Writing an academic book of more than 200 pages requires careful planning. Time, energy and skills are indispensable.
In the first three months, I first adjusted my biological clock to the state of preparing for horse racing, and my life was very moderate.
The second stage appeared when I finished collecting information and formally wrote.
For half a year, I didn't arrange classes and didn't have to go to work. Any little thing will distract me. In Vancouver in summer, it is still bright at nine o'clock in the evening. Where I live, there are celestial beaches and national forests not far away.
In order not to fall into holiday mode, I set myself a writing schedule like an office worker: there are strict rules about when to get up every day, when to start writing, and how long to take a break. If you are tired during the day, you must lie down before 10 at night. After 9 o'clock, your mobile phone and iPad are turned off. I made an appointment with my boyfriend in advance, and he will supervise and "confiscate" my mobile phone as soon as it arrives at 9 o'clock.
By the end of the draft, people were already quite tired. Because I have been writing papers at home for a long time, I seldom socialize, and I am in a trance. I am about to finish my manuscript, but I have begun to drag my feet. It took half a month to proofread the reference, double-spaced, more than 60 pages, really by hand. I consoled myself that at this point, I can't make mistakes, I must do the work slowly by myself.
Fortunately, a boyfriend reminded me in time: at this time, the mood is relaxed and the effect is better. Think of what you should do as a game clearance. Don't always think it's a masterpiece. You can't finish it anyway. Give yourself a small reward for every small step, such as going to a restaurant for brunch on Friday, and then staying in a cafe to write a blog in the morning.
Conventional extra numbers are not all a waste of time. Take out half a day every week, which is different from the usual rhythm. It's interesting and can stimulate creativity.
Blogging occasionally while writing a doctoral thesis is equivalent to encouraging yourself to write. It can also be interesting and worth looking forward to.
After this journey, I feel more and more that studying for a doctorate is just a fragment of my career, which makes people fall into deep consciousness. In the months of writing a thesis, people's hearts are real. Life revolves around this matter, one can do as the Romans do, and writing itself is like meditation.
In this process, I have three insights to share with you.
Academic writing is a skill. Writing a doctoral thesis will be the first task in your life that you must do your best.
The length of an academic paper may be equivalent to dozens of course assignments, but it is much more difficult than writing an assignment. What's the difference in difficulty? I guess it's equivalent to the difference between menstruation and childbirth ...
Take academic writing as a kind of training that pays attention to will and writing spirit. The following ideas may help you: think of writing a thesis as horse racing training. You used to run 5 kilometers, 10 kilometers, and now you have to train yourself to run a 42-kilometer marathon.
The basic rule of running a marathon is: don't do anything different on the day of the race.
For any writing software you are already using, whatever it is, keep using it.
I feel stupid when I think about it now. In the process of writing for more than a year, I changed my writing software several times. First, I heard a friend say that Mellel is very suitable for dealing with long documents, so I gave up using Word. Later, because I liked the dictionary search function of Apple computer, I changed to Page. I once tried Scrivner, and this software is really the best for writing the first draft. Like Markdown, I can write at any time. When I proudly shared it with a doctoral writing group I joined, an exchange student in the history department told me that he thought Latex was more useful …
So, as you can imagine, I changed one software after another, and it took a lot of effort.
Isn't it a good thing to get twice the result with half the effort? We will hear all kinds of fancy editing tools from others, not to mention document sorting software and time management applets.
Good tools can really save you time. Keep up with the times and enjoy the convenience brought by technology. It is no problem to use these development software, but you must be clear about your priorities: the total amount of time you spend writing papers is very limited, so you should focus on this process and not be tempted by many gadgets. It's like a smart marathon runner will never change his running shoes on the day of the race.
Where are the tools for you to finish your thesis? There are no absolutely good tools in this world. If you want to go to the Western Heaven for Buddhist scriptures, you can ride a horse or drive a car. The tools are simple. Finish it first, then play tricks.
Writing a doctoral thesis requires a good physique, which is similar to running a marathon. Many students regard spiritual life as the whole of postgraduate entrance examination and don't let their brains rest. They go to parties and smoke marijuana every night. One of my classmates was forced to drop out of school because of alcoholism, and was sent to an alcohol rehabilitation institution. Others went to the undergraduate dormitory to hunt newborn babies all the year round. The problems of not exercising, smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol abound in graduate schools.
