The beginning of the dissertation writing process is the best time to set everything correctly and get to the finish line with the least effort and maximal results. We’ve asked young PhD candidates and those who have already had a doctoral degree about their experience in writing their dissertations and got some nontrivial pieces of advice on how to write this type of paper. They shared things they had done wrong, their mistakes, and also life-savers and smart ideas connected with the writing process.
Hope you’ll find some practical tips for your case and avoid unnecessary complexities from the first to the last page.
Dissertation Writing Tips: Only Scientists Are Allowed!
Time management plus task tracking
Make your dissertation writing your part- or full-time job. You have no choice but to build up an attitude like this. So you have to write regularly and make it your routine, like 3 pages a day. Sometimes, you’ll manage to write more, sometimes—not 3 pages, but 3 sentences. But with these small steps, the path to your dissertation will be easier.
Conduct the preliminary research and understand all the subtasks when you write a dissertation. Put them on the timeline. The roadmap will help you even more. Estimate the time for each stage you planned. And follow it. Just follow these steps to be safe and comfortable with your deadlines.
The less time you have for writing, the more you need such an approach to remember everything and manage your progress.
Plan your rest or stress will force you to rest
Your breaks throughout the day, holidays, days off, countryside trips, meetings with friends, dates with beloved ones—you should add all these events into your writing plan. Among all tips for writing a dissertation, this one is the most resourceful. You have to care about yourself and your well-being in the broadest sense to keep up with the hard pressure of research work and the writing process. It’s a quite common situation when graduate students are trying so hard that they forget to sleep, eat, or take a walk, and everything ends not at the graduation party but at the hospital. Stress is not your ally here, so make sure you rest enough.
And it’s cool if your family and friends support your academic journey. Be grateful they are by your side and inspire you, as they are part of your mental resource.
Write first, edit later
That’s easy. Before the first draft, you don’t have to sit and check each sentence for grammar or style. Write as much as you can and check if the meaning and logic of your arguments follow each other. When you complete your first chapter, take a helicopter view of it and the meaning of it seems to be OK for you, start editing it after a night of good sleep. This works also if you like to write at night. Don’t start revising right away, let the words cool down for a night. Your mourning will be much more energized with “Who did write this? I couldn’t be so absent-minded!” yelling.
Ask for help, the more, the better
Sometimes, you’re completely blindfolded to the mistakes in the text. It’s pretty natural because writing and editing require even different zones of the brain to activate while performing. So we strongly recommend asking for another pair of eyes to help you with different subtasks related to your dissertation. Needless to say, technically, you can ask your friend to help you find mistakes, but professional services like a dissertation service by CustomWritings will help you write a winning dissertation a thousand times better. They can handle editing, proofreading, writing, quotations, bibliography, and other work related to your dissertation. Just try once to see if their service can be a game-changer for your writing.
Choose a methodology, build up a structure, and follow them
Maybe you have read a few dissertations related to your topic. During the acknowledgment of other scientists’ works, you may distinguish the methodology they use, the stylistics of their argumentation, and the overall structure of their writing. Be sure to talk it through with your scientific advisor or mentor. They can give you some advice or two regarding the best-fit selection for your research. It’s essential to keep up with the same plan all the way through your writing.
Define terminology and notation style
Starting from your introduction, check the options for your notations and terms explanations. It’s essential to decide where and how to define them. One strategy implies defining them as they are introduced in the text, and the other—aggregating them in a specific section or using well-known notation. One style of notes helps to keep the reader oriented and prevents disrupting the flow of your argument. And it’s a sign of professional writing.
Get feedback from scientific advisory as frequently as possible
You are not alone in your dissertation struggle. Mentors, scientific advisors, and even library specialists are there to help you. Share your ideas, ask for honest opinions, and you’ll find other ways or unobvious mistakes in your research hidden from first sight. Find an expert in your field to get scientific advice, find an editor—for writing reviews.
Be inventive, brave, and ambitious with your research
But still, do your research in an original manner. Add details, discover a place for your own thoughts and conclusions. Make your problem statement spiced with personal involvement and care. Rely on your previous experience and research—this is what all scientists do. This emotional sparkle and passion, if we may say so, make a difference between a dissertation and a winning dissertation.
Check everything and be honest with your results
Never, just never-ever make up stats for the results of your dissertation. Never try to make your truth more likable, more adjusted to a common vision, or on the other hand—never exaggerate the value of your outcomes. Your research shouldn’t be another edition of the Newton’s laws. Don’t take this pressure too hard, but stay honest with the results and outcomes in your conclusion.
Prepare for the defense long before the admission day
Your defense speech structurally is similar to the paper you write, but it won’t make it successful. During your writing, you can mention well-said phrases and appropriate quotes that you can reuse in your speech. Collect them along the way in a separate document, then the speech writing will take you a couple of hours, not days. Also, be sure to train your speaking by reading your oration out loud before the defense.
Write a Dissertation By Using a Short Step-By-Step Roadmap: A Small Bonus
- Topic: Choose a title that’s scientifically significant and intriguing for you to research.
- Proposal: Draft a proposal outlining your research question and methodology.
- Literature review: Find the latest and most profound research on your topic.
- Abstract and introduction: Sometimes, these are the only chapters that people read in your dissertation.
- Research: Apply methodology to the materials you collected.
- Writing: Present what you discover and find.
- Revision: Revise your work for clarity and coherence.
- Defense preparation: Speech, presentation, and other materials will be required.
- Final submission: After a successful defense, submit the final version of your dissertation.
Wrapping up
Stay inspired. No matter how well you understand the whole writing process for your dissertation, if you lose the reason why you’ve started all this hard and exhausting work—it won’t bring you the joy of accomplishment in the end. You deserve to reach any scientific pinnacle for your efforts, so just keep on writing, striving for perfection in your research!
