished, but you can do that without sacrificing your physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. Think about how you can structure your work hours most efficiently so that you have time for a healthy non-work life. It can be something as small as limiting the time you spend chatting with fellow students to a few minutes instead of treating the office or lab as a space for extensive socializing. Also see above for protecting your time.
Write in spaces where you can be productive. Figure out where you work well and plan to be there during your dissertation work hours. Do you get more done on campus or at home? Do you prefer quiet and solitude, like in a library carrel? Do you prefer the buzz of background noise, like in a coffee shop? Are you aware of the UNC Libraries’ list of places to study ? If you get “stuck,” don’t be afraid to try a change of scenery. The variety may be just enough to get your brain going again.
Work where you feel comfortable . Wherever you work, make sure you have whatever lighting, furniture, and accessories you need to keep your posture and health in good order. The University Health and Safety office offers guidelines for healthy computer work . You’re more likely to spend time working in a space that doesn’t physically hurt you. Also consider how you could make your work space as inviting as possible. Some people find that it helps to have pictures of family and friends on their desk—sort of a silent “cheering section.” Some people work well with neutral colors around them, and others prefer bright colors that perk up the space. Some people like to put inspirational quotations in their workspace or encouraging notes from friends and family. You might try reconfiguring your work space to find a décor that helps you be productive.
Elicit helpful feedback from various people at various stages . You might be tempted to keep your writing to yourself until you think it’s brilliant, but you can lower the stakes tremendously if you make eliciting feedback a regular part of your writing process. Your friends can feel like a safer audience for ideas or drafts in their early stages. Someone outside your department may provide interesting perspectives from their discipline that spark your own thinking. See this handout on getting feedback for productive moments for feedback, the value of different kinds of feedback providers, and strategies for eliciting what’s most helpful to you. Make this a recurring part of your writing process. Schedule it to help you hit deadlines.
Change the writing task . When you don’t feel like writing, you can do something different or you can do something differently. Make a list of all the little things you need to do for a given section of the dissertation, no matter how small. Choose a task based on your energy level. Work on Grad School requirements: reformat margins, work on bibliography, and all that. Work on your acknowledgements. Remember all the people who have helped you and the great ideas they’ve helped you develop. You may feel more like working afterward. Write a part of your dissertation as a letter or email to a good friend who would care. Sometimes setting aside the academic prose and just writing it to a buddy can be liberating and help you get the ideas out there. You can make it sound smart later. Free-write about why you’re stuck, and perhaps even about how sick and tired you are of your dissertation/advisor/committee/etc. Venting can sometimes get you past the emotions of writer’s block and move you toward creative solutions. Open a separate document and write your thoughts on various things you’ve read. These may or may note be coherent, connected ideas, and they may or may not make it into your dissertation. They’re just notes that allow you to think things through and/or note what you want to revisit later, so it’s perfectly fine to have mistakes, weird organization, etc. Just let your mind wander on paper.
Develop habits that foster productivity and may help you develop a productive writing model for post-dissertation writing . Since dissertations are very long projects, cultivating habits that will help support your work is important. You might check out Helen Sword’s work on behavioral, artisanal, social, and emotional habits to help you get a sense of where you are in your current habits. You might try developing “rituals” of work that could help you get more done. Lighting incense, brewing a pot of a particular kind of tea, pulling out a favorite pen, and other ritualistic behaviors can signal your brain that “it is time to get down to business.” You can critically think about your work methods—not only about what you like to do, but also what actually helps you be productive. You may LOVE to listen to your favorite band while you write, for example, but if you wind up playing air guitar half the time instead of writing, it isn’t a habit worth keeping.
The point is, figure out what works for you and try to do it consistently. Your productive habits will reinforce themselves over time. If you find yourself in a situation, however, that doesn’t match your preferences, don’t let it stop you from working on your dissertation. Try to be flexible and open to experimenting. You might find some new favorites!
Schedule a regular activity with other people that involves your dissertation. Set up a coworking date with your accountability buddies so you can sit and write together. Organize a chapter swap. Make regular appointments with your advisor. Whatever you do, make sure it’s something that you’ll feel good about showing up for–and will make you feel good about showing up for others.
Try writing in sprints . Many writers have discovered that the “Pomodoro technique” (writing for 25 minutes and taking a 5 minute break) boosts their productivity by helping them set small writing goals, focus intently for short periods, and give their brains frequent rests. See how one dissertation writer describes it in this blog post on the Pomodoro technique .
Quit while you’re ahead . Sometimes it helps to stop for the day when you’re on a roll. If you’ve got a great idea that you’re developing and you know where you want to go next, write “Next, I want to introduce x, y, and z and explain how they’re related—they all have the same characteristics of 1 and 2, and that clinches my theory of Q.” Then save the file and turn off the computer, or put down the notepad. When you come back tomorrow, you will already know what to say next–and all that will be left is to say it. Hopefully, the momentum will carry you forward.
Write your dissertation in single-space . When you need a boost, double space it and be impressed with how many pages you’ve written.
Set feasible goals–and celebrate the achievements! Setting and achieving smaller, more reasonable goals ( SMART goals ) gives you success, and that success can motivate you to focus on the next small step…and the next one.
Give yourself rewards along the way . When you meet a writing goal, reward yourself with something you normally wouldn’t have or do–this can be anything that will make you feel good about your accomplishment.
Make the act of writing be its own reward . For example, if you love a particular coffee drink from your favorite shop, save it as a special drink to enjoy during your writing time.
Try giving yourself “pre-wards” —positive experiences that help you feel refreshed and recharged for the next time you write. You don’t have to “earn” these with prior work, but you do have to commit to doing the work afterward.
Commit to doing something you don’t want to do if you don’t achieve your goal. Some people find themselves motivated to work harder when there’s a negative incentive. What would you most like to avoid? Watching a movie you hate? Donating to a cause you don’t support? Whatever it is, how can you ensure enforcement? Who can help you stay accountable?
Build your confidence . It is not uncommon to feel “imposter phenomenon” during the course of writing your dissertation. If you start to feel this way, it can help to take a few minutes to remember every success you’ve had along the way. You’ve earned your place, and people have confidence in you for good reasons. It’s also helpful to remember that every one of the brilliant people around you is experiencing the same lack of confidence because you’re all in a new context with new tasks and new expectations. You’re not supposed to have it all figured out. You’re supposed to have uncertainties and questions and things to learn. Remember that they wouldn’t have accepted you to the program if they weren’t confident that you’d succeed. See our self-scripting handout for strategies to turn these affirmations into a self-script that you repeat whenever you’re experiencing doubts or other negative thoughts. You can do it!
