The prospect of sitting down to write your thesis can be intimidating. Your supervisor should support you by reading drafts, providing feedback and helping you to judge appropriate style and level. You can expect them to read your whole thesis, probably more than once, but make sure to get someone else to proofread it as your supervisor is most likely to be concentrating on the technical detail. I have come to conclude (by analyzing myself, through the writing of this comment) that it’s best for me to continue as I have been going, because my advisor didn’t seem concerned by my approach when I handed in the first two parts of my work for his perusal of my ideas. If I do end up having to rewrite parts, then so be it term paper free example, but I need something written (and the corresponding ideas figured out in full) before I can rewrite it (and/or re-figure out ideas). Hi James a hero essay, I decided to work at home, not at the office, because there would be fewer distractions. The two most important parts of the day are the beginning and end. It’s important to build momentum early, and have a routine for ending the day too. Thank you so much for this! I’ve just completed my third year and bought a write-up year, but have now moved to part-time with a full-time job. This is a great reminder that with dedication it can be done, and that sometimes “good enough” just has to suffice. Done is definitely better than perfect. Jacob Nato says It is much, much easier to write when you know the raw material isn’t going to change. Alas, this (point #4) is where I am struggling free sample college personal statements, and I’m not sure what I can do about it. My research efforts are rife with feedback loops between the calculating (the “research”) and explaining (the “writing”): I calculate something, try to explain it, realize that I needed to calculate something slightly (or entirely) different, after which I can explain it to a point but then get stuck on what I need to figure out (via calculating or explaining or a mixture of both) next, and so on. This makes it very difficult to set targets and be consistent (#6). Thank you for the encouraging piece. I am in the fourth year of my PhD. I have already published few papers got the data, I should say very positive data, but even after all this last couple of months I had been killing time sitting in front of my PC browsing internet, playing computer game. In short, I am doing everything other than working on my PhD. Every night I sleep with so much of guilt and I think tomorrow I am going to change everything and start working seriously but that tomorrow is just not coming. I have no distraction at office but that makes me feel more demotivated to even go to work. I know it doesn’t matter if I go to work or not as no one will check on me. I hope with your advice I will become more productive. I liked the idea of removing internet, writing 500 words a day and going for walks ? thank you again Hi Ife, Just a thought… You could use pdf instead of eps for the images. I never used eps, because i usually save my images in pdf anyway and didn’t want to convert them just for Latex rules for writing a good essay, so i just used the package for pdf images. If you have the images in word you can easily turn them into pdf and usually the quality is good (great if u have adobe professional, but ok with other free / less expensive software too). I found that to be the best way to use images in my thesis. Images in bmp were never clear enough, especially if i used them at only a percentage of the column width, and since i had tons of composite images i usually had to use 0.4*\columnwidth. I never had that problem with pdf figures, they always looked great. Also, would you recommend doing a PhD full time as opposed to part time if circumstances allow, in order to focus completely on it? it is very motivating that someone already finished by 3 months ! I can’t give you motivation, but I don’t think that’s what you need anyway; you just need to be decisive. Give the analysis the time it deserves, including thinking and explaining to other people what you think it means. Writing is the last thing you should do, and only when you have well thought out analysis to deliver. Thanks a lot for your response! Anyways, thanks for this article, because it is reminding me of some of the things that I am doing well write my website for me, in addition to the few aspects I can make better. I might just have to continue to deal with the inherent uncertainty in the line between research and writing, but it might work out anyways if I am careful to attend to all the other things I can control more easily. Throughout the years I was pushed into writing and submitting work prematurely. As a consequence, I made the mistake of meeting targets rather than meeting my own personal standards. I have realised that my thesis is rotten to the core and riddled with many inaccuracies which were either not picked up on or not pointed out to me by my supervisors because they are not experts in the subject area I am researching. They tried their best to help me but I obtained a lot of poor advice over the years and the result is work that is not as good as what I wrote either at undergraduate or master’s level. I obtained First Class Honours and a Distinction respectively but now, I feel as though I am struggling to write something that is remotely decent. Somehow, a same case as with me. I have transferred to other country and the thing is that the company, that I am currently working for, doesn’t have a support on this effort. I am working on my own and currently in my second draft of thesis revision. I have done a lot of revisions on my simulations and also taught that my knowledge isn’t yet enough to finish the thesis. I have already lapsed my MRR and have been always followed up by focal person from Graduate Studies regarding the status. Though, the pressure is really on, I am currently doing my very best to be focused. So my piece of advise, just continue your thesis, we can do this! Try making the proposal as simple as possible, rather than