Bobby Fischer, the greatest chess player of all time, all his achievements originated from the super brain. Besides playing chess, he is also keen on tennis, swimming, running and other sports. He thinks it is the development of science and the supplementary psychological activities of sports that make him a better player. Therefore, if you care about the sensitivity of the brain, you should manage your body, keep exercising and keep your mind at its peak.
The question came. Someone asked, "What if I don't have time to exercise?" The short answer is: you don't have to go to the gym, you can do the simplest exercise-walk in your pajamas at home and do yoga in the living room.
What is most like a marathon in writing a doctoral thesis is the whole process: a long process of reading, researching and writing. One of the biggest problems you face is whether you can concentrate.
How can I write five to ten chapters on a subject? This is a challenge, especially if you only have a vague concept of the whole before you start writing. You think you want to know how these materials are put together, but after writing for a while, you find that your previous idea is wrong.
To avoid getting into such a bad situation, imagine what you will notice the day before the marathon, and then follow these tips to prepare your paper.
You need to make sure that you are healthy, familiar with running routes, and have teammates, coaches and trustworthy friends. After all, you are not fighting alone! You need to know what will happen before you can take effective strategies to deal with your thesis marathon.
There is a story that may sound silly: a doctor and a friend came home from drinking at night and accidentally passed a thief who robbed the road. The other side pointed a gun at him, but he begged: "Don't shoot! I haven't finished my doctoral thesis yet! "
After listening to this story, I was amused anyway. Isn't this a conditioned reflex of many doctors? To some extent, I agree with this guy's attitude. As a candidate for doctoral research, nothing is more important than a thesis.
The research and writing of papers, whether it is a lofty pursuit or not, is still a job in the final analysis. It defines who you are, how you live, good or bad.
Say bad first.
Like most young people, while you are studying for a doctorate, you are also considering what to pay for the rent next month. Believe it or not, whether you are in China or North America, Tucao had better not take a doctoral course. Most people have a hard time during their doctoral studies.
You have to make up your mind what to support yourself. You should choose what you are good at, but don't let yourself get caught up in it, thinking that doing academics is a mission, or what lofty life goals make you superior. Let me tell you, you are thinking about your future "academic life" before you finish your doctoral thesis. Save it. That's not true.
Think of it as a job, just like your parents go to work every day. Writing a thesis is a job. Well, don't think too much. You spend 6-8 hours on it every day.
You should have a plan, when to start your daily work and to what extent. You should set the reserved time in advance, even if you are sick or have an accident, you won't miss submitting your paper before the deadline.
You should have a fixed workplace, which belongs to you completely. Try not to go to an office where many people enjoy it. That's a bad choice! It's hard to share an office with others without being distracted. Once you choose a place that is completely under your control, you should make sure that you sit and work there most of the week.
You should also have your own boss to supervise your work. This person may be your mentor. In general, students need to submit a plan to the academic Committee when writing a thesis. This can be formal or informal. In short, planning is to explain how much time and steps you expect to take to complete it.
This plan is equivalent to an agreement, equivalent to an agreement between you and your tutor. A written agreement is convenient for your tutor or Committee to help you complete each step on time.
The experience of a doctor friend told me how important it is to have a formal plan: before preparing to write a thesis, he met with his tutor in the office in a hurry, verbally promised to start writing, so he buried himself in work for eight months and submitted the first draft by email. He didn't receive a reply from his tutor for a month. He was a little confused and sent another email to remind his tutor. Or sink into the sea ...
Later, he learned that the tutor had actually changed to another university, and he did not arrange doctoral students in advance. A year and a half later, at an international conference, my friend met my former mentor. The tutor was surprised and asked, Why are you here? Is everything all right?
God, that guy is going crazy! He said: I didn't expect you to leave without saying goodbye when I took your doctoral exam. I am ready to finish my thesis and graduate, but I can't find you …
The tutor looked at him in surprise and said apologetically, but I didn't receive any formal agreement, and I didn't know you were going to graduate!