Appreciate your successes . Not meeting a goal isn’t a failure–and it certainly doesn’t make you a failure. It’s an opportunity to figure out why you didn’t meet the goal. It might simply be that the goal wasn’t achievable in the first place. See the SMART goal handout and think through what you can adjust. Even if you meant to write 1500 words, focus on the success of writing 250 or 500 words that you didn’t have before.
Remember your “why.” There are a whole host of reasons why someone might decide to pursue a PhD, both personally and professionally. Reflecting on what is motivating to you can rekindle your sense of purpose and direction.
Get outside support . Sometimes it can be really helpful to get an outside perspective on your work and anxieties as a way of grounding yourself. Participating in groups like the Dissertation Support group through CAPS and the Dissertation Boot Camp can help you see that you’re not alone in the challenges. You might also choose to form your own writing support group with colleagues inside or outside your department.
Understand and manage your procrastination . When you’re writing a long dissertation, it can be easy to procrastinate! For instance, you might put off writing because the house “isn’t clean enough” or because you’re not in the right “space” (mentally or physically) to write, so you put off writing until the house is cleaned and everything is in its right place. You may have other ways of procrastinating. It can be helpful to be self-aware of when you’re procrastinating and to consider why you are procrastinating. It may be that you’re anxious about writing the perfect draft, for example, in which case you might consider: how can I focus on writing something that just makes progress as opposed to being “perfect”? There are lots of different ways of managing procrastination; one way is to make a schedule of all the things you already have to do (when you absolutely can’t write) to help you visualize those chunks of time when you can. See this handout on procrastination for more strategies and tools for managing procrastination.
By the time you’ve reached this stage, you have probably already defended a dissertation proposal, chosen an advisor, and begun working with a committee. Sometimes, however, those three elements can prove to be major external sources of frustration. So how can you manage them to help yourself be as productive as possible?
Remember that your topic is not carved in stone . The research and writing plan suggested in your dissertation proposal was your best vision of the project at that time, but topics evolve as the research and writing progress. You might need to tweak your research question a bit to reduce or adjust the scope, you might pare down certain parts of the project or add others. You can discuss your thoughts on these adjustments with your advisor at your check ins.
Think about variables that could be cut down and how changes would affect the length, depth, breadth, and scholarly value of your study. Could you cut one or two experiments, case studies, regions, years, theorists, or chapters and still make a valuable contribution or, even more simply, just finish?
Talk to your advisor about any changes you might make . They may be quite sympathetic to your desire to shorten an unwieldy project and may offer suggestions.
Look at other dissertations from your department to get a sense of what the chapters should look like. Reverse-outline a few chapters so you can see if there’s a pattern of typical components and how information is sequenced. These can serve as models for your own dissertation. See this video on reverse outlining to see the technique.
Embrace your evolving status . At this stage in your graduate career, you should expect to assume some independence. By the time you finish your project, you will know more about your subject than your committee does. The student/teacher relationship you have with your advisor will necessarily change as you take this big step toward becoming their colleague.
Revisit the alliance . If the interaction with your advisor isn’t matching the original agreement or the original plan isn’t working as well as it could, schedule a conversation to revisit and redesign your working relationship in a way that could work for both of you.
Be specific in your feedback requests . Tell your advisor what kind of feedback would be most helpful to you. Sometimes an advisor can be giving unhelpful or discouraging feedback without realizing it. They might make extensive sentence-level edits when you really need conceptual feedback, or vice-versa, if you only ask generally for feedback. Letting your advisor know, very specifically, what kinds of responses will be helpful to you at different stages of the writing process can help your advisor know how to help you.
Don’t hide . Advisors can be most helpful if they know what you are working on, what problems you are experiencing, and what progress you have made. If you haven’t made the progress you were hoping for, it only makes it worse if you avoid talking to them. You rob yourself of their expertise and support, and you might start a spiral of guilt, shame, and avoidance. Even if it’s difficult, it may be better to be candid about your struggles.
Talk to other students who have the same advisor . You may find that they have developed strategies for working with your advisor that could help you communicate more effectively with them.
If you have recurring problems communicating with your advisor , you can make a change. You could change advisors completely, but a less dramatic option might be to find another committee member who might be willing to serve as a “secondary advisor” and give you the kinds of feedback and support that you may need.
Design the alliance . Talk with your committee members about how much they’d like to be involved in your writing process, whether they’d like to see chapter drafts or the complete draft, how frequently they’d like to meet (or not), etc. Your advisor can guide you on how committees usually work, but think carefully about how you’d like the relationship to function too.
Keep in regular contact with your committee , even if they don’t want to see your work until it has been approved by your advisor. Let them know about fellowships you receive, fruitful research excursions, the directions your thinking is taking, and the plans you have for completion. In short, keep them aware that you are working hard and making progress. Also, look for other ways to get facetime with your committee even if it’s not a one-on-one meeting. Things like speaking with them at department events, going to colloquiums or other events they organize and/or attend regularly can help you develop a relationship that could lead to other introductions and collaborations as your career progresses.
Share your struggles . Too often, we only talk to our professors when we’re making progress and hide from them the rest of the time. If you share your frustrations or setbacks with a knowledgeable committee member, they might offer some very helpful suggestions for overcoming the obstacles you face—after all, your committee members have all written major research projects before, and they have probably solved similar problems in their own work.
Stay true to yourself . Sometimes, you just don’t entirely gel with your committee, but that’s okay. It’s important not to get too hung up on how your committee does (or doesn’t) relate to you. Keep your eye on the finish line and keep moving forward.
Graduate School Diversity Initiatives : Groups and events to support the success of students identifying with an affinity group.
Graduate School Career Well : Extensive professional development resources related to writing, research, networking, job search, etc.
CAPS Therapy Groups : CAPS offers a variety of support groups, including a dissertation support group.
Advice on Research and Writing : Lots of links on writing, public speaking, dissertation management, burnout, and more.
How to be a Good Graduate Student: Marie DesJardins’ essay talks about several phases of the graduate experience, including the dissertation. She discusses some helpful hints for staying motivated and doing consistent work.
