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All scholarly genres are not the same. Let’s dismiss at the outset the fantasy that a dissertation is basically no different than a monograph. Both require many of the same skills, but the variables of voice, audience, and purpose diverge radically. To offer only one example, the immediate audience for approval of a dissertation is one’s supervising committee of three or four professors, whereas in the case of a publishable book it encompasses a more numerous and far-flung cohort of specialists, not all of whom will be receptive to your project’s conceptual orientation.

That variance admitted, certain qualities are bedrock in all academic prose. At the risk of reducing them to a perhaps familiar litany, I’ll enumerate four of them.

Ditch the gobbledygook

The sterility of “dissertationese” is deadly. This caveat includes the penchant for anthropomophisms and jargon, absolutely lethal when combined (e.g., “My study argues that the essentialism of this author’s reconstructionist agenda, which defies the strictures of Edward Said’s cautions about the phenomenon of Orientalism, unintentionally reverses the subaltern’s plight in neocolonialist and post-Ghandi India, thereby inscribing a rhetoric of retrenchment”). No one communicates this way. You shouldn’t indulge in such gobbledygook either. If you’re not sure of your work, seek the assistance of a good dissertation editing service.

Don’t depersonalize yourself

Avoid like cholera the crippling poses of depersonalization. Such artifices as “The author proposes,” unfortunately rampant in the social sciences, and its disguise through clumsy use of subjunctive verbs and the passive voice always raise red flags. The first-person pronoun “I” is permissible, if not overused, in scholarly discourse. Don’t try to efface yourself as author by becoming a textual cipher or ghost.

Be precise, engaging, and direct

Nothing is more annoying than academic writing that proclaims repeatedly, as though it were a badge of honor, its intention to “tease out” or “problematize” its subject. Cut to the chase. While doing so, however, try to project a lively style that avoids a mind-numbing repetition of key words. Listen to your diction. Along the same lines, don’t lard your introductory paragraphs with extensive quotations. Apprise your readers of a significant gap in the relevant field of research and take it from there.

Conclude Succinctly

Wrap it all up with a precise but succinct conclusion. Nothing is more wearisome than a ploddingly summative coda that rehashes already established points. Draw out genuine inferences from what you have demonstrated rather than resorting to the lame formula that “Further research is needed.” Moreover, as we urge entry-level students, be sure to answer the “So what?” question. In this as in all dimensions of effective academic discourse, eschew the narrowly conventional or prescriptive.

It all comes down to what we look for in any piece of well written exposition: clarity, concision, and lucidity. The fogs of trendy scholarly fashion notwithstanding, I doubt whether these modest proposals will steer any prospective academician wrong. If you’re not absolutely certain of your work’s quality, seek the help of a good dissertation editor.

Another one of literature’s great prose stylists, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote darkly beautiful and haunting stories about sin, guilt, and personal redemption earned through humiliation under the glaring gaze of the hypocritical and self-righteous, the “pure and innocent” accusers. Writers have great material like that all around them.

Who hasn’t “sinned”? Who doesn’t have some secret they don’t want anyone to know about?

Go to any church where congregations consider themselves the “saved” and holy ones. Not that they aren’t. Many of those folks are truly good. Perhaps I go to one of those churches too. But a closer look at everyone’s life reveals sin and bad stuff they’re guilty of doing that makes for universal and timeless tales.

Here’s just a Hawthorne handful of ways to mine and develop great story ideas.

#1: What’s your haunted history?

Hawthorne’s great‑grandfather was a judge in the Salem witch trials. So that led him to write symbolic tales about the guilt of sin as a psychological burden. He had a Puritan heritage. So the strictures of that rigid religious sect troubled and informed his stories.

Everyone’s a haunted house. What ghosts and goblins haunt your mind or your family? How is the past still alive in you or your characters’ present?

#2: What are your dark secrets?

