The dissertation is the longest research paper a student can write, and a student with shaky confidence in her writing can often find herself overwhelmed by the process. Even the best of writers may be prone to isolation during the writing process, as they may be overcome with the feeling that they are working on a large project that only they (and, hopefully, their dissertation committee) care deeply about.
Feelings of isolation and anxiety can then lead to the deepest fear of any writer – writer’s block. Students may find themselves doing anything – from compulsive exercising to cleaning their bathrooms—in order to avoid working on the dissertation. These distractions, if frequent enough, can ultimately result in the student abandoning the project altogether.
The dissertation writing process doesn’t have to be a lonely road, however. With some advance planning and reaching out, a student can find that she’s written the dissertation and is scheduling her defense in no time.
Audit a Class
Dissertation writers often feel isolated because they are no longer enjoying the camaraderie and intellectual stimulation of being in graduate classes. Ask a favorite professor for permission to audit a class (preferably one that has some relevance to your dissertation research). Auditing allows a student to get out of the house and away from her computer where she can engage in discussion with fellow graduate students without the pressure of having to do a course paper/project. Students need to be careful, however, not to let auditing a course be too much of a distraction from the dissertation.
Find Some Dissertation Friends
Chances are, a student is not the only graduate student in the department/program writing a dissertation. Find other students who are currently wrestling with the dissertation writing process and form a “support group” of sorts. Read each other’s chapters, offer writing suggestions or, at the very least, sit around over strong coffee and hot food and complain about the whole dissertation process. Students will be more motivated to stay on track with their research and writing if they know they have another group (albeit a supportive one) besides the dissertation committee holding them accountable.
Sharing Resources
Academic writers and researchers are known for being fiercely protective of their work. Try to break this trend by seeing if someone in your department is doing a dissertation on a related topic. Share research resources (nothing is more frustrating than needing a book and finding a colleague has it checked out of the library), lab spaces, ideas – while the dissertation is a singly-authored document, students may find that they have discovered a collaborator on future research. At the very least, students will discover that they are not alone in their interests in the field.
Go Online
Many graduate students may find themselves especially isolated from mentors and graduate colleagues during the dissertation writing process because they are no longer physically in the department – they have taken a teaching job at another school, or perhaps they commuted to classes and now that they are writing, they are unwilling to make the long trip to campus. With the Internet, students who are far away from graduate colleagues need not feel isolated. Start an online writing group (similar to the one discussed above) or, if teaching in an academic department at another school, form a writing group with new departmental colleagues who are working on dissertations or preparing research to publish.
If a student locks herself in her apartment, determined to do nothing but write her dissertation, she could be setting herself up for failure. To avoid feelings of isolation and the threat of writer’s block, students engaged in the dissertation writing process should form a healthy social network based around the writing and research processes. This social network can not only alleviate the feelings of loneliness that can set in when writing a dissertation, but it can also help keep the writer on track to finish writing and graduate.
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