Preparing Future Faculty : This page, a joint project of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, the Council of Graduate Schools, and the Pew Charitable Trusts, explains the Preparing Future Faculty Programs and includes links and suggestions that may help graduate students and their advisors think constructively about the process of graduate education as a step toward faculty responsibilities.
Dissertation Tips : Kjell Erik Rudestam, Ph.D. and Rae Newton, Ph.D., authors of Surviving Your Dissertation: A Comprehensive Guide to Content and Process.
The ABD Survival Guide Newsletter : Information about the ABD Survival Guide newsletter (which is free) and other services from E-Coach (many of which are not free).
You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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Big dissertation deadline approaching? Hopefully, you have a draft you’re happy with and it’s time to get your dissertation ready for submission. But what do you need to do in these last days? Check out our dissertation checklist for three key steps in preparing your final piece of work.
When you’ve finished redrafting , the first thing to do is reread your style guide. This should contain everything you need to know about how to present your work, including:
You’ll then need to double check that your dissertation follows these rules as closely as possible.
After making any final changes, make sure to proofread your dissertation one last time. Your focus here will be looking for typos and other minor errors to ensure that it is 100% error free.
You may want to ask someone else to check your writing for you at this point (we’re always available ). But if you do need to proofread your own work, try using the following tips:
These tips should help you keep your concentration while proofreading.
Subscribe to our newsletter and get writing tips from our editors straight to your inbox.
Finally, when you have an error-free manuscript you can be proud of, you need to check your college’s guidelines for submitting a dissertation. This will usually include preparing:
Make sure to leave enough time before the deadline to get these ready. Your college should be able to recommend a local binding business for the print copy (or offer binding on campus). And you can export a document as a PDF file via Microsoft Word itself.
If you have a dissertation deadline coming up, make sure to tick off the steps on our dissertation checklist. These include:
And once you’ve submitted, we suggest taking a few days off to relax before preparing for your oral defense. Well done on getting this far, and let us know if we can help you over the finishing line. For more information about writing a dissertation or thesis, read our full dissertation writing guide .
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Writing up a full research article in a single week? Maybe you think that’s impossible. Yet I have done it repeatedly, and so have students in my courses. This is an exceptionally joyful (even if demanding) experience: being so productive just feels great! You are not wasting any time, and a paper produced in one go is typically coherent and nice to read. Even if you are a slow writer, you can write a whole paper in a single week — if you follow my strategy. Read below about what you need to prepare and how to approach this project.
I wrote my first scientific research article in 7 days. It started as a desperate effort to stop my procrastination and “just do it”. But I was surprised what a positive experience it was: focused and efficient, I was making daily progress, feeling motivated and content. Finally, the fruits of my hard work were gaining shape — and they did it so quickly!
I realized it was highly effective to write up a paper like this: writing for the whole day, every day until the first draft was finished. My writing project was firmly present in my mind — I didn’t lose time catching up with what I have written in the last session. Since I was not doing anything else, my wandering mind settled in very fast, and I was getting into a routine. The daily progress was clearly visible and motivated me to continue. And the result was a coherent paper that was easy to revise.
Meanwhile, this paper-a-week approach is my favorite. That’s how I write my papers, and that’s what I teach to students. In on-site courses young scientists draft a whole paper in 5 days, writing one major section per day. At the beginning of the week, many participants have doubts. But at the end of the week, they are all excited to see how much they managed to write in just a single week.
If you would also like to try out this approach, then read on about the necessary preparations, the optimal setting, and a productive writing strategy.
If you would like to get support during the preparation, drafting and revising of your research article, check out my online course Write Up Your Paper .
Depending on how complete your results already are, you might need 2-4 weeks to finish all these preparations. To help you keep an overview, I created a checklist with detailed steps that you need to take before you attempt to write up your paper in a week. Subscribe to our Newsletter and get your copy of the checklist.
Now, writing a paper in a single week is a serious business. You can’t do it if you don’t focus solely on the writing and create good writing conditions. Therefore, I recommend the following settings:
What I described above are the *ideal* conditions for undisturbed writing. But don’t give up if you can’t create such conditions for yourself. Work with what is possible — maybe it will take you 7-8 instead of 5-6 days but that’s still a great result, right?
Do you need to revise & polish your manuscript or thesis but don’t know where to begin?
Click here for an efficient step-by-step revision of your scientific texts.
Maybe you think that you can never ever draft a research article in a single week. Because you write so slowly, producing only few paragraphs per day. Well — I agree that if you don’t optimize your writing strategy, it would be hard to impossible to write up a whole paper in a week.
If you have written a research paper before, you have probably realized that starting with the Introduction and finishing with the Discussion is not the ideal order in which to tackle the individual sections. Instead, I recommend the following procedure:
Once you have written the whole draft, let it sit for a week or two, and then revise it. Follow my tips for efficient revising and get your revision checklist that will guide you step-by-step through the whole process.
Now I am curious about your experience: Have you ever written up an academic article quickly? How did you do it? Please, share with us your tips & strategies!
Do you need to revise & polish your manuscript or thesis but don’t know where to begin? Is your text a mess and you don't know how to improve it?
Click here for an efficient step-by-step revision of your scientific texts. You will be guided through each step with concrete tips for execution.
Thank for your guide and suggestion. It gives to me very precious ways how to write a article. Now I am writing a article related to Buddhist studies. Thank you so much.
You are welcome!
excellent! it helped me a lot! wish you all best
Hi Parham, I’m happy to hear that!
I have never written any paper before. As I am from very old school.
But my writing skill is actually very good. Your help is definitely going to help me as this has inspired me alot. Will let you know, once done. I really like the outline that you have given. Basically you have made it so easy for me .
Hope fully will be in touch with you soon.
Thanks and ki d Regards, Shehla
Dear Shehla, that sounds great! I’m looking forward to hearing about your paper!
Comments are closed.
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Let’s face it - writing is hard! Writing your thesis/dissertation is a lot like long-distance running; it requires isolation, endurance, time, and motivation. Most doctoral students are running a long-distance marathon for about three years. Here are seven quick tips to help you organize things well before your final deadline.
You want to communicate with all members of your committee regularly. Schedule meetings, at least once a year in the beginning, and much more frequently as you approach your final draft. You do not want any surprises about your committee member’s expectations, and you need some structure to keep going. You need regular feedback. Establish timelines your entire committee agrees upon. If there is an issue with a committee member, consider making some changes to your committee so you have the support and engagement you need to succeed.
