The Art of Dissertation Writing

Furiously Writing (Photo credit: Vinni123)

by David Ellis, The Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/student-life/10690001/Student-life-the-art-of-dissertation-writing.html

All hail the dissertation.

While they’re painful, prickly things with a bad habit of growing to alarming lengths, they teach some of the finest lessons one could hope to learn.

Below are some of these lessons that anyone tackling one - both this year and next - should be prepared for.

 
You are not as interesting as you’ve always secretly hoped

None of us are. Early on, all a dissertation demands is a unique idea, wherein your brain will likely think something along the lines of “An original thought. That can’t be too hard, the library must be full of them.” And even that isn’t new - Stephen Fry said it first.

Discovering an uncovered topic is a deceptively difficult task. Inspiration is unlikely to strike you as you run the corridor, late, toward your tutor’s office for a first meeting.

Spend some serious time turning ideas over in your mind and note them all down for later consideration. Have a list and be prepared for many to be struck off because they’ve already been done - after all, even the metaphysical possibility of unicorns has been analysed before. 

It's impossible to fake what you don’t like over 10,000 words

One simply doesn’t have the stamina. Consider your course thus far and pinpoint whatever engaged you most thoroughly, whatever held your attention the longest and whatever you chiefly enjoyed.

It isn’t about picking the most ‘profound’ subject (see Unicorns, above). If a topic bores you, it’s unlikely you will produce anything particularly gripping.

The best writing is pared down, not padded out: enjoy something and your brain will hum merrily, churning out sentences. If it is shut down through disinterest, every word will be a painful extraction.
 
Accept that this is a huge volume of work which will bore other people

It will also quickly become insignificant, despite all the effort you go through to produce it. You will never be able to draw a crowd beginning a story with ‘One time, writing my dissertation …’.

A dissertation is a personal hell to be suffered in silence. If someone asks you more about it, the polite thing to do is change the subject. This will not be the last piece of demanding work like this.
 
Writing is difficult

There are no literary oils to make your arguments fluid or your ideas glisten. Amazon don’t deliver good sentences on demand. You will be unhappy with what you write and it will need correction - make enough time to do this.

Remember, these are your ideas and they should be in your words: while appropriate use of technical language is a must, there’s no reason to draft sentences like you’re a 16th century playwright.

Write as you speak - so long as you speak well. And if you don’t, start to. Say what you mean and correct yourself when you don’t: if you mean ‘regularly’, don’t say ‘often’; never confuse ‘less’ and ‘fewer’; ‘credulity’ and ‘credibility’ are not interchangeable.

It sounds peevish to say so, but if you can train your brain to think clearly, writing will become easier and what you produce will be better.
 
A dissertation is consuming

You will get too close to it and miss your own mistakes. Only another person can identify flaws in logic, holes in analysis and so forth, which means it’s vital to pair with the appropriate supervisor.

Spend time on this, people don’t always suit each other. If there isn’t anyone to invigorate your research, challenge your thoughts and question the validity of your arguments, there may as well be no one at all. Be sure to choose someone with enough time to be able to assist.
 
Never justify your subject choice to a tutor or supervisor by saying you have an ‘overwhelming passion’ for it

At worst, you’ll be lying and at best you’ll come across as if you have a very peculiar fetish.
 
You will resent the internet and every distraction on it.

 Use these apps to help you concentrate.
 
Contrary to American sitcoms, and all your dreams, work trumps your social life sometimes

Do what you can as early as possible because when the deadline cruelly beckons, the simplest of things - a date, other work, eating, breathing - becomes a disastrous interruption. Never compare your progress with friends: one of you will always feel nauseous afterwards.

Remember these lessons, rather than learn them the hard way - and find that idea quickly. And if you’re at the stage you’re meant to be writing the damned thing, go! Shoo! You’re procrastinating again.
 
David Ellis is on Twitter: @dvh_ellis and edits studentmoneysaver.co.uk