starting with something big and trying to narrow it. Thanks for this thought. Now I’m wondering if I know of any other way to analyze other than to write! Get on with it. There are no excuses. You feel distracted? Are you going to let yourself fail because of that? I know many people study their PhD part-time over a 6 year period. My concern is my topic is constantly evolving, and I worry that if I take that route, by the time I finish, my research “gap” will have been filled and my contribution to academic thought will no longer be relevant. Do you have any advice in this regard? Hi there high school interview essay, And whether you finish on time (i.e. before summer) is down to you. If you cut back on other commitments, and can write consistently every day, then of course it’s possible. On the other hand, who cares if the department are happy? If you are happy to spend the extra months working, and you think it’s the only way, then do it! Again, you just have to decide. But either way you’ve go to stop gathering new material at some point and go with what you have. “It is much need help writing a paper for free, much easier to write when you know the raw material isn’t going to change.” I am on my 3th month of PhD Thesis writing. I also planned 3 months. But now I think I am fading. Sometimes I just do not manage to get focused, I sit in front of the computer and my mind is white… pure white. Did it happen to you? I have tried walking around to organize my thoughts, changing the activity for 10-15 min, reading something related to what I want to write…, but I cannot get out of that stuck-mode. It is like if my brain was on strike! do you have any advice? The heartbreak after every failed target or deadline (#2) has led to much stress (#1), which I’m still working on figuring out. All I know so far is the first step is to notice when I am avoiding my work, and then to actively choose to calm myself in a way that lets me continue work. But both parts of that are hard, because I seem to be quite clever in finding “useful” ways to procrastinate, and I also seem to be perpetually in denial of my stress. Also, when I do notice my stress, it’s because it is so strong that it is difficult to face directly, even after attempts at calming myself. But I what you say you did for stress might help me out a lot too, especially because I keep telling myself I need to take more walks. ? Thank you so much for writing this article – I am in the process of completing my Masters degree in Oil and Gas Law, and upon completion wish to begin my PhD, so this has been incredibly helpful! Though my productivity increased once I figured out how to deal with stress, I was still doing experiments well into my fourth year. James Hayton says My supervisor (the brilliant Professor Moriarty ) then told me that I would no longer be allowed into the lab after the end of March 2007, and that I would have to write whatever I had. The article is very motivating. I’m a busy mother of two. I have so much distraction around me and also lots of responsibilities as well. I have done lots of lab work but when now I’m looking at it it’s all repeated and to reproduce same results. I have not read a lot as well. Now from yesterday I have starting writing my thesis because I think if I will start writing I will then have to cite and read literature. Still not reading the whole paper which is not right may be. After reading your article I want to finish my thesis not in three but four months. Three would probably unreal ? thanks and congrats on such an achievement. Now I know I’m not alone, now I got only 1 month to finish my draft, 2 month to refill anything that is not sufficient to my supervisor and my final deadline is the end of this year. Wish me luck. At the end of each day I always left myself something easy to do to get started with the next day, so I woke up knowing what I was going to do. This meant that because I smashed the target most days, I finished every day feeling good about my progress, which in turn meant I started the next day feeling confident. If you haven’t analysed the data, or if you don’t know how to analyse it, you might need an extension. I am happy for you…..Dr…..the world is your oyster. I always edit as I write, with one goal only: to make sure I’ve expressed the idea in my head clearly on the page. I don’t move on until I feel the sentence makes sense, with no ambiguity of meaning. I’ve had some comments on this post reacting as if I completed my entire PhD in 3 months. No, I did three and a half years of research first, then wrote the thesis. I also do not claim that anyone can write that fast, as it depends on a lot of different factors. This is why the title is “How I wrote…”, not “How to write…” Clarity of thought is always the number one aim. But it is very difficult to come back to a piece of writing days or weeks later and sort out a mess of thought if you don’t clarify your writing while the thought is still fresh in your head. Mind to share how? I’m sorry, I know it must be stressful, but I don’t have an answer for you. You surely understand I cannot say “manipulating your data is OK” James Hayton says Really sorry about the long note. But I very much needed an expert opinion on this. Thank you! Wanna help me read my (hopefully) final draft? I had nowhere near enough results, the equipment I was using didn’t work most of the time, and I could barely summon the motivation to get up in the morning.