So many students who feel the most anxiety and stress about the thesis/dissertation never wanted to admit they needed help earlier in the process. Remember imposter syndrome. It’s not limited to early-career graduate students. The thesis/dissertation is the ultimate test of resiliency and resourcefulness, and the rigor sometimes leaves students feeling inadequate. Maybe you feel as if your writing isn’t strong enough. Maybe you feel embarrassed to show your committee how little you have researched or written. If you’re feeling anxious or unsure of yourself, please do not wait to seek help. Many faculty and graduate students do not know about the thesis/dissertation support groups offered on campus. Our resident graduate student counselor, Dr. Bai-Yin Chen, hosts these groups to help students with goal setting, time and stress management, and problem-solving. Bai-Yin also provides discreet counseling services in Walker Hall, allowing you to get the help you need without worrying about running into undergraduates. Think of counseling as self-care and panic prevention. Learn more about our counseling and support services on the Graduate Studies website , or email Dr. Chen at [email protected] .
Does your major professor never email you back? Are you not getting any feedback from your thesis/dissertation chair? When you are in the final months of writing your final draft, the last thing you need to be dealing with is long-ignored interpersonal issues. Approaching your thesis/dissertation chair with complaints can be daunting. Seek advice from trusted colleagues, mentors, and advisors on how to have these conversations. You can talk to your program coordinator, advisor at Graduate Studies , the Associate Dean for Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Scholars Ellen Hartigan-O’Connor, or even the UC Davis Office of the Ombuds . You have a built-in support network – don’t be afraid to use it!
Faculty have four weeks to review the thesis or dissertation. However, you cannot necessarily assume the faculty will all be in their UC Davis offices reading thesis/dissertations the last four weeks before the big deadline. Faculty could be on sabbatical, traveling (always internationally it seems), or reading four other drafts. Be conscientious of their time and discuss a timeline that is reasonable for them. Yes, policy requires they return the draft in four weeks, but based on unique circumstances perhaps five weeks would be more appropriate.
The most important submission for your degree besides the uploaded thesis/dissertation is undoubtedly the signed title page. Graduate Studies requires a signed title page from all committee members. Though this coordination will add a little time to your final submission, you cannot receive the degree until you have that title page. Graduate Studies accepts digital signatures. You must upload the signed title page as part of the filing process in GradSphere .
When you file your thesis or dissertation, you will be asked whether you wish to copyright and/or embargo your thesis or dissertation. ProQuest, the publisher for all UC Davis thesis or dissertations, will copyright your thesis or dissertation for a fee. You can also read more about copyright by following the links below. An embargo delays the public access of your thesis or dissertation for a limited amount of time - typically six months, 12 months, or two years. You might desire an embargo if you have sensitive data you do not want to be released immediately or if you are trying to get your chapters published elsewhere first. Your committee will advise you on what is best for your situation. Explore the links below to learn about your options
The Academic Services Unit manages the filing and graduation process for all grad students. SAA's are available to answer questions and provide support on email or by appointment. We can review your filing paperwork with you in a in-person or remote advising appointment, if you need assistance selecting a filing deadline, or have questions about formatting, make an appointment online with Graduate Studies to review any final steps before you file your thesis or dissertation.
Above all, if you have any questions or concerns about graduating, please reach out to your program’s Senior Academic Advisor here in Graduate Studies. There is an advisor here for each of you that can walk you through the final steps of your degree and help you navigate any hurdles you are facing.
(Last updated: 20 December 2023)
We have helped 10,000s of undergraduate, Masters and PhD students to maximise their grades in essays, dissertations, model-exam answers, applications and other materials. If you would like a free chat about your project with one of our UK staff, then please just reach out on one of the methods below.
Your professor has told you that you must write a dissertation to complete your degree. At this point, you may begin to panic. What is a dissertation? It sounds difficult, or like a massive project that is going to require considerable organisation. For the typical undergraduate, who may be prone to procrastination, a dissertation requires not only the creation of a large piece of writing, but it also may require research to be conducted, data to be analysed, and an extensive bibliography to be compiled. That's why being thorough with your dissertation plan is essential. Starting with the initial phases of the dissertation and working through to the final stages of proofreading, this post should offer you a few tips and tricks for success along with some common mistakes to avoid.
The whole point of a dissertation is to convince your professor that you are a competent researcher. This can be challenging, because it is likely that this is your first real experience with research and the first time you will have to attempt a piece of research to this scale of magnitude. Becoming a competent researcher means you have to demonstrate proficiency in each of the phases of your dissertation. The following tale represents the typical path of the "Dissertation Life Cycle."
To complete the various stages of the Dissertation Life Cycle you are going to need to demonstrate a certain level of proficiency in all of these skills. You should know that while on paper, this life cycle follows a straightforward path; such is rarely the case in real life. Although you may think your dissertation plan is thorough and comprehensive, you should be prepared to modify and change your plans as challenges arise. There will also be the need to go back and modify previous parts. For example, while you might write the literature review first, this will likely require modification after you complete the data analysis for your study.
An essential component of producing a great dissertation plan is good time management. You must be able to manage your time effectively. This can be done through the adoption of two specific time management strategies: the macro-management of time, and the micro-management of time. Macro-management equates to the bigger picture; you should be able to make well-informed estimates about how long it is going to take you to complete each section. Basically, to do this, you need to work backwards from the final submission date, creating a time framework. No dissertation is the same, so the amount of time that you spend on each section will vary from that of your peers. This is contrasted with micro-management, which examines the finer details of the dissertation, for example through the division of a chapter into subsections. As an example, you might allow yourself four weeks to write the literature review using the macro approach to time management. The micro approach would mean that your literature review might be divided into four subsections, a week devoted to each of those.
Time management goes hand in hand with organisation and you are going to require excellent organisational skills as you work to complete your dissertation. Organisation is not just about the writing. You are initially going to need to organise a number of meetings with your supervisor as you begin the dissertation process. As your dissertation is going to be different than that of your peers, it is your responsibility to come to the meeting with a plan in mind so that you can use the time you have effectively and efficiently.
"You must be able to manage your time effectively. But if you do fall behind schedule, do not despair. At the undergraduate level there are usually ample opportunities for you to make up time."
