The blues
THESIS BLUES? The lyrics of blues songs usually lament some form of life challenge. The challenges to submitting a successful #thesis on time are very real. Over 50% of #postgraduate students in any year are on a thesis extension. Many of these may not submit and consequently fail. The key to success is to ditch lamentation, avoid the associated blues, and project manage your thesis. Step one is to plan the process in detail and divide it into discrete, manageable sections. The foundation is a robust topic choice and a strong supervisor relationship: both your responsibility. This is followed by writing and editing the five chapters of your work: (1) introduction, (2) literature review, (3) methodology, (4) analysis and findings, and (5) conclusion. It is important to acknowledge, understand, and manage your own psychological barriers and the phased approach of project management. This will deliver interim achievement and success which…
Forgive yourself first
#quoteoftheday – “I’ve found it easier oftentimes to ask for forgiveness rather than ask for permission.” I’ve heard this quote numerous times recently and felt it deserved some interpretation and #reflection with respect to #postgraduatestudies and more specifically #student thinking. In my experience with students, it appears this quote is typically disregarded when it comes to thoughts on failure. In other words, we inherently give ourselves permission to experience the negative effects arising from fear of failure and then #procrastinate while we find the energy to forgive ourselves these thoughts before getting on with our #research tasks. Why not do it the other way round? Why not acknowledge these fears first, forgive yourself for not being perfect, push #procrastination aside and, get on with your #thesis work.
Research Process
Being a #postgraduatestudent in your #thesiswriting year can become entirely overwhelming. A single, yet compelling solution is to create some perspective by constructing a helicopter view of the entire process. It is well known that you will be required to produce specific deliverables at certain times in three distinct segments: (1) WHAT to do, (2) HOW to do it, and (3) DOING it. My color-coded map has been crafted to suit this purpose. I trust it provides some #perspective for you.
Research Proposal
Why is your Research Proposal so important? Because it is necessary to persuade your supervisors and/or funders that your work is relevant, meaningful, and worthy of their support and approval. Please, communicate with faculty and your supervisor and learn how to articulate your research ideas and reasons in a compelling way: clearly define your questions or objectives and your approach to answering them. At the same time, extrapolate arguments and material from relevant sources to build your literature review. If you’re at this stage of your #thesiswriting, perhaps you find this infographic useful?
Don’t bury yourself
Calling postgraduate students: this may be the time of year you are contemplating your literature review (LR) and are faced with a pile of reading work ahead. You can feel your creativity and imaginative juices flowing but yet you are overwhelmed whilst buried under a pile of articles and books. I know an LR is challenging but using some simple techniques may decrease your stress levels and alleviate some pain. For example: (1) scan read each article to determine whether it’s appropriate(2) use simple categorisation and storage methods(3) ask a librarian for help using your constructs and string searches (4) create your LR table of contents to use as a framework Plus, head over to my website (address in comments) to sign up for my monthly newsletter – The Thesis Life Bulletin. The next publication will be available on 1 March and addresses tips and techniques for managing the LR…
Healthy Mindset
Sometimes my clients are overly focused on personal performance with regards to their assignments and thesis writing. While that might not seem like a huge problem, it really can be. The obsession is performance-driven. If they don’t get the “grades” aka 75% or above, then it’s just not good enough. It’s a trap. This belief that you’re only clever if the grades say you are i.e. receiving a good grade is indicative of success and that you are smart or, by the same logic, receiving a poor grade implies you are intellectually inadequate and a failure. Of course, this is untrue: an unhealthy internal dialogue that must be addressed. It’s almost impossible to thrive if you’re constantly berating yourself on your setbacks. Instead, you need to figure out how to learn from your mistakes and try again.
Depth Work
“I know what I need to do. I just don’t know how to do it.” Do you find this gap? I believe it’s all about focus. My personal quest for some years has been to spend more time doing deep work – complete focus. For me, that translates into writing: blogs, articles, journal, social media posts, newsletter editorials, and more recently, my first book. It could of course be any art form and for my clients, it’s about doing their thesis. I have discovered certain disciplines that keep me motivated: ➜ Committing to one hour a day by zooming into a daily Writers’ Hour. (Research by KA Ericsson on “Deliberate Practice” suggests that intense concentration for a novice is approximately one hour and for experts e.g. elite violinists, approximately four hours per day.) ➜Keeping a scoreboard of my hours. ➜ Confirmation of my wildly important goal – why this is…