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Doctorates are long-term projects. They typically take a minimum of 3 years but for some projects the timelines can be longer. During this time it is often easy to forget when they started as the involvement in the day to day is to frequently the focus. It’s weird in a way as one minute the project seems like it is miles away from completion and then all of a sudden there is this realisation that the work has all come together and all that’s left is the writing up the chapters and submitting the thesis.
It’s easy to think that this final bit as one nears the finish line is easy but often it is the most difficult phase. The reasons for this can include students running out of energy, time pressure of submission deadline or other factors (i.e. student has a job). This part of the process is not often seen as very inspirational as it is much more frequently associated with the slog of completing the volume of writing needed; the most exciting bits of the projects (the creativity of the research design, the excitement of collecting data) are done, you just need to tell people about it. I currently have a few students in this phase and so it seemed useful to give a few tips from my experience around things that seem important to think about to help the writing up phase. Here we go:
- See the beauty in the slog. There is definitely a valuable lesson in the discipline of sitting down and getting the writing done. The major component of and project is the “perspiration not the inspiration!”. Try and enjoy the lesson!
- Get your team involved. Your project has never been about just you but a whole load of others as well. These include your family and friends not just your academic supervisors. Get as much help as you can and involve everyone in providing you with motivation and “guilt trips” in the proportions needed to finish.
- Re-think the relationship with the supervisor. This phase of work does call for “performance” rather than “learning” so chat to your supervisor and adapt your strategies so that you can achieve your submission goals more quickly.
- Find a way to summon the energy for the last push. I’ve seen lots of strategies here, coffee, late night whiskeys, with-holding exercise until completion of a number of words etc. Whatever might work for you
- Stay on task and plan. As you get to the end focus on delivering what you have not necessarily incorporating that latest paper with a new idea that you have found. Save that information for viva and just get the thesis done.
- Be efficient and effective getting feedback. Fail fast and don’t waste time that doing stuff that you aren’t sure of that isn’t helping you move closer to the finish line.
- Set a timeline and stick to it. From my experience no good comes from taking longer than is needed. Be brave, be ambitious and try and push not coast to the line. Look up the Pareto principle!
- Make sure you see it as a thesis and not a collection of studies. Sometimes it is easy when you have done the research in distinct blocks or presented/published work as the thesis has been completed to not think about the studies coming together to form a body of work. Its these links and the associated coherence between individual parts that make it a thesis and show the examiners and others the journey you and the project have been on.
- Don’t fudge the synthesis. The fun part of the thesis where you can show some creativity and throw some interesting ideas out there. Create some space for it and show the reader how much you have learned and why your work is important rather than just re-hashing the discussions from the individual chapters.
- Find your best writing phase. Experiment to see how you work best. Take inspiration from others but try different times to write and places to write etc to see what’s effective. This will also add some much-needed stimulation to “the grind”.