In addition to meetings with your supervisor, you are also going to have to arrange meetings and/or other activities with your participants. This might include the scheduling of interviews , the arrangement of observations, etc. You may also need to account for time that you will spend attending the library, searching for sources, and reading key materials. All of this requires you to be organised and to act in a methodical way.
If you do fall behind schedule, do not despair. At the undergraduate level there are usually ample opportunities for you to make up time. The project is rarely long enough for you to go completely off the rails. If you know that you are not a particularly organised person or that you struggle with time management skills, you may benefit from the use of a professional project management tool such as Trello or Asana.
To produce the best dissertation plan possible, there are other key skills that you are going to need to employ. Two that are going to be essential at the start are your listening and social skills. Listening skills come into play as you begin to work with your supervisor. At the undergraduate level, they are likely going to be somehow involved in the assessment of your written work, so if you can identify what exactly they are expecting of you, you are going to be in a better position to succeed. This includes making sure that you not only understand the directions, but that you take into consideration any feedback they are providing you as you progress throughout your project.
When your professor makes a suggestion about your work, they are typically expecting you to change it to align with their requests. You should attempt to do this in all possible cases, and if you want to disagree, you must have an appropriate justification as to why you wish to do so. In addition to listening, you need to be able to get on well with others. This means that you will need to employ appropriate strategies during both email and oral communication. This is a skill that is not only necessary when speaking with your professor, but also relates to working with other students, with your participants, and with administrators.
Below is a list of skills and qualities that you might need to adopt in order to complete your dissertation well:
Skills | Qualities |
---|---|
Time-management | Self-motivation |
Organisation | Self-confidence |
Self-discipline | Self-centredness |
Communication | |
Listening | |
Presentational | |
Social | |
Technical | |
Independent learner |
Now that you have a basic understanding of the skills you need, we can consider the finer points of your dissertation. One of these is understanding how to take advantage of the meetings you have with your supervisor.
Meetings that are well crafted generally offer better opportunities for you to advance with your dissertation. It is very common (and something you want to avoid) for students to arrive at the first meeting with the supervisor with no real idea about what they want to study. Instead, they ask the supervisor for ideas or inspiration on what they might do. This generally sets a bad impression; your supervisor can help you shape your initial ideas, but ultimately you want the ideas to be yours. In some instances, your supervisor may provide you with a topic or title, but this approach (which you may like in the beginning) can be difficult at later stages when you realise that your understanding of the topic is limited. Going back to the skills and qualities described above, if you fail to understand the topic, you are less likely to be motivated and confident when completing the work.
"Take advantage of the meetings you have with your supervisor. Meetings that are well crafted generally offer better opportunities for you to advance with your dissertation."
After you have scheduled your first meeting with your supervisor, ensure that you attend the meeting well equipped with both questions and a means to record the responses (e.g. laptop or pen & paper). In this initial meeting, you should be able to clearly state your area of study, overall aim, your objectives (related to the aim), and a rationale for the topic you have selected. You may also wish to call up some preliminary research studies related to your topic in order to demonstrate that you have taken the notion of this research project seriously and truly understand what it is you want to do.
During this first meeting, your supervisor is looking for the intended focus of your research, clarity of your objectives and that the objectives are achievable within the timescale. You should be posing these questions to your supervisor (e.g. are my objectives clear?).
This is also true for future meetings. It is important that you send your supervisor your work in progress prior to the meeting that you have scheduled. You can do this by email. Ensure that your email is properly formatted with detailed information and instructions that you would like your supervisor to consider. Make sure that you identify who you are, what the new work is that you are submitting, and what you would like the supervisor to do with it. Avoid sending the work at the last minute. Your supervisor is likely to have many different things on the go and so sending them work only 24 hours in advance is not appropriate. If you are unsure about how much in advance to send the information, you should clarify this with your supervisor.
A supervisory session should be more than just a question and answer session where your supervisor asks you questions and you answer them. This would constitute two monologues, but does not achieve the dialogue that is needed for effective communication. Your supervisor is looking to determine how your work is moving forward and to address any issues that s/he thinks are arising as a result of your project. It may be helpful for you to begin with a summary of what you have achieved followed by any issues that are currently concerning you. These meetings should be seen as opportunities to gauge how your supervisor is feeling about your work and as a way to seek corrective action when necessary. Any feedback that you get from your supervisor can be turned into additional marks and grades. Building a rapport with your supervisor is essential and is best achieved when you arrive prepared.
There are a few things that you are going to want to avoid during supervisions. The first is missing the meeting entirely. If you cannot make a meeting with your supervisor, make sure that you email them as soon as you can. In that email make sure that you include a reason and request to make another appointment immediately. Your reasoning for cancelling a meeting should not be due to the fact that you are considerably behind. Putting off the inevitable is never a good thing and you are better off facing the music. Obviously all of this is just considered good manners, so keep this in mind.
Finally, you are going to want to avoid walking into a meeting and uttering the phrase “I can’t find anything on this subject!” The first thing that your professor is likely to do is to plug your topic into Google and come back with thousands of hits on what you just said did not exist. Professors hear this phrase every year, and generally they tend to equate it with laziness on the part of the student and a lack of serious commitment.
"You become the content expert, while your supervisor becomes a guide to keep you on the right track. It requires effort on both parties, but it puts you in the driving seat."
Most students, at least upon first encounter with their supervisor, lack the ability to focus and to ‘run’ the meeting. Remember that your supervisor may not be as passionate about the topic as you are and thus, you may have done more reading than they have on your topic. Through this, you become the content expert, while your supervisor becomes a guide to keep you on the right track. It requires effort on both parties, but it puts you in the driving seat. This might be a new feeling for you, as you may have always felt like the supervisor is the one in charge. Making this transition will better prepare you for graduate school or any future research work that you may wish to undertake.
Finding the literature to become that content expert can be a challenge, especially if you don’t know where to look. It is in your best interest to use your school library to its full advantage. This includes not only borrowing books, but also using the ample online resources that are provided to you through your institution. The material you require is not simply going to appear in front of you. You are going to have to look for it . It may be easier for you to begin with a more random or general search. This can be done using sites such as Google Scholar (scholar.google.com). Remember, however that not everything that Google Scholar finds is of the same quality and if you choose to use this site, you must consider what is scholarly and what is not.
