Demystifying Dissertation Writing

Research shows that five strategies correlate with the successful completion of a dissertation:·Establishing a consistent writing routine·Working with a support group·Consulting your advisor·Understanding your committee’s expectations·Setting a realistic and timely scheduleBuilding on these insights, this book is for anyone who needs help in preparing for, organizing, planning, scheduling, and writing the longest sustained writing project they have encountered, particularly if he or she is not receiving sufficient guidance about the process, but also for anyone looking to boost his or her writing productivity.The author uncovers much tacit knowledge, provides advice on working with dissertation advisors and committee members, presents proven techniques for the prewriting and writing stages of the dissertation, sets out a system for keeping on schedule, and advocates enlisting peer support. As Peg Boyle Single states, “my goal is quite simple and straightforward: for you to experience greater efficiency and enjoyment while writing. If you experience anxiety, blocking, impatience, perfectionism or procrastination when you write, then this system is for you. I want you to be able to complete your writing so that you can move on with the rest of your life.” Few scholars, let alone graduate students, have been taught habits of writing fluency and productivity. The writing skills imparted by this book will not only help the reader through the dissertation writing process, but will serve her or him in whatever career she or he embarks on, given the paramount importance of written communication, especially in the academy. This book presents a system of straightforward and proven techniques that are used by productive writers, and applies them to the dissertation process. In particular, it promotes the concept of writing networks – whether writing partners or groups – to ensure that writing does not become an isolated and tortured process, while not hiding the need for persistence and sustained effort.This book is intended for graduate students and their advisers in the social sciences, the humanities, and professional fields. It can further serve as a textbook for either informal writing groups led by students or for formal writing seminars offered by departments or graduate colleges. The techniques described will help new faculty advice their students more effectively and even achieve greater fluency in their own writing.

Here is the first book a prospective doctoral candidate should read. Updated to reflect both modern technological advances and the realities of contemporary academia, it serves as an excellent overview of the dissertation process in most academic fields. Advice starts with selecting an advisor and a dissertation committee, then covers problems connected with selecting a dissertation topic, submitting the proposal, working with an advisor, and writing and defending the dissertation.

This book provides masters and doctoral students with an in-depth and comprehensive guide to the process of writing a thesis or dissertation. It breaks down this often foreboding and overwhelming goal into achievable steps, presenting models that prepare readers for each stage of the process. Within each step, the authors supply all the tools and detailed instructions necessary for the successful completion of a thesis or dissertation. Along the way, the book offers readers skills and techniques that can help them cope more effectively with the psychological or emotional blocks that often get in the way of accomplishing their goal.

Informative, insightful, and accessible, this book is designed to enhance the capacity of graduate and undergraduate students, as well as early career scholars, to write for academic purposes. Fang describes key genres of academic writing, common rhetorical moves associated with each genre, essential skills needed to write the genres, and linguistic resources and strategies that are functional and effective for performing these moves and skills. Fang’s functional linguistic approach to academic writing enables readers to do so much more than write grammatically well-formed sentences. It leverages writing as a process of designing meaning to position language choices as the central focus, illuminating how language is a creative resource for presenting information, developing argument, embedding perspectives, engaging audience, and structuring text across genres and disciplines. Covering reading responses, book reviews, literature reviews, argumentative essays, empirical research articles, grant proposals, and more, this text is an all-in-one resource for building a successful career in academic writing and scholarly publishing. Each chapter features crafts for effective communication, authentic writing examples, practical applications, and reflective questions. Fang complements these features with self-assessment tools for writers and tips for empowering writers. Assuming no technical knowledge, this text is ideal for both non-native and native English speakers, and suitable for courses in academic writing, rhetoric and composition, and language/literacy education.

A long-term bestseller, this book is a pragmatic step-by-step guide to completing you dissertation or thesis during two semesters, in fifty workdays or less. It covers advisor and topic selection, proposal development, data collection and organization, available assistance, writing, and defense. The author demystifies the process and provides you with essential guidance through the rites of passage that are an integral part of completing your degree.

Conducting phenomenological research for dissertations can be an involved and challenging process, and writing it up is often the most challenging part. How to Write a Phenomenological Dissertation gives students practical, applied advice on how to structure and develop each chapter of the dissertation specifically for phenomenological research. Phenomenology is about personal experience and personal experience varies from researcher to researcher. However, this variation is a big source of confusion for new researchers in the social, behavioral, or health sciences. This brief text is written in a simple, step-by-step fashion to account for this flexibility and variation while also providing structure necessary for a successful dissertation. Broken up into chapters that follow each chapter of the dissertation, this text logically addresses the various parts of phenomenological research, starting with ensuring phenomenology is the right method for your research, writing the literature review, going through methods and results sections to analysis and discussion. The author, using experience gleaned from supervising phenomenological dissertations for many years, gives time-tested advice on how structure the dissertation to fit into more common frameworks, using checklists and tables throughout. Each chapter includes a list of helpful resources for students to use alongside this book with specific information on methods and research. Unique to this text is a chapter on creating your own phenomenological method which allows students to expand their viewpoints and experiment in future studies after the dissertation.

The classic step-by-step guide to thesis and dissertation success, fully updated for 2018. From research to defense, a masters thesis or doctoral dissertation is a major undertaking. Since 1998, this book has been the go-to resource for scholars seeking guidance at every phase of the process. This revised and updated fourth edition is the most comprehensive guide yet to researching, writing, and publishing a successful thesis or dissertation. It includes: Insights on leveraging new technologies to maximize work efficiency. Current case studies demonstrating the book’s teachings. Tested principles of effective planning, an engaging writing style, defense preparation, and more.