Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day: A Guide to Starting, Revising, and Finishing Your Doctoral Thesis (edit title/settings)

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• “The Best Dissertation is a Done Dissertation”

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• Research requires that your mind engage with the material, ask it questions, and act upon it in such a way as to change the material—and, incidentally, yourself.

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• “Write first.” By this she meant, make writing the highest priority in your life. But she also meant those words literally; that is, write before you do anything else in your day.

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• The first: Don’t waste words. Whenever you have an idea, a strategy, even a glimmer of an idea, write it down. Don’t figure you’ll remember it. Don’t talk about it with someone before you’ve written it down.

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• The best way to get into a good writing rhythm is to write every day, except maybe your birthday, or the queen’s. You can define “every day” as you please—seven days a week, or only weekdays, or at least five days out of every seven—so long as you define what you intend to do in advance and don’t keep changing the rules as you go along.

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• writing in order to think, rather than thinking in order to write.

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• How does one really begin to write? William G. Perry Jr. has described the process succinctly: “First you make a mess, then you clean it up.”

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• The best way to begin is by approaching your dissertation in your imagination, preparing to write in and about this thesis at every stage, and to become the researcher of your own work process. Imagining your dissertation allows you to develop passion, curiosity, and questions about your topic, as well as to think of yourself as someone who can make a commitment to scholarship.

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• Do some work on your thesis every day, even if it’s only for fifteen minutes. (“Every day” is more important than how much time you spend, or how many pages you produce, or what quality of work you produce on any particular day.)

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• Divergent thinking is what will ultimately produce some of the most interesting ideas in your dissertation.

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• You set up goals for yourself that are doable, and then you reward yourself with the legal treat of your choice, whatever that is: a run with a friend; a cup of coffee at your favorite cafe; a half hour to read a novel, listen to music, or chat on the phone—you’ll know what your own pleasures are.

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1. Joan Bolker (Author)

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• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 808.066378

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