Hearing this, you probably feel that the tutor is irresponsible to the students like me, but this incident also shows us how busy the tutor is. Things that determine your fate may not be included in the tutor's agenda, so there must be a formal plan and a contract signed and approved by the tutor to protect you and synchronize with the tutor.
It's like running a marathon, working and writing a doctoral thesis seriously, but don't forget the fun. At the right time, you should learn to treat it as a game-you vaguely think you can pass the exam, but you have tried for a while without success. Never mind, keep playing!
Saying that writing a paper is like playing a game doesn't mean that you don't pay attention to it. On the contrary, Johan Huizinga, a Dutch historian, said in his book The Gamer (1938) that designing games and playing games are serious undertakings in themselves.
First of all, the game should have players. Of course, you are a player, and you may even fall into an identity crisis and learn how to behave more like a researcher and scholar. Does it mean that after you play this game (I mean studying for a doctorate), your identity is only a doctoral student?
You may disagree, but some studies show that it is unhealthy to indulge in work too much. To some extent, this statement makes sense. However, you may find that no matter what you do, where you go and who you are with, you will take your paper with you. It is always there, like a heavy burden, and you can neither adapt to this heavy pressure nor get rid of it.
Someone must have told you to "separate work from life". Many people will advise you to give priority to your family, partner and children. That sounds reasonable.
It's true in theory ... once you start doing research, you can understand what "involuntarily" means. It can be said that all the time for writing papers is not enough. What you are facing is an unusual job, which requires your 100% devotion and even isolates you from daily social activities.
I have been carrying a B6 notebook for the past two years. It's always with me. I'll take my notebook to the bathroom. I will wake up at 2 am, turn on the light and lie in bed reading for a while, or get together with friends in the middle. When I suddenly think of something, I will leave the crowd and write it in a computer memo.
It's like playing a game and being possessed. Of course, you can control this feeling, and only you know the fun. You should try to keep this healthy concentration as much as possible.
How to cultivate yourself into a game master? The answer is simple:
Not afraid to pursue perfectionism, but learn to decompose tasks.
The reason why people are entangled is nothing more than the contradiction between what you want to do and what you intend to do.
If you can break down your thesis writing to the most basic level, then you only need to do two things every day: reading and writing. As long as you read and write as planned along the way, of course, you can finish the paper, but many of us always have a feeling that in order to finish the paper, we have to do other things, such as reading some authors' works deeply, familiarizing ourselves with a quotation format again, or registering for a writing training class.
There are various temptations on campus every day. I mean "good" temptations, various lectures, international conferences and free cram schools. Long-term exposure to these resources will inevitably make a graduate student have the illusion that if he can't write one or two "decent" papers, or can't show his research in front of his peers, he can only be regarded as a mediocre generation.
However, in the face of these presuppositions, people are prone to collapse.
I once met a doctoral student who studied English literature in 1 1. Every morning, before the formal start of the day's study, he must type a poem on his old typewriter. Whether talking, walking or dressing, he imagines himself as a university professor and lives according to this impression every day.
As a doctoral student, the only thing that can make you graduate is to write your thesis well!
But you just don't think writing a thesis is enough, and you set yourself an impossible task at the doctoral level. I call this mentality "perfect obsessive-compulsive disorder". In fact, we all know that discussing with others every day will only delay you from finishing your thesis, but unconsciously, we spend a lot of time discussing, taking advanced classes and listening to big coffee lectures, because you want to set up a bully image for yourself so much that you deviate from what you should do.
Ideally, we should take finishing a certain amount of work every day as our only goal. No matter how you write, finish the required number of words and the chapters you should read before you do anything else.
The most offensive compliment of many doctoral students is: "Although you are not the smartest student, you are the most diligent."
Academics is like a game, with winners and losers.
After staying in the university for a long time, you will find that this circle is full of experts with contradictory personalities. Many people with unique ideas have said a lot in various student seminars, but they just don't like to publish them. They just don't show their research results, so they have been at the bottom of the academic ecosystem.
There is a world of difference between "wanting to finish" and "unfinished", just like victory and failure, you can see through it at a glance.
As the old saying goes, what can be accomplished is a good doctoral thesis.
A good paper is a finished paper.
There is another word that suits you, whether you are a doctor or not, in Turin.
As long as you choose to work hard, you will choose to finish.
Choose to work hard, and you will choose to finish.