Bring on the coffee—it's dissertation time! As a handout on dissertations explains, over 50 percent of PhD candidates never finish their dissertations. The handout, part of a larger series on specific writing styles, helps motivate candidates by providing them with tips related to time management, funding, and other stresses involved in the process. Although coffee may help with the dissertation writing process, other strategies, such as writing consistently, may prove more effective to seeing it through to the end.

Concepts

academic language, research writing

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Additional Tags

english language arts

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Instructional Ideas

• Invite a recent graduate or a PhD candidate who is further along in the process to share some advice with current scholars
• Create a simple FAQs sheet for individuals to refer to during the process to help keep them on track

Classroom Considerations

• Designed for graduate students beginning the process of writing a dissertation

Pros

• Uses humor to encourage writers ("A good dissertation is a done dissertation")
• Includes an annotated bibliography with additional resources related to the topic

Cons

• Features a lot of information without a lot of organization; many sections cover the same points in different ways

Common Core

W.9-10.7 W.9-10.8 W.11-12.7 W.11-12.8