i hate writing my thesis

15 things to remember if you’ve started to hate your PhD

Jun 1, 2021

Have you checked out the rest of  The PhD Knowledge Base ? It’s home to hundreds more free resources and guides, written especially for PhD students. 

It’s entirely normal to hate your PhD from time to time. The further you travel on the PhD journey, the more you start to resent the thesis. 

That’s natural – spend years working on something, often with little immediate reward, and it natural that you will start to crumble. 

Here we’ve put together a list of 15 things to remind yourself of if you’re started to lose motivation. They’ll remind you of all that’s special about your thesis and, hopefully, inject some enthusiasm back into your relationship with it. 

Interested in group workshops, cohort-courses and a free PhD learning & support community? 

The team behind The PhD Proofreaders have launched The PhD People, a free learning and community platform for PhD students. Connect, share and learn with other students, and boost your skills with cohort-based workshops and courses.

1. you should work less.

I find that most people fall into one of two camps.

There are those who throw themselves into their work, always chained to their desk and never feeling like they’re on top of things.

Then there are those who get easily distracted, putting things off to the last minute and feeling guilty that they’re always a little behind.

In both cases the outcome is the same: long hours spent working, with the fatigue and the stress that comes with it.

But what about doing less work? What about being more selective with your time, and more selective with what’s on your to do list, such that you didn’t have as much to do at all?

It means accepting that your value and output is not measured on the basis of how many hours you put in, or how much work you get done. It’s measured instead on the quality of the work, and on the level of focus you can achieve.

So if you find yourself burning the candle at both ends, ask yourself whether what you really need to do is work less.

2. Don’t Push Away Negative Thoughts

3. remember that your phd is trying to drown you, 4. routines come and go.

For many, the simplest way of making the PhD journey more manageable is to develop consistent routines. 

For me, that involves going on a morning walk, exercising a few times a week, getting my emails and admin done first thing in the morning, and going to bed at roughly the same time.

But it’s easy to slip out of routines. We may be away from home, or the holiday season may disrupt our daily rhythm.

Whatever it is, we can start to drop the good habits we carefully nurture and start to pick up unhealthy ones – we might start exercising less, eating more processed foods, or staying up late.

When that happens to me, I can quickly start to feel anxious about whatever it is I’m working on. That makes sense; if routines introduce stability into our lives, it’s logical that disrupting those routines can mean we feel ungrounded and out of sorts.

If you can relate this holiday season, go easy on yourself. Like everything in life, this is temporary. As long as you’re conscious of what good routines looks like, and as long as you’re conscious that you’re temporarily departing from them, it won’t be long before you get back into healthy habits once the thing disrupting your routine has passed.

5. Ask Yourself: Are You Biting Off More Than You Can Chew?

6. set your intentions, 7. embrace the crappy drafts, 8. remind yourself that phds are hard.

Finding your PhD hard is kind of the point.

Repeat after me: if you’re finding your PhD hard it doesn’t mean you’re a failure, it means you’re doing it right.

9. Keep failing

10. remember that you’re never going to please everyone, 11. you’re going to get criticised, 12. don’t focus (too much) on the problems, 13. you have to admit when you’re wrong, 14. ask yourself: am i a perfectionist.

Most of the PhD students I talk to are perfectionists. You probably are too. 

With perfectionism comes a desire to have control over day-to-day life, knowledge of what’s going to happen in the short term, and the certainty that the PhD thesis will be, well, perfect. 

And then along comes coronavirus. 

Your day-to-day life has been disrupted as you work from home and away from you normal routines, you’ve got no way of knowing what will happen in the short or long term, and you may worry that your thesis will be sub-optimal as you step away from fieldwork, labs and supervisors.

The perfectionist in you is panicking, right? 

Perfectionism is a double-edged sword. On the one hand it can fill you with drive, passion, dedication and motivation. It can inspire you to try your hardest and do your best. It’s likely what got you on to your PhD programme in the first place. 

But at the same time, it has a dark side. For as much as it can inspire, it can lead to panic. Anxiety, worry and dread often follow in the footsteps of perfectionism, such that when you lose control over your reality, or when you get things wrong, make mistakes or produce something sub-optimal, you panic. What starts off as a simple mistake can quickly become the end of the world.

Part of the challenge of doing a PhD, and particularly in the current context, is learning to embrace imperfection and recognising that sub-optimal does not necessarily mean failure. Managing perfectionism involves reminding yourself that you’re only human, and that humans face stresses, make mistakes and sometimes struggle to produce their best work. Even the brightest and most competent of people have off days. 

The more you can remind yourself of that, the better equipped you’ll be to deal with what life throws at you and your thesis. 

15. Lastly, Remember That It’s Okay Not To Be Productive

Your PhD thesis. All on one page.

Use our free PhD structure template to quickly visualise every element of your thesis. 

Share this:

Thanks for the encouragement and all… but, I keep failing, and I understand it is a process. But because of my failures I’m about to be fired from my PhD. :( It is hard, yes. I keep messing up and failing, yes. I’m getting fired, yes.

Thanks for the kind words. I hope things work out for you.

Submit a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Search The PhD Knowledge Base

Most popular articles from the phd knowlege base.

The PhD Knowledge Base Categories

• Your PhD and Covid
• Mastering your theory and literature review chapters
• How to structure and write every chapter of the PhD
• How to stay motivated and productive
• Techniques to improve your writing and fluency
• Advice on maintaining good mental health
• Resources designed for non-native English speakers
• PhD Writing Template
• Explore our back-catalogue of motivational advice

Why academic writing sucks (and how we can fix it)

My last post, where I called bullshit on the way we do the PhD seemed to hit a nerve. In fact, it got more hits in a 24 hour period than I’ve ever seen before. Many people wrote in asking: how should I spend the remaining time in my PhD?

