Category — Writing Tips
Conquering The Fear Factor of Writing Your Dissertation
The thought of writing your dissertation can send a shiver of fear into the most seasoned grad student. Breathe easy–feeling worried about writing the biggest paper of your life is completely normal!
For practical step-by-step tips on how to overcome dissertation inertia and a great guide for taking those initial steps in the writing and research process you will want to check out this wonderful resource on dissertations, which I’ve found very helpful.
There’s so much useful info in that article, but one of the thing I learned is there are a few roadblocks that commonly pop-up with dissertation writing that prevent us from getting the deed done:
Top 11 Causes & Cures For The Procrastination Monkey
We begin the quarter with the best of intentions. We’re going to be on top of things this time, have regular study sessions, review our notes on a daily basis, not miss class, start writing papers in advance of 24 hours of their due date, and say “buh-bye” to the roller coaster of stress, shame and guilt that goes along with our old foe “Mr. Procrastination”.
Then, before we know it it’s 2am and we have a major paper due in 8 hours and we’re scurrying to the finish line again! Or it’s the weekend before an exam, and it’s like “What? How did this sneak up on me?”
Does this sound like a familiar scenario? Unfortunately for most of us it is 
. Take heart–even the most organized, productive students sometimes fall prey to the procrastination monkey jumping on our backs. Mere mortals that we are, it seems like we’re constantly in danger of falling into a downward spiral of avoiding things that we know we should be doing.
Sometimes it helps to sidestep the dreaded procrastination monkey if we understand why it’s there in the first place. JohnPlaceOnline lists the top 11 causes and cures of procrastination as being:
Organize Your Writing Time Like A Professional Writer
Is there any other skill more necessary in Grad School or College than writing? Nadda. Writing papers, essays, and your dissertation are all inescapable aspects of academia, and there’s a heck of a lot more to serious writing than just knowing correct grammar and punctuation.
Professional writers will tell you, organizing your writing time is paramount to a successful writing project. Especially if you’re working on a huge project like your dissertation, you need to get serious about scheduling your writing time.
There’s an excellent article at Study Hacks called How to Schedule Your Writing Like a Professional Writer, and they’ve done an amazing job of collecting advice from several masters of long form non-fiction.
Apply the professional writing tips to your college or grad school writing (or any writing at all) by following these steps:
