Writing Your Dissertation In Fifteen Minutes A Day

Expert writing advice from the editor of the Boston Globe best-seller, The Writer's Home Companion. Joan Bolker, midwife to more than one hundred dissertations and co-founder of the Harvard Writing Center, offers invaluable suggestions for the graduate-student writer. Using positive reinforcement, she reminds thesis writers that being able to devote themselves to a project that truly interests them can be a pleasurable adventure. She encourages them to pay close attention to their writing method to discover their individual work strategies that promote productivity; to stop feeling fearful that they may disappoint their advisors or family members; and to tailor their theses to their own writing style and personality needs. Using field-tested strategies, Bolker assists students through the entire thesis-writing process, offering advice on choosing a topic and an advisor, on disciplining oneself to work at least fifteen minutes each day, setting short-term deadlines, revising and defining the thesis, and life after the dissertation.