Defining scholarly is, perhaps, a somewhat challenging thing to do, as it is a sort of grey area. Generally, in an academic sense, if an article is published in a peer-reviewed journal, it is typically considered to be scholarly. That does not mean that anything else is ‘not scholarly’, but you must use your own judgement to make that determination. In addition, you must be able to differentiate between primary and secondary sources. While both types of sources are likely to be appropriate at the undergraduate level, you are better off to use more primary than secondary sources. Primary sources are classified as original documents with first hand evidence about an event, object, person, or work of art. Things you read in a scholarly book or journal article directly would be primary, as are interviews, fieldwork, communications by email, and empirical studies. Secondary sources describe or discuss the primary sources. Typically, these include things like newspaper articles, popular magazines, book reviews, or articles in journals that discuss someone else’s work. While both are useful, it is up to you to decide which are most appropriate.
Finding sources is sort of like being a detective. In this case, you begin with some questions (in this case research questions or research objectives) that you want answered. You then search for clues as to how to answer these questions within the literature. You then get rid of any information that is irrelevant and use the information that you do find to lead you to other sources. This can be done by using the references of one article to lead you to the next one. Once you have enough ‘clues’ you can then construct a case based on evidence and explain the points as you see them. One way that you can get help with this whole process is by utilising your school librarian. Often there are librarians within the institution that specialise in the subject matter that you are studying. By approaching these librarians, you can often find better ways to search or strategies to locate sources that end up being key components in your research. Check out what your library has to offer and what resources are available.
There is no corresponding number of sources that should appear in your dissertation. Obviously, your list will be extensive, but it also must be balanced. If you use too few sources, your argument may not appear convincing; if you use too many, your argument may be lost because there is no room for you to insert any of your own thoughts or demonstration of criticality. It is up to you to find that balance. In addition, the quality of the sources that you use matters. Using research from decades ago may not be beneficial in the current times, especially if you are focusing on an area that has rapidly changed (e.g. technology, education, etc.).
It’s important to consider your reader as you craft your literature review . It may be beneficial for you to start by reminding the audience of your research objectives. That way, the reader is then better able to understand how it relates to your project. One common mistake that students often make is just jumping from one study they have read to the next - without warning. Providing your reader with an outline at the beginning of the chapter and including your own critical thought shows the reader that you are on the right track and gives them an idea about what to expect.
The common mistake described above often occurs because there has been a lack of planning. Students typically just sit down to write the literature review and find the material as they go. This then offers a very fragmented chapter. While creating a detailed outline is essential, so is the organisation of the literature. As suggested above, perhaps you have a literature review with four sections. You may, in a separate document want to collate and keep track of the useful sources you have found for each section. In these notes, you should maintain the citation of the source, a few notes on the summary, and how it might be useful.
It may also be beneficial to colour code these citations to the section to which they pertain. An example might look like:
How you organise your notes is completely up to you. It really depends on what type of person you are. Some people like to organise their notes in a linear way; others want to organise by colour. Some people write detailed notes, others write very scarce notes and go back to the original article. Regardless of the type of person you are, some sort of organisation is going to be essential. Try a few different strategies to begin and see what works best for you.
Organisation of your sources and good citation is going to be important in the note taking process because you will need to cite these sources within your paper. Learn (if you do not know already) which referencing style is expected within your academic discipline. The above example uses APA, but there are many other referencing styles. You should apply this style throughout your paper. In the actual paper, you are usually going to require page numbers when you employ direct quotes, and sometimes when you paraphrase/summarize. Keep this in mind as you are taking your notes. For example, you could write ‘particularly useful quote on p. 166 about student mistakes in the dissertation.’ Then, you would know where to look in the original article to find the quote. Remember that quotes are only useful in moderation - you don’t want a dissertation filled with them. It is also essential that you provide critical insight into the quote you are using, so quotes should never appear at the end of a paragraph.
At the same time that you are writing about your literature, or possibly just after you have finished, you are going to need to consider planning for your primary research . The dissertation is usually under a fairly tight timeline and so getting these aspects organised early on can save you some struggles as you progress through the dissertation.
You are initially going to need to come up with a research strategy. This strategy is a description of how you are going to implement the research within your own study. It's an essential component of your project, but not something that is going to require a detailed review of general research strategies. This is a common mistake by students who often spend a lot of time discussing all research strategies, rather than focusing on the one that they have chosen and the justification for this choice.
Once you have established a research strategy, you are going to need to consider what types of research instruments you are going to need to use - and how those research instruments are going to come about (i.e. are you going to create one, or are you going to use one that has been used in previous research). If you are creating a questionnaire for example, and you decide to create your own, you are likely going to need to pilot the questionnaire to determine whether or not your questions make sense. This can add additional time to the dissertation process, and so should be factored into your plan. Questionnaires, while a common tool among students, are generally not enough to stand alone as a research instrument. Quite commonly, students will use two or more research instruments.
Another common instrument is the interview. Planning for interviews has several challenges:
First, you must find a time and a location to hold the interview. Generally, this space is a quiet one, like an office or library study room. As an undergraduate student, you may not have access to these spaces at all times and so coordinating your interview participant with time available can be logistically challenging. Once you have secured a location and time for your interview, you must also be aware that other challenges may arise. Interviewees may cancel at the last minute or they may run late. It is your job, as a researcher, to try your best to accommodate their situations, as it is likely they are volunteering to participate in your study. You want to set your interviews up well in advance, but perhaps not too far in advance that people will forget. A reminder email or phone call to your interview subjects can be particularly beneficial in getting them there on time and to the correct location.
The logistics of planning your research can be challenging; from finding the right sources to scheduling interviews, there are many things to consider. One aspect of the writing process that students often fail to consider is the editing and proofreading process. Editing occurs when you need to make considerable changes to parts of your dissertation because they are no longer relevant, or because you need to add/remove words. Sometimes, when students write, the editing process can be a real challenge because it is difficult to cut out words that you have spent considerable time writing. Remember, however, that it is the final mark that counts and having irrelevant information in the dissertation is going to harm you more than it is going to benefit you.
Proofreading is also essential. This is the final stage in your dissertation and considers aspects of grammar, spelling and punctuation. It often takes much longer than you initially anticipate because it is best to do it in short chunks, so you don’t get distracted. There are also additional difficulties with the proofreading process; often because you are so familiar with the work itself, you skip over errors. For example, errors such as using ‘form’ instead of ‘from’ or using the wrong version of ‘there/their/they’re’ can make your work seem unpolished, but it is easy to do.
