Tips for Getting through Dissertation

[pullingthrough]

Hi all,

 

I've received some excellent advice on The Grad Cafe regarding my difficulties with my social sciences/humanities PhD program and interest in non-academic work.  After several years of struggling, I'm trying to finish my dissertation and move on.  I have a few rough chapters under my belt and a rough schedule of what drafts and revisions I need to get done in order to progress as planned.

 

My question is: what tips or work-arounds have you used to ease the difficulty of actually finishing your dissertation?  I'm particularly interested in help from those who weren't feeling so in love with their project by the time they got to the writing phase, or those who overcame the psychological aspects of producing what feels like mediocre work.  I can force myself to get a certain amount done every day.  But, I still feel pretty bad about myself and my work at the end of the day.  Did anyone find a solution to the sense of despair, lack of accomplishment, or loss of confidence from finishing something that you don't feel great about?

 

Thank you for any ideas.

[rising_star]

1) Write every day. Set aside a dedicated block of time for writing. Turn off the internet, your phone, the TV, etc. during that time and just write.

2) Break down what you need to do into the smallest tasks possible. If you need to say, write the introductory chapter, break that down into each of its components. And then break those components/sections into subsections. 

3) Write with a goal in mind. That could be finishing one of those subsections, writing a certain number of words, etc. 

4) Take at least one day a week where you don't write or even look at the dissertation. 

[juilletmercredi]

rising_star already said everything I was going to say. I especially emphasize breaking the dissertation down into smaller sections. I broke my dissertation down into 2-3 page sections, and when I set daily goals, they were based upon those small sections.

 

One additional thing I will add is that when you are writing, don't worry about the quality just yet. The first draft of everything you write is going to suck. It's supposed to - that's what proofreading and editing and revising is for. Just get some words on the paper; you will get that queasy feeling in your stomach that it's not quite right. Then set aside some time each week (maybe one day a week) for revising and editing - during which you take an already written section and revise that. (Or you can save all of your revisions for the end, although I wouldn't recommend that.)

[booksnlooks]

In addition to all the great suggestions above, taking care of yourself outside of your work may help with the emotional side of things. It can be easier to tackle and work through negative dissertation-inflicted emotions when you're well rested, well fed, well exercised, and treating yourself with kindness. I find meditation has also helped me - I've tried out a couple of different phone apps with some success.

[maelia8]

I haven't written a dissertation yet, but when I'm trying to create new material, I hold myself to a standard of 1000 words per day, and when I'm editing/revising/expanding, I make myself go through three pages per sitting, no more. If I let it drop to anything less, I just stop getting stuff done and lose momentum. For me at least, it's the momentum habit that keeps me going.

[pullingthrough]

Hi everyone,

 

Thank you so much to those of you who took the time to reply and share your thoughts.  I think these tips will be very helpful, for myself and hopefully others as well.

 

I realized that I did not phrase my question very clearly. I'm looking for advice on how to maintain contentment and confidence while finishing a very long, underwhelming project.  I actually have a fairly workable system for moving forward productively - word quotas, section goals, deadlines with advisers, etc.  At this point, I'm moving along faster-than-average in my department and am scheduled to finish my dissertation on time, if not a bit early.   So, I am finishing at a reasonable pace.

 

The problem is that the work has proven really difficult to get through with my professional and personal self-esteem in tact.  I work all day on a project that has failed, in many ways, and I am certainly not in love with it.  I'm almost positive I won't end up in an academic career. So, at the end of the day, any accomplishment seem difficult to measure. I'm committed to finishing, but the process can be really taxing. My adviser is responsive - a trait I know is rare and that I appreciate. But, his feedback is intense and negative.  So, I'm working diligently but know that completing a chapter is going to result in another round of very, very humbling criticism and instructions to rewrite entirely.  I've been doing this for about a year and find it difficult to keep my head above water.  Even while knowing that I will leave academia, I find that my confidence as a student and professional has suffered significantly.

 

I've been doing volunteer work, exercising, and exploring non-academic career tracks to keep my mind focused on the end game.  These have helped. Still,  I am wondering if those in similar circumstances have found other ways of maintaining confidence and self-esteem.  Did you get any particularly wonderful advice from a sympathetic mentor?  Have you found a particular activity helpful in proving your worth outside of graduate school?