Good question! I have a lot of thoughts. Let’s start with what bugs me most: it’s highly likely you will graduate a worse writer than you started. This is because we spend a lot of time teaching you how to write in a particular ‘academic’ style that, not to put too fine a point on it: sucks.

Academic writing, as a genre, is ritualised, peculiar, archaic and does almost as much to hide knowledge as it does to share it. Mastering academic writing is just as much about signalling you are the member of an ‘in-group’ as it is about conveying ideas.

Don’t believe me? Look at how we use commas.

Commas help you create longer sentences that still make sense.  Without commas, you have Parataxis. Parataxis is Plain English. Just one sentence. Followed by another sentence. Parataxis is direct. Your sentences are short.

Perhaps too short?

When you have too many commas you create hypotaxis:  the use of clause after subordinate clause, which creates sentences of deeply satisfying complexity, that, even while you might get lost a little between the commas, reassure the reader that an academic of sober-minded, careful, disposition is tapping away at the keyboard crafting very, very polite sentences which, because of those glorious clauses and subordinate clauses, will make you feel like you’re eating dry toast. You’re on safe ground with all that hypotactic fun, believe me, because it’s impossible to be too enthusiastic, or too rude, about anything when you write this way . It’s no wonder, since academics love being passive aggressive (which, by the way, is the avoidance of directly saying what they think) that most ‘serious’ writing is full of it.

It’s not just our commas that reveal our petty academic hearts. I’ve written before about how academic writing can be like a painful upper-middle-class dinner party . Using the word ‘claims’ when you are referring to another person’s work is a passive-aggressive way of saying you think that scholar is suspect. If you want to compliment someone’s work, you should use a verb like ‘argues’. A lot of people in my writing courses have been surprised when I point out this verbal subtext: ‘claims’ sounds like a complimentary word when in fact it’s the best way to diss another scholar in your dissertation? How was I expected to know that?!

Academic writing doesn’t get any easier when you are the supervisor instead of the student. To do well in your PhD examination, you’ll need to know the ‘tricks’ academic writers use to signal they belong to a certain disciplinary tribe: hedges and boosters, signposting, conjunctive adverbs and the like. It takes so much time to teach someone this passive agressive subtext stuff. Just yesterday, I spent a good 20 minutes talking to my PhD student about whether she should use the word ‘hesitate’ in a particular sentence. I have spent literally years of my life having these conversations. Hell, I’ve even helped write a couple of books about academic writing to help people decode the intricacies of academic style.

It takes a long time to master the kind of ‘in group’ signalling that characterises academic writing. This is why we make you write a dissertation. (Actually, I am not sure if that’s the reason – I honestly don’t think anyone has really thought about it seriously since about 1850).

I wish this time was spent more fruitfully, both for advancing knowledge and for helping people get jobs when they finish.

The sheer amount of time you need to devote to be good at academic writing comes as a shock to many new PhD students, who thought they would be working in a lab or doing fieldwork and just ‘writing up’ what they found there. If you go into any PhD student kitchen, writing progress, feedback from supervisors on writing, confusion about writing, or writer’s block, will be part of most conversations.

I’ve been conflicted for years about my role in perpetuating the pain of academic writing on others. I’ve built a career on helping people deal with the angst academic writing creates. But the angst about academic writing is justified for a very singular reason:

Everyone knows you can be a great researcher, creative thinker and innovator – and fail a PhD because you are a bad ‘academic’ writer.

Let’s dwell on that for just a moment.

Are we assessing the right thing here? Is it better to have someone who can  do the research or someone who can tell other people about it using the correct ‘academic form’? Here’s the kicker: most working academics dislike writing in the ‘correct academic style’, and very few (if any?) people genuinely enjoy reading it.

So, I think it’s time we let go of the dissertation.

Yes, even the type with publications in it.

We could replace the dissertation with a portfolio of writing that showcases your ability to write for a range of audiences and purposes.

I can hear some of my colleagues gasping with shock, so let me be clear. While I think we need to change how we assess the PhD, this does not mean we get rid of a requirement to write in the ‘correct academic form’ altogether. Writing in an academic style helps us accurately report knowledge claims to other experts (and show those readers how sure we are, through the use of hedges and boosters). There’s a place for this kind of writing, but we need to broaden our minds about what a professional academic writing practise can and should be.

A PhD writing portfolio could include academic pieces: journal articles, conference presentations and the like. These pieces would demonstrate you can do the necessary form well, when required. It goes without saying that academic form is so much more excrutiating to read when it’s done badly. Scholars of writing like Helen Sword have done much to help academics improve their basic writing skills (Sword’s Stylish Academic Writing is a classic and I would also recommend her Writer’s Diet book ).

But it’s not enough just to encourage PhD students and academics to write more clearly. We don’t need a better form of business as usual: we need a new normal altogether. A normal that is less elitist.

I would be more comfortable with the emphasis we place on writing in the PhD if we were really assessing the ability to communicate, but I question if that’s what’s going on here. It’s interesting, isn’t it, that the only writing that really ‘matters’ to academic promotion and institutional prestige is the kind that enables large academic publishers to make a lot of money from the public purse?

By deliberately excluding other forms of writing in the PhD, we contribute to the ‘marketisation’ of our universities: turning knowledge into a commodity that can be traded rather than a public good.

Surely, in the 21st century, PhD assessment should include being able to connect with a wider audience? PhD graduates should write to influence the communities they live in, as well as other academics. If we accept this premise, we need to stop being so snobby and dismissive about ‘other’ forms of writing, especially if it’s the best way to bring public attention to our research work.