For some students, it is better to get someone else to proofread your work . Not only can a third party comment on spelling, grammar, and punctuation, but they can also identify areas that come across as unclear. You may need to pay for a proofreading service - that is unless you have a parent or friend who is willing and able to help you out. When selecting a proofreading service, ensure that you pick one that is reputable - this is your final opportunity to make changes and you want the best possible outcome.
Remember that dissertation writing is a challenging part of your undergraduate degree but with the right planning and strategies, you can be very successful. It is essential that you select a topic that is interesting to you from the outset, as long as it is related to your academic discipline. Further, you must ensure that you make a good first impression with your supervisor and that you utilize all the resources that you have available to you.
By reading this post, you are starting out well. Learn to develop the time-management, organisational and confidence-based skills for dissertation writing in your quest for success!
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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 (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 .
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Fall 2024 thesis and dissertation deadlines.
The deadline to submit your final approved thesis/dissertation and final paperwork for Fall 2024 is November 29. There is an all-in-one webform for the approval page and report on the final exam. Additional information, instructions, and links to the forms can be found at: https://registrar.uconn.edu/graduation/ .
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Low-calorie diets and intermittent fasting have been shown to have numerous health benefits: They can delay the onset of some age-related diseases and lengthen lifespan, not only in humans but many other organisms.
Many complex mechanisms underlie this phenomenon. Previous work from MIT has shown that one way fasting exerts its beneficial effects is by boosting the regenerative abilities of intestinal stem cells, which helps the intestine recover from injuries or inflammation.
In a study of mice, MIT researchers have now identified the pathway that enables this enhanced regeneration, which is activated once the mice begin “refeeding” after the fast. They also found a downside to this regeneration: When cancerous mutations occurred during the regenerative period, the mice were more likely to develop early-stage intestinal tumors.
“Having more stem cell activity is good for regeneration, but too much of a good thing over time can have less favorable consequences,” says Omer Yilmaz, an MIT associate professor of biology, a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and the senior author of the new study.
Yilmaz adds that further studies are needed before forming any conclusion as to whether fasting has a similar effect in humans.
“We still have a lot to learn, but it is interesting that being in either the state of fasting or refeeding when exposure to mutagen occurs can have a profound impact on the likelihood of developing a cancer in these well-defined mouse models,” he says.
MIT postdocs Shinya Imada and Saleh Khawaled are the lead authors of the paper, which appears today in Nature .
Driving regeneration
For several years, Yilmaz’s lab has been investigating how fasting and low-calorie diets affect intestinal health. In a 2018 study , his team reported that during a fast, intestinal stem cells begin to use lipids as an energy source, instead of carbohydrates. They also showed that fasting led to a significant boost in stem cells’ regenerative ability.
However, unanswered questions remained: How does fasting trigger this boost in regenerative ability, and when does the regeneration begin?
“Since that paper, we’ve really been focused on understanding what is it about fasting that drives regeneration,” Yilmaz says. “Is it fasting itself that’s driving regeneration, or eating after the fast?”
In their new study, the researchers found that stem cell regeneration is suppressed during fasting but then surges during the refeeding period. The researchers followed three groups of mice — one that fasted for 24 hours, another one that fasted for 24 hours and then was allowed to eat whatever they wanted during a 24-hour refeeding period, and a control group that ate whatever they wanted throughout the experiment.
The researchers analyzed intestinal stem cells’ ability to proliferate at different time points and found that the stem cells showed the highest levels of proliferation at the end of the 24-hour refeeding period. These cells were also more proliferative than intestinal stem cells from mice that had not fasted at all.
“We think that fasting and refeeding represent two distinct states,” Imada says. “In the fasted state, the ability of cells to use lipids and fatty acids as an energy source enables them to survive when nutrients are low. And then it’s the postfast refeeding state that really drives the regeneration. When nutrients become available, these stem cells and progenitor cells activate programs that enable them to build cellular mass and repopulate the intestinal lining.”
Further studies revealed that these cells activate a cellular signaling pathway known as mTOR, which is involved in cell growth and metabolism. One of mTOR’s roles is to regulate the translation of messenger RNA into protein, so when it’s activated, cells produce more protein. This protein synthesis is essential for stem cells to proliferate.
The researchers showed that mTOR activation in these stem cells also led to production of large quantities of polyamines — small molecules that help cells to grow and divide.
“In the refed state, you’ve got more proliferation, and you need to build cellular mass. That requires more protein, to build new cells, and those stem cells go on to build more differentiated cells or specialized intestinal cell types that line the intestine,” Khawaled says.
Too much of a good thing
The researchers also found that when stem cells are in this highly regenerative state, they are more prone to become cancerous. Intestinal stem cells are among the most actively dividing cells in the body, as they help the lining of the intestine completely turn over every five to 10 days. Because they divide so frequently, these stem cells are the most common source of precancerous cells in the intestine.
In this study, the researchers discovered that if they turned on a cancer-causing gene in the mice during the refeeding stage, they were much more likely to develop precancerous polyps than if the gene was turned on during the fasting state. Cancer-linked mutations that occurred during the refeeding state were also much more likely to produce polyps than mutations that occurred in mice that did not undergo the cycle of fasting and refeeding.
“I want to emphasize that this was all done in mice, using very well-defined cancer mutations. In humans it’s going to be a much more complex state,” Yilmaz says. “But it does lead us to the following notion: Fasting is very healthy, but if you’re unlucky and you’re refeeding after a fasting, and you get exposed to a mutagen, like a charred steak or something, you might actually be increasing your chances of developing a lesion that can go on to give rise to cancer.”
Yilmaz also noted that the regenerative benefits of fasting could be significant for people who undergo radiation treatment, which can damage the intestinal lining, or other types of intestinal injury. His lab is now studying whether polyamine supplements could help to stimulate this kind of regeneration, without the need to fast.
“This fascinating study provides insights into the complex interplay between food consumption, stem cell biology, and cancer risk,” says Ophir Klein, a professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, who was not involved in the study. “Their work lays a foundation for testing polyamines as compounds that may augment intestinal repair after injuries, and it suggests that careful consideration is needed when planning diet-based strategies for regeneration to avoid increasing cancer risk.”