His friend Melville said that Hawthorne’s works have the “power of blackness” about them—a dark secret past or present dominates everything.

• Is there any “blackness” in your life or world?
• Any conflicts of disturbed moral and psychological conditions?
• Any hidden depravity?
• Any rebellious impulses?
• Any morbid thoughts?

#3: What’s your psychological tension?

Hawthorne’s stories are tense and suspenseful because of the psychological forces ripping and tearing at the characters’ hearts. Read any of his books or short stories and you’ll be gripped by their oppositions, their conflicts, their ambiguities, such as:

• Between wanting solitude and wanting company
• Between dependence and independence
• Between secretiveness and disclosure
• Between talking and silence
• Between forgiveness or vengeance
• Between accepting or rejecting

Craft characters and stories that resonate with readers because tensions are explored.

#4: What’s your lonely and solitary disposition?

Do you ever feel out of place, like a stranger in your own world? This sense of isolation and alienation—where does it come from? Is it real or imagined? Are you actually being ignored and talked about behind your back—excluded and ostracized—or are you paranoid and delusional?

Hawthorne—and all of the mid-19^th century writers—dwelt long and deep on these subjects.

• Hester and Goodman Brown lost in the forests—both real and of their own imaginings
• Poe’s Pym in the caverns near the South Pole
• Melville’s Ahab in his stark lunacy, madly pursuing the white whale across the 7 Seas
• Whitman on the westward trail seeking himself
• Twain’s Huck Finn drifting on a raft down the mighty Mississippi
• Thoreau in self-imposed hermitage on Walden’s pond

#5: Your life comes down to this question: “What would happen if…?”

Here’s a gem of a story-starting tip: many of Hawthorne’s stories are plotted around an outlandish, outrageous, even bizarre event or set of circumstances. Something happens or something is a certain way. The characters are thrust into it or create it for themselves somehow. Then, the rest of the story takes place as a reaction to these events or circumstances. Just as if Hawthorne had dreamed it up by thinking to himself: “Hmm….I wonder what would happen if…?”

Wow. We jump in before looking. We go for it when don’t even know what it is, really. Damn the consequences when we want something.

#6: Who’s the allegorical you?

You are an allegory. Yes, you are. Don’t try to deny it. You have attitudes and ideas, don’t you? You live in the material world but have some kind of spiritual side, right? At least occasionally, you spout off about moral truths and lessons of life, right? If so, you’re a living, breathing allegory. And so is everyone you know.

Make your characters stand for something.

Symbols are related to allegory: they’re things that stand for something else. Back to the mid-19th century we go for classic examples:

• Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter “A”
• Melville’s white whale Moby Dick
• Poe’s Raven
• Twain’s Mississippi River
• Whitman’s Leave of Grass
• Thoreau’s pond at Walden

There are symbols all around you. In my own dark and distant past, I sold cars. Car lots symbolize my hardcore salesman side. I also played hard rock music in hard rock bands—even today they symbolize my wild side. What do you do? Where do you hang out? What material objects mean something to you? They’re all symbols you can infuse with resonant meaning.

#7: Where’s your Romantic side?

Here’s Hawthorne’s classic definition of a Romance: “…a neutral territory somewhere between the real world and fairy‑land, where the Actual and the Imaginary may meet…” (from “Custom-House”, his preface to The Scarlet Letter).

You’ve got a room in your brain just like that. Unlock it and use it in your writing:

• Explore the realm midway between the objective world and your private thoughts.
• Let your imagination run wild on the page by writing fast and getting into a zone, perhaps by starting with something that really happened and letting what you wanted to happen or fantasized about happening actually happen on the page or screen.
• Live large through your writing.
• Dig deep into the depths of your characters’ reasons and motivations for doing what they do.
• Show life in all its complexity and ambiguity.

Ah, Hawthorne. What a writer: haunted, dark, tense, alienated, wondering, wandering, allegorical, symbolic, and romantic. Just like you.