In addition to some purely academic writing, the PhD writing portfolio I’m imagining might include such things as publicly accessible reports on the implications of your research, blog posts or opinion pieces, memos to policymakers, web copy, teaching notes, instructional texts, video scripts and more. Heck, I am not against including a compendium of Tweets in there if it’s appropriate! (Writing an interesting tweet that people will share is harder than you think – that’s why some of us have followers in the tens of thousands and some struggle to attract more than 100 or so).

Our research can move the world, but not if only other academics can understand what we are saying.

I know I am not alone in thinking this way. My rant only echoes what many people before have said about obsession with accumulating CVs full of academic publications creating inequalities ; as well as those voices who have called academics out for the way academic language perpetuates racism and sexism.

Many people are resisting the academic CV hunger games and choosing other forms of public engagement. If you are one of these people who tirelessly blog, write opinion articles and textbooks, yet struggle to be promoted and rewarded for your efforts – I witness you!

In these desperate times, perhaps those of us who want change are more likely to be heard?

Changing the PhD assessment has the potential to change our academy for the better. The obsession with communicating in elaborate insider language has done our profession great harm. More people read books by Paleo-crazies like Pete Evans than actual health academics. The facts people need to counter conspiracy theories are behind paywalls, while the damaging lies are out there, for free, on ‘wellness blogs’.

One way to get people to respect expert voices is to actually let them hear what we have to say.

This means we have to radically re-think how we teach writing. Why don’t we teach PhD students to write best selling non-fiction as well as journal papers? Imagine graduating, and instead of just writing a book for, I don’t know, Cambridge University Press, you also write a non-fiction bestseller and pocket all those royalties? ( my friend Lynne Kelly did ). How about you then leverage that book fame into a Netflix documentary series? You could do this if you learned a more comprehensive range of writing and pitching skills during your PhD. More to the point, you could do this if you didn’t have that giant dissertation albatross around your neck.

Our obsession with forcing people to learn and replicate ‘correct’ academic genre forms is the most significant barrier to making the PhD relevant and useful in the 21st century. There are a LOT of research focussed jobs outside academia that ask for writing skills. The ability to write clearly and quickly is an incredible career asset – one you will not develop if you spend a lot of time perfecting ‘good academic form’.

It’s not healthy for academics on the payroll to focus exclusively on academic forms of publishing either: there’s no guarantee a huge, research-heavy CV will save your job when the cuts start.

In my previous post, I pointed out that Covid19 seems to have destroyed the academic job market. How long the market will stay frozen is unknown, but as I write, the mass retrenchment of university workers has started. Yesterday colleagues at Deakin University were told they would be let go; in one department seven people were told to apply for the same job.

Twitter erupted in grief and outrage, to say nothing of the back channels of personal communication via text and tearful Zoom calls. One thing was resoundingly clear: having a long list of journal papers didn’t save people from the chopping block. In difficult times, universities focus on key revenue streams, and the primary one will always be teaching. Trust me: management understand that the skills involved in writing and teaching great online courses is different from those required to get an academic paper through peer review.

So, to answer the original question, what should you spend more time doing while you are still enrolled in your PhD?

Start that PhD writing portfolio now. It might not be assessed by your examiners, but it will be assessed by future employers, who are less likely to care about H-indexes. Stop thinking of yourself as a future academic who only writes journal articles and maybe a monograph or two. Start thinking of yourself as a domain specific, but multi-talented, professional writer who can help people make better decisions by making knowledge more accessible.

At least, that’s what you should be able to put on your CV by the time you finish.

To this end, ask yourself: what kind of written pieces would I have to show someone to demonstrate I am a multi-talented, yet domain specific writer? Better still – identify the audiences that would benefit from learning about your research and ask them what sort of things they would like to read (if I ran the university, you would be forced to do this exercise as part of your scoping work, but it’s never too late to find out who might be interested). Then go ahead and write those pieces! Publish them where interested people can encounter and access them easily (professional magazines and industry body newsletters are often a good place to start). Include any unpublished pieces on your Linkedin profile, so people see how capable you are as a writer.

I can hear you worrying now: “That’s easier said than done Inger! I’m in a system here and it doesn’t support me to do what you say”

True. Your supervisor may not be able, or interested in helping you. It’s likely that you will get little encouragement and even less reward for doing what I suggest. But universities are treasure troves of knowledge and clever people. Look around for the help and support you need – I bet it’s there, maybe in the form of the media office. If it’s not, ask your university to provide you with appropriate professional development workshops instead of yet another journal writing workshop (especially one run by a publisher with a vested interest in you pouring energy and ideas to a system that has made their shareholders rich, but I digress).

Recognise that your ability to write about research – your own research and other people’s – is a remarkable career asset. Your ability and tolerance for difficult, complicated and boring reading tasks is unparalleled. I challenge anyone else to come close to the amount of knowledge you are capable of chewing through and making sense of in a week. And your stamina! Who else in the world can say “you want me to spend more than three years reading around 400 books and articles on the same subject? And some of them are almost inpenetrable academic gibberish? No problem!” . Employers need people to help them make sense of published research and advise on applying research to their problems. They need people to do new research that will give them a competitive advantage. You can’t make AI that does this (at least not yet). There are so many, many problems in a recession, and they will be so very difficult. People like you are solid gold.