The research was funded, in part, by a Pew-Stewart Trust Scholar award, the Marble Center for Cancer Nanomedicine, the Koch Institute-Dana Farber/Harvard Cancer Center Bridge Project, and the MIT Stem Cell Initiative.
Press mentions, medical news today.
A new study led by researchers at MIT suggests that fasting and then refeeding stimulates cell regeneration in the intestines, reports Katharine Lang for Medical News Today . However, notes Lang, researchers also found that fasting “carries the risk of stimulating the formation of intestinal tumors.”
Prof. Ömer Yilmaz and his colleagues have discovered the potential health benefits and consequences of fasting, reports Max Kozlov for Nature . “There is so much emphasis on fasting and how long to be fasting that we’ve kind of overlooked this whole other side of the equation: what is going on in the refed state,” says Yilmaz.
MIT researchers have discovered how fasting impacts the regenerative abilities of intestinal stem cells, reports Ed Cara for Gizmodo . “The major finding of our current study is that refeeding after fasting is a distinct state from fasting itself,” explain Prof. Ömer Yilmaz and postdocs Shinya Imada and Saleh Khawaled. “Post-fasting refeeding augments the ability of intestinal stem cells to, for example, repair the intestine after injury.”
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Is the deadline for your dissertation coming and you haven't started it yet? Follow our guide on how to write a dissertation in ten days.
But quality is subjective and when it comes to writing a technical thesis for a masters' degree, the people grading my work weren't expecting Hemingway.
In this guide, we present a list of principles, activities, and steps that will help you to write your thesis at Bachelor's or Master's level in four weeks.
The toughest part of writing a thesis is getting started. Get this insider's guide on how to write a thesis when you're short on time and struggling.
You can increase your odds of finishing your dissertation by following these four steps. No. 1. Practice time management, be organized and meet deadlines. Time management is essential. Make two-week deadlines for every part of the dissertation process, including reading, writing, edits and meetings.
A dissertation is a lengthy research paper written as a requirement to earn an academic degree. Typically, students must write a dissertation toward the end of their program to both prove their knowledge and contribute new research to their field. The term dissertation is sometimes used interchangeably with thesis paper.
How long does it take to write a dissertation? At the bachelor's and master's levels, the dissertation is usually the main focus of your final year. You might work on it (alongside other classes) for the entirety of the final year, or for the last six months. This includes formulating an idea, doing the research, and writing up.
Learn how to write a top-notch dissertation or thesis with Grad Coach's straightforward 8-step guide (including examples and videos).
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.
Whether you're considering a doctoral program or you recently passed your comprehensive exams, you've probably wondered how to write a dissertation. Researching, writing, and defending a dissertation represents a major step in earning a doctorate.
Yes. You can write it in 10 days though the result won't be good. Make sure you write 1000 to 1500 words a day. So, rather than starting to freak out, you can start writing now.
Discover how to write a first class dissertation in just 4 weeks. Get a free Word template, top tips for each chapter, and ensure your dissertation stands out. ... So that's something that you want to really think about when writing your dissertation. It can be an afterthought. So I'd recommend just like getting started, get started in your ...
Dissertation strategies that can help you maintain your writing momentum, overcome anxiety and procrastination, and foster wellbeing as you write your dissertation.
If you're currently working on a dissertation, take a look at Proofed's dissertation checklist to see what you should be doing in the days leading up to submitting your work.
If you want to draft a whole research paper in a single week, you need to prepare everything in advance so that you can fully focus on writing and actually finish in a week. First, think about your audience and pick a suitable journal. This is an important step because the audience and journal determine the content & style of your paper.
Let's face it - writing is hard! Writing your thesis/dissertation is a lot like long-distance running; it requires isolation, endurance, time, and motivation. Most doctoral students are running a long-distance marathon for about three years. Here are seven quick tips to help you organize things well before your final deadline.
Submit your document . at least . a week prior to the last day to add classes in order to provide the editor adequate time to examine the document, request corrections, and grant approval by her deadline. Once the editor approves your document, the Graduate School ... of your dissertation, so that the dissertation or thesis approval forms may ...
Why do I need to do a dissertation? The whole point of a dissertation is to convince your professor that you are a competent researcher. This can be challenging, because it is likely that this is your first real experience with research and the first time you will have to attempt a piece of research to this scale of magnitude.
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.
First do a plan of your dissertation. what you need to include, in what order and how many words. Then do your reading for about 4 or 5 days, and then 1000 words a day.
Stop procrastinating; if you spent as much time on your dissertation as you did looking up this 'smart drug' imagine how much you could have written. If you've got all the prep done (reading, research etc) then 8000 words in 4 days is easy. 2000 words a day isn't exactly easy, but its very doable.
By the end of the first week finish the word literature review and the methodology, by the end of the second week finish the 2 chapters, and in the third week finish your 2000 word discussion. If people can write 3/4000 word essays in 2 days, you can definitely finish 11,000 in 4 weeks. In the final week edit and re-edit constantly.
The document discusses the challenges of attempting to complete a dissertation within 4 weeks. It notes that conducting thorough research, organizing findings, and crafting an academically sound document requires careful attention to detail and a significant time investment, and rushing through this process may compromise quality.
Two cybersecurity firms launch separate websites that can tell you if your personal information, including Social Security number, was exposed in the National Public Data breach.
The deadline to submit your final approved thesis/dissertation and final paperwork for Fall 2024 is November 29. There is an all-in-one webform for the approval page and report on the final exam. Additional information, instructions, and links to the forms can be found at: ...
Low-calorie diets and intermittent fasting have been shown to have numerous health benefits: They can delay the onset of some age-related diseases and lengthen lifespan, not only in humans but many other organisms. Many complex mechanisms underlie this phenomenon. Previous work from MIT has shown that one way fasting exerts its beneficial ...
Sen. Jon Tester remains the most endangered Democrat running for reelection. In a state Trump twice carried by significant margins, he'll likely need to overperform Harris by double digits.
The superyacht can accommodate up to 12 guests in six suites, and is listed for rent for up to €195,000 (£166,000) a week. It was built in 2008 by Italian company Perini Navi.
Can I write my 10,000 word dissertation in 4 weeks? This discussion is now closed. How long did your dissertation take you to do? how many words should I write for my dissertation draft? 8000~ word dissertation where word limit is 10000?
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