Up until the end of my doctoral studies, I’d been a procrastinator. Completing an abstract for a conference would take me a week, drafting a literature review, a month. I liked writing but couldn’t focus on it when I had a deadline to meet. Any writing task was too much for me to handle in an efficient manner.
But writing my PhD thesis had to be different, I told myself when I could finally see the finish line. I couldn’t afford to procrastinate. My PhD scholarship was about to expire, I didn’t have the money for a prolonged stay in the UK, and I didn’t want to be on the island anymore. So, I decided I would leave Cardiff in three months, bought a one-way ticket back home, and then opened the folder “PhD stuff” on my laptop. It was thesis o’clock.
Was I mad? Writing a PhD thesis in three months? Others have done it, so it wasn’t impossible. But sure, X is a great writer, Y had a job waiting for him, and was there anything Z couldn’t do? I wasn’t X, Y, or Z, but I couldn’t waste a second on doubting myself. I had all the materials for my dissertation, so it was only a matter of putting everything together.
Here’s how I wrote my PhD thesis in three months (the distilled version, without the doubts, tears, desperation, frustration, panic, revision fatigue, proofreading mania, and so on). I hope you can use some of these tips to speed up your thesis writing process.
Gathered and organized all the materials
I had the literature review, two papers accepted for publication, some reports, and most of the figures, tables, and appendices that would go into my thesis. I started by organizing all the materials I had and completing the missing bits.
Created an outline
Creating an outline for my doctoral dissertation was easy, as I had had three years to think about what it would include. Once I got the outline approved by my thesis advisor, I was ready to start writing.
I could not emphasize more how important it is to create a detailed outline of a PhD thesis. Once you have it, you cannot feel lost on your thesis writing journey. So, all the time you use for creating an outline, revising it, and getting it approved by your thesis advisor will be well worth it.
Wrote the core chapters
My two peer-reviewed papers became the core of my thesis. Writing these two chapters based on my publications was relatively easy, and it gave me momentum.
The third core chapter was harder to write than the previous two. I needed to turn my research into a coherent whole, instead of simply turning a paper into a chapter.
I started by creating a detailed chapter outline. Then, I copied and pasted under each bullet point all the material I wanted to use—figures, tables, maps. Next, I summarized my ideas and then turned each one into a paragraph. Finally, I tied all the paragraphs together using transition sentences. I didn’t stop to worry about repetitions, awkward language, and typos at this point.
Wrote the two easy chapters
Completing the “Geological Setting” and “Data and Methodology” chapters was easy, as I had used this information for presentations and posters throughout my doctoral program. Writing these chapters gave me a confidence boost—the bulk of my thesis was done, or so I thought at the time.
Wrote the introduction
Based on the literature review I already had, I started drafting my introduction, perhaps the most difficult chapter of my thesis. I had too much information and it was poorly structured. But after a lot of rewriting and revising, I managed to create a chapter draft.
Wrote the discussion
No doubt, this was the hardest part of writing my PhD thesis. The discussion had to be the common thread of my three core chapters, which were pretty disconnected to begin with.
I started doing a lot of brainstorming and struggling to draw connections between otherwise disparate ideas. I had to read many papers and books again and look up new information.
At this point my stress levels soared and no place seemed quiet enough to allow me to concentrate. Working from home was out of question, as there were too many distractions (read “snacks and comfortable places to sleep on”). So, instead, I decided to arrive at the office very early and write as much as I could during the quiet hours of the morning. By noon I had usually made good progress, so I would go for a brisk walk to clear my mind. In the afternoon I focused on tasks that demanded little brain power, such as reference formatting.
One more thing I did while I wrote my discussion chapter was not checking my email till after lunch. It’s incredible how much progress I made when I didn’t allow myself to be distracted by new-email notifications.
Wrote the conclusion and abstract
Completing these two parts of my thesis was easy once I had everything else ready.
Revised and edited my PhD thesis
Revising was far more painstaking than I had imagined. I don’t remember how many revision rounds I did, but they were quite a few.
At this point I started having doubts; I could almost picture myself failing my PhD examination. But after the editing stage, my confidence was back. It was a decent thesis, I thought, though it was far from perfect. But it had to be good enough—I was running out of time.
Proofread my PhD thesis
This stage was quite enjoyable, though not as enjoyable as writing thesis acknowledgments. I had fixed the most blatant errors during the editing stage, so proofreading was relatively easy. But as self-proofreading is not foolproof, some errors will remain in my thesis forever.
Formatted the document
I had used MS Word and had many figures and tables, so putting the document together was a hassle. My laptop kept crashing because of the size of the file, and working with styles in Word was a nightmare. Completing this stage was more time-consuming than I had expected, but when it was done it was time to celebrate.
That’s how I wrote my PhD thesis in three months, but it would have been easier if…
I used a reference manager, chose a word processor other than Word, had my thesis professionally proofread, and socialized during these three months instead of living in automaton mode. And it would have been good to know writing always takes longer than you think. Trivial tasks in particular (such as formatting tables) can become time sinks if you don’t put a cap on the number of hours you are willing to dedicate to a task. Also, knowing the law of diminishing returns helps you limit the number of revision rounds you do.
If you find none of the tips above useful, maybe you can use this one: To avoid procrastination when writing your PhD thesis, focus only on the task at hand. Worrying about how people will judge your PhD thesis slows down your progress and adds unnecessary stress to your life.
Does your PhD thesis need editing or proofreading? Send me a message at editor@languageediting.com.
Related posts:
- The best academic writing books: My list
- PhD dissertation to book: Roadmap and advice for authors
- The art of writing PhD thesis acknowledgments: A guide for economics students
Last revised on 7 September 2022
