With so many conflicting demands, it can be difficult to keep your work-life balance in check while writing your dissertation. However, mastering this balancing act is crucial to your academic success both now and in the future. As one researcher…

ABD, or “all but dissertation,” is a term used frequently in the US to designate a PhD student who has passed all qualifying degree elements except for the writing, presentation, and defense of the doctoral dissertation. For many students, ABD…

You’ve done the research, analyzed the data, written the dissertation, and submitted it – now all that’s left is to complete your oral defense (also known as the viva voce, or just the viva). How on earth can you prepare…

Think you’ve hit the finish line when you finally finish your full dissertation draft? Well … not quite. You actually have many more steps before you finally get to call your dissertation journey finished. Here’s a handy infographic of what…

If you’re approaching the final weeks of your dissertation writing journey, you may be wondering about the process for approaching and completing your defense. Exactly what happens after you hit the “submit” button, and how soon will you be able…

When you have a dissertation deadline approaching, it can be challenging to keep motivated. In fact, the closer the finish line looms, the harder it gets to stay focused and enthusiastic. Anything but sitting down to work starts to look…

No one likes doing academic references, but they are essential and a dissertation contains HUNDREDS of them. How can you keep your references and citations in order when you are working with so many sources over so many months and…

If you’ve never been taught how to conduct scholarly research, finding academic journal articles can feel overwhelming when you first sit down to research your dissertation lit review, problem statement, and so on. Many students resort to random browsing, but…

Photo by Ilya Pavlov on Unsplash You can be the most lucid writer in the world, but without good document management skills, your writing talent may not count for much. In my time as an editor and communications specialist, I…

Photo by Sear Greyson on Unsplash We all know that academic hiring is cut-throat at the best of times, and even more so now that COVID-19 is hitting higher education institutions hard. A key question for budding academics at the moment, therefore, is…

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when the task of writing 10,000+ words of dissertation report content looms before you. Here are my top tips for making the task feel more manageable. Tip 1: Make a Writing Plan You can make…

A key question for many dissertation students just getting started on their proposals is, “what is theory, anyway?” A post on the topic of “what is theory” could expand to fill a whole book – and indeed, many books have…

One key strategy for avoiding burnout as a dissertation student is to set yourself doctorate goals. However, goal setting involves more than just making a to-do list. Read on for a quick explanation of how goals help, how to write…

Pulling together your final dissertation manuscript is no walk in the park. From references and citations to proper academic formatting and professional-looking tables and data graphs, there are a lot of moving pieces that all need to be executed perfectly…

Managing different versions of your work can be challenging when you are dealing with multiple dissertation revisions. Sometimes, a chapter or proposal goes through multiple rounds of revision. At other times, you may be working with separate sets of feedback,…

You can be the best dissertation student in the world, but without good document management skills, your research talent won’t count for much. In my time as a dissertation coach, I have seen clients accidentally release rough drafts into the…