 

I realize that I'm very lucky to have had the opportunities I did and do not mean to sound overly negative.  I just hope that some more seasoned readers might know of some tips to push through the mental tolls of dissertating.

[TakeruK]

My MSc thesis project was pretty underwhelming. In short, for two years, we worked on creating a computer simulation of planet formation using one paradigm. During the whole two years, we were not successful. Although our work still represents a new attempt at planet formation with this paradigm, our result is that it failed, and thus a better way to incorporate the physics is needed. Oh well, a null result / finding out what doesn't work is what moves science forward. But for extra fun, while I was writing up the dissertation, someone else came up with a whole new paradigm of planet formation. And it works! And I also discovered a problem in part of the code I was using so I had the experience of writing a dissertation where I know the results were wrong** and that our experiment didn't work, and that someone else has already found a better way to do what we're trying to do.

 

(** "results were wrong" is a simplification: the conclusion and science was still correct, but it would mean I have to redo a lot of things to get this work to publication level)

 

Anyways, a few things that helped me get through the writing and working on something that I didn't really enjoy anymore were:

 

1. Perspective. Although my project was a "failure", the true reason for my degree is to train me to be a researcher and I was very successful in that. I still got what I came for out of the MSc: which is to determine whether or not I want to stay in academia. I still learned a lot and developed a lot of very useful skills that I can now apply to my PhD program and beyond. I could focus on all the crappy results from our work, or I can choose to look at the big picture and realise that the less-than-useful results are not the only thing that will define my time in my MSc program.

 

2. Having a plan after my MSc. In Canada, the graduate program is that you do a 2 year research based MSc then a 3-4 year PhD. So, at that time, I already had plans to start a PhD program (my current program) that fall. Having something to look forward to was really helpful. Also, knowing that I achieved admission into one of my dream PhD programs helped my self-confidence. I knew that I am a good researcher and an accomplished professional: it's the project that failed, not me. It might help if you took stock of all the things you have accomplished and achieved so far. In academia, it's so easy for us to focus on the failures, that we forget how much we already achieved to get where we are. 

 

3. Talking to other people about this. Failed projects like this are pretty common in academia, but you might think they never happen because no one talks about failures. Few journals will publish null results or other things that don't work (despite knowing these things would save a lot of time for a lot of people!). But a lot of accomplished researchers faced (multiple) failure(s) in their past. A lot of other graduate students are struggling with similar things. It helps to know that you're not the only one (and again, to convince yourself that it's not you that failed, but science/research will fail because that's what happens when we try to discover new things).

 

4. Avoiding perfectionism. Academia and especially thesis writing is one of those things where the criteria is not very well defined. As grad students are typically the ones that always put extra effort in academics in the past, I find that it's often the case that we set unreasonably high expectations for ourselves and make work more difficult for us. Since you know you want to leave academia, I would make your number 1 goal be to get out in as little time as possible and do not add additional work for yourself. For example, remember that your dissertation is your work. While suggestions and critiques from your advisor should be considered, remember that they are suggestions, not requirements. Find out what minimal work is necessary to complete and do that. Just because a sentence can be rewritten to sound clearer or to remove grammatical errors doesn't mean that you have to do it. Of course, this advice is really meant for the near-end stages of writing (not sure where you are now). You know your relationship with your advisor and your committee the best, and you should do what you know is right. But just remember that in the end, it does not have to be perfect, it just has to be complete and good enough that they won't fail you.

 

Hope these thoughts were helpful! A PhD dissertation is not the same as a MSc thesis but they are similar enough that I think our experiences might overlap a bit.

 

Oh and finally, things that look like failures might not be so. Since finishing my MSc, we updated our computer code and got some more results. They are still null results/failures but it turns out the new paradigm that came out when I was in the MSc program also has other unexpected problems. So, although it's been 3 years since my MSc now, we are working on just writing up our attempts and publishing a null result. New discoveries of other types of planetary systems since my MSc might also make our results relevant in other systems. So, maybe the work will be useful to someone else down the road Keep at it!!

[pullingthrough]

Thanks so much for your thoughts, TakeruK.  It's really nice that you took the time to think through these ideas and write them all out.  I'm not in the sciences, so the skills I'm taking away aren't as clear, but I gleaned important lessons from your suggestions.  Thanks again!