Putting Together a PhD Dissertation
Writing your PhD dissertation represents a very exciting time in your life. After all, once you get your PhD, you get to be addressed as “Doctor So and So,” and you are recognized as someone who makes a serious contribution to your field of study. Many, many doors open up to you, not the least of which is the ability to obtain a tenure track teaching job at a college or university. However, first thing is first, and before you get those spiffy letters added to the end of your name, you have to do some serious researching and writing.
First of all, let’s discuss what, exactly, a PhD dissertation is all about, especially in terms of what is expected of you. This dissertation should be the comprehensive result of your own original research as a graduate student. It is a partial fulfillment of the requirements you have to get done in order to obtain the PhD – or Doctor of Philosophy – degree. It generally contains several chapters. Former graduates like to joke about the fact that the width of the margins is more important than the content of your dissertation, but that is not true!
This dissertation is not so different from the others you have to write in order to get where you are. Primarily, the main differences between, say, a PhD dissertation and a Master dissertation are, of course, the degree you are trying to obtain and the length. By and large, the dissertation you write to obtain a PhD is much more comprehensive and in depth than any others.
Succinctly, the dissertation writing process for a PhD thesis is … well, to be perfectly honest, it is decidedly different than anything you have ever before written. A lot of students make the mistake of trying to make everything perfect. They will spend months, even years, writing their thesis statement. Before you get to that point, stop. That’s it; just stop.
Another common joke among graduate students at this level involves them saying to themselves, “No one will ever read your thesis.” This may seem disheartening, but you actually need to take it as fact. It is not true, of course, but by believing it is, you are going to save yourself a whole lot of time and frustration – which are two things graduate students have enough of as is. You do not need to add pressure onto yourself by making sure everything is absolutely flawless. Remember, if you drive yourself insane, your PhD is not going to do you any good.
If none of this information seems helpful to those of you preparing your PhD dissertation, trust, it will get helpful very soon. Yes, your research is important – it especially needs to be both original and thought provoking. Yes, you need to have an excellent thesis statement. Yes, you need to have good dissertation writing skills. However, this is perhaps the most stressful time in a student’s life, and keeping things in an ever so slightly humorous perspective will actually help you more than all the obsessive compulsive perfection in the world.
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Tags: dissertation, Dissertation Writing Guide, Master dissertation, PhD dissertation, thesis, thesis statement