1. Talk with your professors about areas of need or research gaps in your field. Your professor may have a topic he is hoping that a student will research. This is an ideal situation because of the aid and encouragement he will naturally give you along the way. If you can agree upon a topic early in your program, you will, of course, want to take as many courses as possible with that professor to address topics related to your dissertation.

2. Ask your professor to connect you to likeminded professors. Professors who think in likeminded ways, even if in another discipline, will help build your base of contacts and may serve on your dissertation committee later.  They can also give you new models and paradigms for examining your work from a different perspective that will prove helpful.

3. Talk with fellow students about their projects. Find the scope and sequence of those dissertations being written in your field. Decide where you fit in to the conversation. Identify the student who is most likeminded or has a related topic and connect with him from the beginning of your work.

4. Start with questions. If you aren’t sure of your topic, or don’t have a professor who will help identify these gaps in the research, take note of the questions others are asking. Those questions will help you identify where the research gaps are and engage you in the conversation that exists in your field.

5. Don’t be afraid to ask your professor if you can focus an assignment toward your interests. For example, request to do a project in a different way in order to meet some of your research needs. Professors like for you to connect with the subject matter of their course and often will be impressed with your vision how to integrate a course into your work.

6. Compile a bibliography as you go. This will serve not only as a bibliography for your dissertation but also likely your resource list for comprehensive exams. Keep this research close at hand throughout your course work. This bibliography can be foundational for your literature review as well. Having the major books of your research reviewed ahead of time can take one of the biggest chunks of time out of your dissertation writing.

7. Have a clear vision moving forward. Go ahead and write your abstract or thesis statement so that it will not only guide your research and writing but also your course selection and thinking toward your dissertation.

8. Take advantage of opportunities to present your research at professional meetings. There is no greater way to get to know your work and bring focus to it than to teach or present to others. The comments and critique will most certainly prove helpful as you write and develop the direction your writing will take.

9. Work with each professor. This is the beginning and end of successful class work as well as dissertation writing. Good relationships make working together easier. This will benefit you not only as a student but also later when you are officially a peer!

— Dr. William, Edit911 Staff

Dr. John Ke Says: Procrastination

I found that procrastination was probably the greatest pitfall in my efforts to complete my dissertation. All of my past projects had been created on strict deadlines of one sort or another. I could procrastinate for a while, but eventually the deadline would begin to approach, and I would be able to buckle down and push through the procrastination and writer’s block to finish whatever the assignment was.

I was always very good at finishing work when I had short, clear deadlines.
With my dissertation, for the first time, there was no clear deadline, just a massive project stretching out interminably before me, with no clear end date.

While some of my friends had hands-on advisors who kept on top of them and made sure they were making progress, my advisor generally assumed that his students would figure things out on their own.

At first, this was pretty hard for me to manage. I procrastinated endlessly, because there seemed to be no consequences to it; why work today when I could put it off until tomorrow with no consequences? Whole days, even weeks, would go by when I was theoretically working on my dissertation, but had, in fact, accomplished nothing of note.

I could be productive when I actually went to the archives to transcribe my primary source materials, but otherwise my project moved incredibly slowly.

Eventually, I realized that this vicious cycle of procrastination would have to end. I would have to set deadlines for myself, make sure to do at least several hours of real work every day, and keep a tight leash on my tendency to use internet surfing as a way to avoid writing.

I found that doing my work in a public location (I went to the school library, but I’m sure other places would work just as well) helped me remain focused. Being somewhere where other people could see me, and thus, perhaps, know whether I was actually working or goofing off, somehow kept me honest. It also helped to firmly distinguish “working time” from “leisure time.”

I could still watch TV or movies, or surf the internet, or hang out with friends. I just couldn’t do it in time I had set aside for working.

Once I got a handle on my procrastination, I was able to make an enormous amount of progress on my dissertation in a very short time.