Hi James. I’m a final year student in government university. I’m lose my motivation. I don’t know what my lecturer need. I already sent 3 proposals to her why can i not do my homework, but she said that my topic to big. What I don’t understand is, I already narrow down the topic. She keep comment my work but she accept my friends work. In this condition, I think I will repeat my semester just because she not accept my proposal. Sometime I think she hate me. I really sad. either do the experiments (and pause writing until you have done them, or make a clear decision not to. James Hayton says And sometimes there just isn’t a figure that illustrates exactly what you want to say. The figures are as important as the words, so it’s worth spending the time on them So, mine may not end up being a 3-month thesis, but the tips I’m absorbing from this site will help me minimize the wasted time in many other ways, I’m sure. ? I am guilty over disappearing from my supervisor..I am already at my 5th year of my phd and happen to report back to duty in the same faculty as my SV (FYI, i am already an academician thru’ my clinical Master) but in different dept. I still have the final chunk of my labwork part need to be done and now avoiding him as I feel that I did not progress much due to my teaching commitment. FYI, I have lost interest in my Phd work since I got so many rejections of the manuscript I sent for publication and to think there is no novelty of the work since the plant that I chose for my study has been deeply researched by others. Also, partly I am blaming my SV for not forecasting such things to happen in my study and he does not even want to read any draft of my manuscript. The only thing he read so far is my ppt slides I prepared for my defence and he showed very little interest in my project. I feel abandoned and this drive me farther from him. Please advise. I am on the verge of giving up. The best students find a way to create “bonsai” exegeses. They prepare perfectly formed engagements with theory, method and scholarship discursive essay structures, but in miniature. They note word limits, demonstrate the precise dialogue between the exegesis and artefact, and show through a carefully edited script that they hold knowledge equivalent to the “traditional” doctoral level. Most examiners will accept a few spelling or typographical mistakes, but in a word-processing age, this tolerance is receding. I know plenty of examiners who gain great pleasure in constructing a table and listing all the typographical and spelling errors in a script. Occasionally I do it and then I know I need to get out more. My virtual supervisor chucked it back and made me make some changes..mk2. I'm a visiting Fellow in a leading health research institution. I don't know why they keep me on but I have my suspicions and it isn't because I am so crap at research I make them look good. Over the years I've been asked to consider doing a PhD. Reading this just confirms my belief that I'm more productive and more useful as i am. It must be great to be a Dr and PhD but I'm not vain enough to submit myself to the archaic nonsense of the sect. To do that would be to nurture a folly. I utterly reject the notion that the doctoral research process is the pinnacle of study and research or that it is the best (only) way to learn the value of academic rigour. There are too many PhD research projects. The need to fragment and dissect knowledge into smaller and smaller more and more specialist matter in order to find something "original" is proof. What we are looking it isn't matter. It is that so small and specialised it is "doesn't" matter: knowledge that is only of interest to the nerds who mark it, the author and the author's mother. Sadly it appears to be multiplying rather than declining, leading to a plague of journals that nobody also reads. It's time to rethink this outdated, wasteful plague. I'll never be mistaken for a real Doctor (medical) but it's much more fun and relaxing being an action researcher in health who is involved directly in action. And if I'm sometimes angry at the vanity of professional full-time academics who I think don't get out enough to see patients, I just throw a few stones and ask them if they read Thomas Sowell's "Intellectuals and Society" before they did their PhD. So why do they keep me on? That's easy. We love each other! Being a PhD supervisor is stressful. It is a privilege but it is frightening. We know – and individual postgraduates do not – that strange comments are offered in response to even the best theses. Yes, an examiner graded a magnificent doctorate from one of my postgraduates as “minor corrections” for one typographical error in footnote 104 in the fifth chapter of an otherwise cleanly drafted 100,000 words. It was submitted ten years ago and I still remember it with regret. Again, this is another new problem I have seen in the past couple of years. Lazy students, who may be more kindly described as “inexperienced researchers”, state that they have invented the wheel because they have not looked under their car to see the rolling objects under it. After minimal reading, it is easy to find original contributions to knowledge in every idea that emerges from the jarring effect of a bitter espresso. 2. Use phrases such as “some academics” or “all the literature” without mitigating statements or references Therefore, to offer insights to postgraduates who may be in the final stages of submission, cursing their supervisors who want another draft and further references, here are my ten tips for failing a PhD. If you want failure, this is your road map to getting there. The over-readers present their own challenges. For our under-readers, the world is filled with their own brilliance because they do not realise that every single sentence they write has been explored, extended, tested and applied by other scholars in the past. Intriguingly, these are always the confident students, arriving at the viva voce brimming with pride in their achievements. They are the hardest ones to assess (and help) through an oral exam because they do not know enough to know how little they know. If the most basic academic protocols are not in place, the credibility of a script wavers. A bibliography is not just a bibliography: it is a canary in the doctoral mine. 8. Make the topic of the thesis too large 3. Write an abstract without a sentence starting “my original contribution to knowledge is…” My teaching break between Christmas and the university’s snowy reopening in January followed in the footsteps of Goldilocks and the three bears. I examined three PhDs: one was too big; one was too small; one was just right. Put another way, one was as close to a fail as I have ever examined; one passed but required rewriting to strengthen the argument; and the last reminded me why it is such a pleasure to be an academic. 