Even if you can’t get a job outside academia with your writing abilities straight away, you can certainly use them in your own research consulting business. So make a serious effort to get even faster and better at writing – it’s a craft that can be learned, not a natural ability. Continue to read books on writing correct academic style (you still have to push out that dissertation after all), but be sure to include other books on clarity and even books on fiction writing, which can teach you different story telling techniques. Make the dissertation shorter to create time for other kinds of writing. Just because an institution sets a maximum word limit, doesn’t mean you have to write to it, in fact there is evidence that many examiners would prefer you didn’t.

No doubt, some of you will experience push back if you do what I suggest here, especially by supervisors who are invested on having their name on your papers (conveniently reducing the need for them to do this kind of boring writing themselves). You’ll have to balance off the requirements of your degree and keeping people happy with future-proofing your career. It’s going to be tricky, but you’re smart and capable. I’m confident you can work it out.

The comments are still off but feel free to talk to me on social media. I’m listening – and cheering you on.

In solidarity

ANU students – stay tuned for a new series on clarity and business writing for researchers that will be advertised in the HDR Update and follow @ANUresearcher for early announcements.

In November 2020 I’m getting together with The Research Whisperer and Chat with Rellypops to host a a free online Whispercon event. You can see the schedule and sign up for sessions here .

Want more Whisperer? Subscribe to my new podcast ‘On the reg’: with my friend Dr Jason downs. Available via Apple , Spotify or Google . Find out more on our Buzzsprout page .

The Covid Diaries

I call bullshit on the way we do the PhD

The valley of deep Covid Shit

Should you quit (go part time or pause) your PhD during Covid

Other related posts

Should you leave your PhD off your CV?

How to turn your PhD into a best selling book

The academic writers’ strike

How do I write the discussion section?

More recommended reading

Our book How to fix your academic writing trouble: a practical guide is designed to help you decode the ‘correct’ academic writing style, so you can write your dissertation with less pain (I hope!).

Confronting Epistemological Racism, Decolonizing Scholarly Knowledge: Race and Gender in Applied Linguistics by Ryuko Kubota

Sexism in the academy: narrowing women’s path t o tenure by Troy Vetesse

Not enough diverse academic research is being published by Jenny J Lee and Alma Maldonado-Maldonado   

It’s a PhD, not a Nobel prize: how experienced examiners assess research theses , by Gerry Mullins and Margaret Kiley

Other links of interest

Coping during COVID tip sheet  by Shari Walsh

How to touch your face less (printable tip sheet from The Oatmeal).

Want more content like Thesiswhisperer?

Visit The Whisper Collective , a site we built to continuously curate all the best research education material on the web.

Love the ThesisWhisperer?

I cover all the expenses of operating the Thesis Whisperer out of my own pocket. If you’d like to support my work, please consider becoming a $1 a month Patreon or buy a copy of my (cheap!) ebooks: Tame your PhD or The Year of Living Covidly .

Jason Downs and I have our first ‘On the Reg’ podcast book – on TextExpander . This book shows you how to use TextExpander to reduce your everyday cognitive load.

You can find links to print versions – and my other books – on the Buy Books page

Share this:

The Thesis Whisperer is written by Professor Inger Mewburn, director of researcher development at The Australian National University . New posts on the first Wednesday of the month. Subscribe by email below. Visit the About page to find out more about me, my podcasts and books. I'm on most social media platforms as @thesiswhisperer. The best places to talk to me are LinkedIn , Mastodon and Threads.

• Post (609)
• Page (16)
• Product (6)
• Getting things done (259)
• Miscellany (139)
• On Writing (139)
• Your Career (113)
• You and your supervisor (66)
• Writing (48)
• productivity (23)
• consulting (13)
• TWC (13)
• supervision (12)
• 2024 (8)
• 2023 (12)
• 2022 (11)
• 2021 (15)
• 2020 (22)

Whisper to me....

Enter your email address to get posts by email.

Email Address

Sign me up!

• On the reg: a podcast with @jasondowns
• Thesis Whisperer on Facebook
• Thesis Whisperer on Instagram
• Thesis Whisperer on Soundcloud
• Thesis Whisperer on Youtube
• Thesiswhisperer on Mastodon
• Thesiswhisperer page on LinkedIn
• Thesiswhisperer Podcast
• 12,217,439 hits

Discover more from The Thesis Whisperer

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Type your email…

Continue reading

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

• Knowledge Base
• How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples

How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples

Published on January 11, 2019 by Shona McCombes . Revised on August 15, 2023 by Eoghan Ryan.

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . It usually comes near the end of your introduction .

Your thesis will look a bit different depending on the type of essay you’re writing. But the thesis statement should always clearly state the main idea you want to get across. Everything else in your essay should relate back to this idea.

You can write your thesis statement by following four simple steps:

• Start with a question
• Write your initial answer
• Develop your answer
• Refine your thesis statement

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Upload your document to correct all your mistakes in minutes

Table of contents

What is a thesis statement, placement of the thesis statement, step 1: start with a question, step 2: write your initial answer, step 3: develop your answer, step 4: refine your thesis statement, types of thesis statements, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about thesis statements.

A thesis statement summarizes the central points of your essay. It is a signpost telling the reader what the essay will argue and why.

The best thesis statements are:

• Concise: A good thesis statement is short and sweet—don’t use more words than necessary. State your point clearly and directly in one or two sentences.
• Contentious: Your thesis shouldn’t be a simple statement of fact that everyone already knows. A good thesis statement is a claim that requires further evidence or analysis to back it up.
• Coherent: Everything mentioned in your thesis statement must be supported and explained in the rest of your paper.

Receive feedback on language, structure, and formatting

Professional editors proofread and edit your paper by focusing on:

• Academic style
• Vague sentences
• Style consistency

See an example

The thesis statement generally appears at the end of your essay introduction or research paper introduction .

