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https://medium.co m/starts-with-a-bang/c6360121650a
If youre struggling with the f inal, most important obstacle separating you f rom
your graduate degree, heres how to make it happen!
Ethan Siegel in Starts With A Bang!
I spent every night until four in the morning on my dissertation, until I came to the point
when I could not write another word, not even the next letter. I went to bed. Eight oclock the
next morning I was up writing again. -Abraham Pais, physicist
Youve been in graduate school f or many years now, and youve come a long way. Youve completed all of
your coursework, f ormed your Ph.D. thesis committee, passed your preliminary/oral/qualif ying examinations,
and have done an awf ul lot of research along the way. T heres a glimmer of hope in your heart that maybe
just maybet his will be your last year in graduate school.
Image credit: East Tennessee State Universitys Department of Mathematics and Statistics.
Youve probably even gotten some papers published along the way, with a handf ul of them (if youre lucky)
with you as the lead author! But theres one more task you need to perf orm bef ore youre ready to def end
in f ront of your committee: you must write that dissertation!
While there are many guides on how to do that, many of them are either jokes
Image credit: Flickr user chnrdu.
or people grossly overstating the task in f ront of you. T here are some very important things that go into
a dissertation, but there are also some huge misconceptions about what a dissertation is supposed to be.
What f ollows is my advice f or anyone whos reached that stage in their careers, on how to write a
dissertation. (At least, as f ar as theoretical astrophysics goes, although Im sure this is applicable to many
other f ields.)
Image credit: Jorge Cham of PhDcomics.
First of f , here is a list of what your Ph.D. dissertation is not:
1. It is not the def initive work on whatever your primary research topic is.
2. It is not going to settle long-standing arguments in your f ield.
3. It is not the most important piece of research or writing youll ever undertake.
4. And f inally, it is very likely not even a document that anyone outside of your committee (with the
exception of a f ew good f riends, and possibly your grandmother) will ever read.
Image credit: Peter Lubbers / Rocky Lubbers of http://runlaketahoe.blogspot.com/.
You must accept number 4 bef ore youre ready to write, otherwise you run the risk of becoming a
perf ectionist about a document thats eriouslypractically no one is going to read!!!