Getting control of my habits and establishing better working habits was almost certainly the main key to my ability to finish the project and earn my PhD.
……………………..
Dr. William Says: The #1 pitfall is worrying over details that aren’t crucial to your research and writing.
• The things people worry about tend to make the perception of a problem grow much larger than the actual problem.
• Deal with issues that need to be dealt with by tackling areas of conflict, asking questions of your professors, and getting some help from reliable experts. For example, hundreds of grad students every year who know they have issues with proper grammar, sentence structure, and style errors run their dissertations by an editing service for this peace of mind.
• It is okay to bracket parts of your research to deal with later. You will want to save something for your follow up research.

……………………
Dr. Dan Says: Put down the books.

Seriously. I’ve seen many PhD candidates fall into the habit of putting off the actual writing because there’s just one more book to read, one more study to follow through on, and then one’s view of the field will be complete and the dissertation will satisfy everyone.

This, though, can cause the writing of the dissertation to be continually put off, often because there’s a real hesitation at putting down the thoughts into words. You can always erase later, but get into the habit of writing a few pages a day.

Another suggestion regards the committee: be very careful for personality conflicts can make dissertation committees a nightmare.
• It may seem a bit mercenary, but remember “the path of least resistance” when forming the committee in your mind: you want to get the dissertation finished and receive your degree.
• Listen to the gossip: do faculty have an active dislike for each other?
• Do the relative research interests of the scholars complement each other or might they lead to philosophical conflicts?
……………….
Dr. Rachel Says: Just Begin!

So, you’ve passed your qualifying exams and submitted a dissertation proposal. That proposal’s been accepted. Hurray! Now all you have to do is sit down and write a full-length book of original and exquisite scholarship. From scratch. No problem, right?

One of the biggest problems grad students face when they begin the dissertation-writing process is that they just don’t know how to begin. For most of the first few years of grad school, you’ve been writing short and intriguing papers (maybe 25 pages tops), and accomplishing intense but finite tasks, like MA exams. As a grad, you’re used to working really hard for short bursts of time. You’re also used to creating work according to limits and structures set up by other people, like time frames and due dates. Now, when you start the dissertation you’re suddenly all on your own, facing what seems like an enormous and insurmountable task.

Face it, a dissertation is a huge project, so huge that it can be almost paralyzing. It sounds overpowering. The idea of even starting a dissertation give you the worst case of writer’s block you’ve ever had. Yet it doesn’t have to be this way: here are some suggestions to combat the paralyzing element of a giant project.

First, don’t get overwhelmed by the big picture. If you keep worrying about how you’re going to finish, you’ll never be able to start. Stop thinking about the dissertation as a cohesive whole all the time. Sure, all the parts have to fit together and continue an overall argument. But when you’re working, you can’t keep deferring to the finished product. So, break the dissertation into small, doable chunks that you can tackle one at a time. These chunks could be chapters or even sections of chapters. Find the unit of writing you’re most comfortable with, and work around that. Before you know it, the writing will start piling up, and you’ll be making progress.

Second, make your own due dates for these writing chunks. The dissertation usually has a single, unknown due date. The project’s not done until it’s all done. Without setting up some due dates along the way, it’s easy to fall behind or stop writing all together. Find a way to hold yourself responsible for a writing schedule, whether it’s by giving yourself periodic due dates or telling your advisors when you plan to turn chapters in. Then, stick to your schedule. Think of your own self-assigned due dates as every bit as important as the paper deadlines or exam requirements you fulfilled a few years ago.

Finally, know when to stop working. There’s always going to be more research you could do, more revising you could push through, and more changes you could incorporate. If you work too hard for too long, though, you’ll burn out and you might not have enough energy to come back the next time. Pace yourself. Limit the amount of writing you do each day, or take short breaks between big sections. Let your mind rest sometimes so that you can tackle this big project, and tackle it well.
–by the Staff of Edit911, Inc. & Baldwin Book Publishing

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