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts and among young people more generally is hotly debated. For many who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its many benefits for education: the internet facilitates easier access to information, exposure to different perspectives, and a flexible learning environment for both students and teachers.

You should come up with an initial thesis, sometimes called a working thesis , early in the writing process . As soon as you’ve decided on your essay topic , you need to work out what you want to say about it—a clear thesis will give your essay direction and structure.

You might already have a question in your assignment, but if not, try to come up with your own. What would you like to find out or decide about your topic?

For example, you might ask:

After some initial research, you can formulate a tentative answer to this question. At this stage it can be simple, and it should guide the research process and writing process .

Here's why students love Scribbr's proofreading services

Discover proofreading & editing

Now you need to consider why this is your answer and how you will convince your reader to agree with you. As you read more about your topic and begin writing, your answer should get more detailed.

In your essay about the internet and education, the thesis states your position and sketches out the key arguments you’ll use to support it.

The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its many benefits for education because it facilitates easier access to information.

In your essay about braille, the thesis statement summarizes the key historical development that you’ll explain.

The invention of braille in the 19th century transformed the lives of blind people, allowing them to participate more actively in public life.

A strong thesis statement should tell the reader:

• Why you hold this position
• What they’ll learn from your essay
• The key points of your argument or narrative

The final thesis statement doesn’t just state your position, but summarizes your overall argument or the entire topic you’re going to explain. To strengthen a weak thesis statement, it can help to consider the broader context of your topic.

These examples are more specific and show that you’ll explore your topic in depth.

Your thesis statement should match the goals of your essay, which vary depending on the type of essay you’re writing:

• In an argumentative essay , your thesis statement should take a strong position. Your aim in the essay is to convince your reader of this thesis based on evidence and logical reasoning.
• In an expository essay , you’ll aim to explain the facts of a topic or process. Your thesis statement doesn’t have to include a strong opinion in this case, but it should clearly state the central point you want to make, and mention the key elements you’ll explain.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
• Appeal to authority fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy

College essays

• Choosing Essay Topic
• Write a College Essay
• Write a Diversity Essay
• College Essay Format & Structure
• Comparing and Contrasting in an Essay

 (AI) Tools

• Grammar Checker
• Paraphrasing Tool
• Text Summarizer
• AI Detector
• Plagiarism Checker
• Citation Generator

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

The thesis statement is essential in any academic essay or research paper for two main reasons:

• It gives your writing direction and focus.
• It gives the reader a concise summary of your main point.

Without a clear thesis statement, an essay can end up rambling and unfocused, leaving your reader unsure of exactly what you want to say.

Follow these four steps to come up with a thesis statement :

• Ask a question about your topic .
• Write your initial answer.
• Develop your answer by including reasons.
• Refine your answer, adding more detail and nuance.

The thesis statement should be placed at the end of your essay introduction .

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

McCombes, S. (2023, August 15). How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved August 29, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/thesis-statement/

Is this article helpful?

Shona McCombes

Other students also liked, how to write an essay introduction | 4 steps & examples, how to write topic sentences | 4 steps, examples & purpose, academic paragraph structure | step-by-step guide & examples, get unlimited documents corrected.

✔ Free APA citation check included ✔ Unlimited document corrections ✔ Specialized in correcting academic texts

Search form

What to do if you dislike writing research or academic papers.

BY DAVID GUTIERREZ

Unfortunately, even if you hate writing academic papers more than anything else in the world, you still have to do it if you want to graduate successfully. However, it is possible to alter one’s attitude towards something – often to a greater degree than you may believe. Here are some techniques that can make writing your next academic assignment bearable, if not outright pleasant.

1.    Take breaks

Taking regular breaks is important in any kind of work, and writing is no exception. Divide your assignment into a number of reasonably small parts and promise yourself to take a break after you successfully complete each of them. Both the parts and the breaks may be as large or small as it is useful for your situation. For example, if you write an essay, you can take 5-minute breaks every 200 words. If you write something more substantial, both the parts and the breaks can be larger. Do something pleasant in the course of your breaks – this will motivate you to complete each part faster.

2.    Eliminate distractions

When you do something you hate, every potential distraction is twice as enticing as it usually is. This means that if you are surrounded by distractions while you write your academic paper, you are likely to get distracted all the time. To prevent this, single out the things that are likely to attract your attention as you work and remove them from you. If it is structure and general layout of the paper that give you trouble, consider custom term papers for sale. Block distracting websites using Leechblock or RescueTime, turn off notifications, switch off your smartphone, block out the external noises by some music in your earphones.

3.    Find a writing place that works for you

If you do something you hate, you should at least do it somewhere you feel comfortable. Where it exactly depends on your preferences: some like to work at home, others prefer a nice café; still others find it inspiring to work in the park. Take your pick.

4.    Don’t try to write like somebody else

One of the reasons why you may hate writing is because you believe that you shouldn’t write in your own voice. You think you need to imitate either someone else or to write in an affected manner that has little in common with your own way of thinking and writing. Most likely, you are wrong, and your writing will only be improved if you choose to follow your heart and write the way you like.

5.    Practice

Another reason why students hate writing academic assignments is that they are not very good at writing. The reverse is true as well – once you learn how to write more or less well, you start feeling pleasure doing it. Do a bit of practice writing assignments of the type you have to write most often. Who knows? Perhaps, it will grow on you.

6.    Don’t be perfectionistic

Perfectionism is equally deadly both for enjoyment received from writing and the results achieved. Don’t try to make every sentence perfect – it is impossible. Write reasonably well, don’t go crazy correcting what you’ve already written because you will never finish doing it.