7. Leave spelling mistakes in the script 5. Use discourse, ideology, signifier, signified, interpellation, postmodernism, structuralism, post-structuralism or deconstruction without reading the complete works of Foucault, Althusser, Saussure, Baudrillard or Derrida #5 Submitted by Ken.charman_260628 on January 21, 2016 - 7:17am Hope washes over the start of a PhD candidature, but desperation and fear often mark its conclusion. There are (at least) ten simple indicators that prompt examiners to recommend re-examination, major corrections or – with some dismay – failure. If postgraduates utilise these guidelines, they will be able to make choices and realise the consequences of their decisions. Actually, no. A PhD must be written to ensure that it can be examined within the regulations of a specific university and in keeping with international standards of doctoral education. A doctorate may be described in many ways, but it has no connection with everyday modes of communication. I understand the angst, worry and stress of supervisors, but I have experienced the other side of the doctoral divide. Examining PhDs is both a pleasure and a curse. It is a joy to nurture, support and help the academy’s next generation. but it is a dreadful moment when an examiner realises that a script is so below international standards of scholarship that there are three options: straight fail, award an MPhil or hope that the student shows enough spark in the viva voce so that it may be possible to skid through to major corrections and a full re-examination in 18 months. Finally, we located a clear section in one chapter that was original. He signalled it in the abstract. He highlighted it in the introduction. He stressed the importance of this insight in the chapter itself and restated it in the conclusion. Needless to say, every examiner noted the original contribution to knowledge that had been highlighted for them, based on a careful and methodical understanding of the field. He passed without corrections. Academic rigour is an essential validation of a PhD.(Point, Evidence, Example). Format adds to the architectural frame and culturally correct grammar endorses intellectual credibility. Brabazon and the contribution of Haggarty and Doyle (10 Steps to PhD Failure, 27 August,2015) share their personal pointers to PhD success. However, are there other issues to consider? Perhaps, debate about "international standards of doctoral education" (Brabazon, point 4) might merit attention. The global village is an unregulated academic stew - rightly or wrongly. There are no "international standards of doctoral education". 1. Do the so-called accredited universities, for example, subscribe to an international standard of doctoral education? 2. If so, what is this standard? 3. Who set the bar? However, is there a danger of "academia" becoming the golden calf that is an end in itself? Many bound copies gather dust. Content often exhibits dry, difficult to understand and uninteresting prose (Ibid, Haggerty and Doyle, 2015). Ticked boxes and submission to subjective supervisory criteria might need an added discipline viz. emotional and social intelligence. PhD attainment, while praiseworthy, may be likened to the purchase of the latest model car - once it leaves the showroom its value drops and the ubiquitous Product Life Cycle begins to turn. A PhD focuses on one aspect of a topic and should be a source of knowledge for all - not just for the benefit of others who will then use the content to bolster their entrance into the elite PhD Club. Ideally, a PhD is not an end in itself but a means to a greater end. Supervisors are important but, to date, his/her approach often ensures that ticked boxes reflect the input of an all-powerful supervisor whose standards reflect his/her subjectivity but at the expense of academic clarity that is understandable to all outside the cloistered world of academics. Consider, for example, the difference in the writing and presentation of the cited authors above. Is it possible that supervisors might be tempted to fulfil their need for approval as intellectual gurus by abusing their powerful position as "supervisor"? After all, whether we spell "honor" or "honour" depends not only on the cultural setting of the guru but also the educational traditions of the candidate. Would the ownership of emotional and social intelligence enable the supervisor to lead a candidate to a new focus on knowledge (cf. Daniel Goleman et al)? Goleman's contribution to academia might be an added dimension to the intellectual prowess of the supervisor. Invariably, the answer to this question – often after much stuttering and stammering – is that the candidate had not read the analysis. I leave the question hanging at that point. We could get into why they have not read it, or the consequences of leaving out key theorists. But one moment of glimpsing into the abyss of failure is enough to summon doubt that their “originality” is original. This bibliographical flattening and reduction in quality sources unexpectedly affects candidates’ writing styles. I am not drawing a causal link here: major research would need to be undertaken to probe this relationship. But because the students are not reading difficult scholarship, they are unaware of the specificities of academic writing. The doctorates are pitched too low, filled with informalities, conversational language, generalisations deserted island, opinion and unreflexive leaps between their personal “journeys” (yes, it is like an episode of The X Factor) and research protocols. The lessons of scholarship begin with intellectual generosity to the scholars who precede us. Ironically – although perhaps not – candidatures also conclude there. Writing up a PhD can often take place in a frenzy of activity in the last few months of your degree study, after years of hard work. But there are some steps that you can take to increase your chances of success.
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