Learning to love writing is hard and long work, and we don’t claim that everybody is capable of doing it at first attempt. But making writing pleasant is achievable – and you can do it.

David Gutierrez has worked in the field of web design since 2005. Right now he started learning Java in order to get second occupation. His professional interests defined major topics of his articles. David writes about new web design software, recently discovered professional tricks and also monitors the latest updates of the web development.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

• Stanford Home
• Maps & Directions
• Search Stanford
• Emergency Info
• Terms of Use
• Non-Discrimination
• Accessibility

© Stanford University , Stanford , California 94305 .

• Career Advice

How to Avoid Failing Your Ph.D. Dissertation

By  Daniel Sokol

You have / 5 articles left. Sign up for a free account or log in.

Istock.com/erhui1979

I am a barrister in London who specializes in helping doctoral students who have failed their Ph.D.s. Few people will have had the dubious privilege of seeing as many unsuccessful Ph.D. dissertations and reading as many scathing reports by examination committees. Here are common reasons why students who submit their Ph.D.s fail, with advice on how to avoid such pitfalls. The lessons apply to the United States and the United Kingdom.

Lack of critical reflection. Probably the most common reason for failing a Ph.D. dissertation is a lack of critical analysis. A typical observation of the examination committee is, “The thesis is generally descriptive and a more analytical approach is required.”

For doctoral work, students must engage critically with the subject matter, not just set out what other scholars have said or done. If not, the thesis will not be original. It will not add anything of substance to the field and will fail.

Doctoral students should adopt a reflexive approach to their work. Why have I chosen this methodology? What are the flaws or limitations of this or that author’s argument? Can I make interesting comparisons between this and something else? Those who struggle with this aspect should ask their supervisors for advice on how to inject some analytic sophistication to their thesis.

Lack of coherence. Other common observations are of the type: “The argument running through the thesis needs to be more coherent” or “The thesis is poorly organized and put together without any apparent logic.”

The thesis should be seen as one coherent whole. It cannot be a series of self-contained chapters stitched together haphazardly. Students should spend considerable time at the outset of their dissertation thinking about structure, both at the macro level of the entire thesis and the micro level of the chapter. It is a good idea to look at other Ph.D. theses and monographs to get a sense of what constitutes a logical structure.

Poor presentation. The majority of failed Ph.D. dissertations are sloppily presented. They contain typos, grammatical mistakes, referencing errors and inconsistencies in presentation. Looking at some committee reports randomly, I note the following comments:

• “The thesis is poorly written.”
• “That previous section is long, badly written and lacks structure.”
• “The author cannot formulate his thoughts or explain his reasons. It is very hard to understand a good part of the thesis.”
• “Ensure that the standard of written English is consistent with the standard expected of a Ph.D. thesis.”
• “The language used is simplistic and does not reflect the standard of writing expected at Ph.D. level.”

For committee members, who are paid a fixed and pitiful sum to examine the work, few things are as off-putting as a poorly written dissertation. Errors of language slow the reading speed and can frustrate or irritate committee members. At worst, they can lead them to miss or misinterpret an argument.

Students should consider using a professional proofreader to read the thesis, if permitted by the university’s regulations. But that still is no guarantee of an error-free thesis. Even after the proofreader has returned the manuscript, students should read and reread the work in its entirety.

When I was completing my Ph.D., I read my dissertation so often that the mere sight of it made me nauseous. Each time, I would spot a typo or tweak a sentence, removing a superfluous word or clarifying an ambiguous passage. My meticulous approach was rewarded when one committee member said in the oral examination that it was the best-written dissertation he had ever read. This was nothing to do with skill or an innate writing ability but tedious, repetitive revision.

Failure to make required changes. It is rare for students to fail to obtain their Ph.D. outright at the oral examination. Usually, the student is granted an opportunity to resubmit their dissertation after making corrections.

Students often submit their revised thesis together with a document explaining how they implemented the committee’s recommendations. And they often believe, wrongly, that this document is proof that they have incorporated the requisite changes and that they should be awarded a Ph.D.

In fact, the committee may feel that the changes do not go far enough or that they reveal further misunderstandings or deficiencies. Here are some real observations by dissertation committees:

• “The added discussion section is confusing. The only thing that has improved is the attempt to provide a little more analysis of the experimental data.”
• “The author has tried to address the issues identified by the committee, but there is little improvement in the thesis.”

In short, students who fail their Ph.D. dissertations make changes that are superficial or misconceived. Some revised theses end up worse than the original submission.

Students must incorporate changes in the way that the committee members had in mind. If what is required is unclear, students can usually seek clarification through their supervisors.

In the nine years I have spent helping Ph.D. students with their appeals, I have found that whatever the subject matter of the thesis, the above criticisms appear time and time again in committee reports. They are signs of a poor Ph.D.

Wise students should ask themselves these questions prior to submission of the dissertation:

• Is the work sufficiently critical/analytical, or is it mainly descriptive?
• Is it coherent and well structured?
• Does the thesis look good and read well?
• If a resubmission, have I made the changes that the examination committee had in mind?

Once students are satisfied that the answer to each question is yes, they should ask their supervisors the same questions.

Academic Associations Face Critique for Political Statements

A new report from AEI adds to a growing wave of conservative criticism suggesting that academe should avoid taking a

Share This Article

More from career advice.

How to Mitigate Bias and Hire the Best People

Patrick Arens shares an approach to reviewing candidates that helps you select those most suited to do the job rather

The Warning Signs of Academic Layoffs

Ryan Anderson advises on how to tell if your institution is gearing up for them and how you can prepare and protect y

Legislation Isn’t All That Negatively Impacts DEI Practitioners

Many experience incivility, bullying, belittling and a disregard for their views and feelings on their own campuses,

• Become a Member
• Sign up for Newsletters
• Learning & Assessment
• Diversity & Equity
• Career Development
• Labor & Unionization
• Shared Governance
• Academic Freedom
• Books & Publishing
• Financial Aid
• Residential Life
• Free Speech
• Physical & Mental Health
• Race & Ethnicity
• Sex & Gender
• Socioeconomics
• Traditional-Age
• Adult & Post-Traditional
• Teaching & Learning
• Artificial Intelligence
• Digital Publishing
• Data Analytics
• Administrative Tech
• Alternative Credentials
• Financial Health
• Cost-Cutting
• Revenue Strategies
• Academic Programs
• Physical Campuses
• Mergers & Collaboration
• Fundraising
• Research Universities
• Regional Public Universities
• Community Colleges
• Private Nonprofit Colleges
• Minority-Serving Institutions
• Religious Colleges
• Women's Colleges
• Specialized Colleges
• For-Profit Colleges
• Executive Leadership
• Trustees & Regents
• State Oversight
• Accreditation
• Politics & Elections
• Supreme Court
• Student Aid Policy
• Science & Research Policy
• State Policy
• Colleges & Localities
• Employee Satisfaction
• Remote & Flexible Work
• Staff Issues
• Study Abroad
• International Students in U.S.
• U.S. Colleges in the World
• Intellectual Affairs
• Seeking a Faculty Job
• Advancing in the Faculty
• Seeking an Administrative Job
• Advancing as an Administrator
• Beyond Transfer
• Call to Action
• Confessions of a Community College Dean
• Higher Ed Gamma
• Higher Ed Policy
• Just Explain It to Me!
• Just Visiting
• Law, Policy—and IT?
• Leadership & StratEDgy
• Leadership in Higher Education
• Learning Innovation
• Online: Trending Now
• Resident Scholar
• University of Venus
• Student Voice
• Academic Life
• Health & Wellness
• The College Experience
• Life After College
• Academic Minute
• Weekly Wisdom
• Reports & Data
• Quick Takes
• Advertising & Marketing
• Consulting Services
• Data & Insights
• Hiring & Jobs
• Event Partnerships

4 /5 Articles remaining this month.

Sign up for a free account or log in.

• Sign Up, It’s FREE

• Skip to primary navigation
• Skip to main content
• Skip to footer

Say goodbye to unnecessary stress and get your PhD 12 months sooner with our free guide

Finish Your Thesis

Get a PhD and Finish Your Thesis 12 Months Sooner

7 Rules You Must Violate to Finish Writing Your Thesis

January 6, 2022 by Dora Farkas, PhD 67 Comments

Why I Had to Unlearn Everything From the 7th Grade to Finish Writing My Thesis 

Writing my thesis challenged everything I had learned about proper English writing.

My first real writing assignment in 7th grade was to write a report about my favorite book that I read during the summer.

Our teacher, Ms. P, was a no-nonsense person, and she handed out a detailed template for the report.

In capital roman numerals she listed the major sections which included information about the book, characters, main plot, and my opinion of the book.

Within each section there were subsections with details about each character, place of story, and how the problem was solved.

Up to that point this was the longest piece of writing I had to produce.

I am not a native English speaker (I was born in Hungary), and I had only been in the Unites States for only one year at that time.

Yet, I was determined to get an A+.

My parents had to make sacrifices for us to be able to move to the US and I wanted to make them proud of me.

I listened to Ms. P’s words very carefully and followed the outline verbatim.

As she suggested, I went through the different sections in the order they were listed.

The result was a boring and straight-forward paper.

I did not get an A+, just an A, but this was enough to convince me that Ms. P’s outline was the recipe for writing good papers.

I applied this process all throughout middle school, high school, and college.

While  I did not enjoy writing at the time, Ms. P’s orderly method served me well enough to get A’s on most of my essays and term papers.

My second year in graduate school put me to the test …

I had 2 months to write my thesis proposal for my PhD and I struggled for weeks.

For some reason, every time I sat down to write, my brain froze.

Ms. P’s method was not working.

Previously, in English and History classes in college, I had been given a clearly-defined assignments.

There was a title, and a list of questions that I had to answer within my report.  

The writing of my thesis proposal presented a completely different set of challenges.

I only had a very vaguely defined topic and nearly a hundred journal articles to go through.

This was the first time that I had to come up with both the topic of the paper and the paper itself.

In addition, I had defend it in front of my committee and convince them that this was an original contribution to my field of research.

This was daunting given that I had only 1 year of experience in the lab (and that was part-time, as I was taking classes as well).

How could I possibly come up with a research topic, let alone put together an outline, and write each section in an orderly fashion?

After weeks of struggling and staring blankly at my computer screen, I was very close to deciding to give up and leave graduate school altogether.

One evening, my friends invited me to dinner to celebrate our colleague’s birthday.

During the dinner I began talking with one of the postdocs about the struggles I was having with my thesis proposal.

She just shook her head and said:

“ Are you trying to write your proposal from beginning to end?

We always leave writing of the abstract and the introduction to the end.

Just start with your methods section and your preliminary data.

That’s what the committee will pay the most attention to anyway.”

I began writing that very night, and my process went against everything Ms. P taught me.

Instead of writing everything from beginning to end, I just summarized all the data that I collected and my methods.

I felt so liberated, that I disregarded grammar and style.

I just wrote as much as I could in 2 hours so I could get home by a reasonable time.

With this push in momentum, I was able to finish my thesis proposal by the deadline (with all the grammar and style corrected in the final draft) and defend it in front of my committee.  

Tossing out Ms. P’s orderly process was the first step in learning academic writing (or any creative writing for that matter).

During the next few years I learned even more strategies that were essential to help me to complete my thesis by the deadline.

7 Rules You Must Violate to Finish Writing Your Thesis & Get Your PhD

1. writing the sections of your thesis in order.

Since research is a journey of discovery it is impossible to write your thesis from beginning to end.

Most researchers write the abstract last.

It varies from student to student which section is easiest.

In the experimental science the methods sections is usually easiest to begin with, followed by the results sections.

I have coached students in the humanities and social sciences as well, and they usually don’t write all the chapters in order either.

Sometimes the introduction (literature search) is the toughest, and many students leave it until the end.

Start with whichever chapter is easiest for you so you can pick up momentum in your writing.

2 Write for a set number hours a day

While it is great if you have blocked out time in your calendar every day for writing, it is more important to focus on the results than the time you spend writing.

Without well-defined goals, writing your thesis for 2 hours can produce absolutely nothing.

Instead, try to write a certain number of pages, or complete a clear and realistic goal such as creating a table or making a figure.

3. If you skip a day, make it up the next day by writing twice as much

We are all great planners – or at least we try to be.

We make a plan, and a week later we discover that we did not really follow through.

So, the following week we try even harder to “make up” for all the lost time.

This is a mistake, and it can lead to burnout and poor quality writing.

To produce high quality writing, focus on today’s writing only.

Forget the guilt of not writing enough yesterday.

Put aside any worries about how you will meet your writing goals tomorrow.

Make the best of every day by setting realistic goals for that day – this will help you to keep up your momentum.

4. Make yourself resist distractions

If I could have a dollar for every graduate graduate student who asked me: “How can I resist distractions”? I would have a small fortune.

Try to “not think of a white elephant” .

Do you see the white elephant?

Your mind is quite stubborn.

Once it comes up with an idea, such as “I must email XYZ to ask about….” it will not leave you alone until you do something about it.

But that something does not have to be writing the email and getting distracted by all the messages in your inbox.

The simplest solutions is to write every thought down.

If it is out of your head and on a piece of paper there is a good chance your mind will leave you alone.

(Notebooks and notepads work better than post-its).

Then, take care of these items once you finish writing your thesis for the day.

There are many ways to “resist” social media (disconnect from the Internet while writing).

But, if social media is important for your work (e.g. Linkedin for job searching), you need to  set reasonable boundaries .

A good solution is to go on social media only at predefined times of day – and preferably late in the day after you got your work done.

5. Follow rules of grammar and style while you write

Remember the spelling tests from second and third grade?

Many schools today place a smaller emphasis on spelling, and focus more helping students to develop their creative writing skills.

The reason is that teachers realized that students were afraid to express their ideas if they did not know how to spell certain words.

Many students try to get the grammar, style, and even formatting of their thesis perfect even before they have all their ideas down.

Remember that it is much easier to correct your grammar and spelling than to write creatively.

Use your writing time for putting as many ideas on paper as you can.

Leave the editing and styling for the later stages after you have all your arguments in order.

6. Write when you feel inspired

This rule is tricky.

Yes, if you feel inspired it is a good idea to write down any ideas you have.

If you can carry around a small notebook to capture your impromptu thoughts, it could save you from staring at the computer screen blankly for hours.

The problem with this rule is that it leads students to believe that inspiration will come someday, and then they can start to write.

To finish writing your thesis you also have to write when you are not inspired.

In fact, 95% of the time when you write you will not feel any inspiration at all when you sit down at the computer.

Skilled writers know how to write when they have no inspiration at all, and they would rather be doing anything else (including cleaning the bathroom), than to write.

There is no secret.

When you have a deadline to meet, and you have no ideas, you need to write anyway.

If you feel stuck, do some free writing.

You can even write about why you cannot write about your thesis.

After 10 pages of free writing, there is a very good chance that you will have some ideas that can go into your thesis or paper.

The good news is that if you write when you do not have any inspiration, the inspiration will come as you write.

This is a very rewarding process.

7. Grandma’s law: You have to eat your zucchini (or spinach, lima beans, broccoli etc.) before you can have dessert

This law works to some extent when applied during dinner time, but it can lead to having an aversion to foods that are actually good for you.

In graduate school this law can lead to self-deprivation for years, which can result in loss of motivation and focus. 

Many graduate students have no publishable results until their final year.

Does this mean that you should not reward yourself until your thesis is approved and bound in a shiny black cover?

Rewarding yourself for your effort consistently (whether you get good results or not), will actually lead to increased self-confidence and better quality work. 

Celebrate each small success – and definitely do not wait until your graduation party to have dessert!

When I was a 1st year student a postdoc told me that he felt empty inside after he defended his thesis successfully.

He was not proud of himself at all.

While he was relieved, he did not feel like celebrating.

I had a similar experience.

My hooding ceremony was a day just like any other.

I did not feel ecstatic, and it actually surprised me how ordinary the day was after so many years of anticipation. 

Don’t wait for others or external results to give you a sense of accomplishment.

You need to give yourself the feeling of confidence, whether your work goes well or not.

Celebrate each small victory and every small step you take in the right direction.

Whether  you celebrate with dessert, a movie, or a night out with friends, your creative mind will thank you for taking care of it on a regular basis.  

Engage with Finish Your Thesis on social media

Get started with your free copy of "Finish Your PhD Faster"

Download my strategic guide to fire up your motivation, get laser focused and get your PhD 12 months sooner.