Main Categories

Other Resources

Pages

OnlineEarnings Article Board » Writing » The Psychological Secret Behind A Successful Dissertation
Welcome Guest

The Psychological Secret Behind A Successful Dissertation

Author: KalindaRoseStevenson,PhD
Total views: 108
Word Count: 635
View PDF

Add2Netvouz

People struggle with theses and dissertations for psychological reasons more than writing reasons. The psychological challenge behind writing a dissertation is that you must claim that you are now an expert.

When you write a thesis, you need to see yourself differently. Instead of seeing yourself as a student, you need to position yourself as an expert ready to take your place among the other experts and authorities in your field.

This claim to be an expert in your particular area is a psychological leap that most of our educational experiences don't prepare us to take. When were you ever regarded as an expert on anything as a student?

In reality, for many of us, the entire education process throughout our lifetimes can be summarized by the phrase: "Learn the right answers." The right answers were defined by the "experts" who taught us, the "experts" who wrote the books we read, and the "experts" who judged our exams, essays, and papers to determine if we had learned the "right" answers.

It is entirely possible that you can reach the point of writing a dissertation without ever writing an original word about anything in your field of study. Teachers tend not to shower good grades upon original thinkers. Good grades are most often given to those who supply the predetermined "right" answers.

If your education followed the typical path, you learned not to be original and you certainly learned not to regard yourself as an expert, but as the willing student who was able to demonstrate that you had learned your lessons. Throughout this whole educational process, based on learning the right answers, you learned to write essays and term papers. Most of us were never taught how to write a thesis.

The typical term paper usually consists of gathering information on a topic. Your goal is not to provide original information, but to organize existing information provided by experts in your field.

An essay is not the same as an argument to prove a thesis. Essay questions provide an opportunity for you to present your opinions, but a thesis requires more than opinion.

What most people find so difficult about writing a thesis is that the writer must make an original contribution to the field. After going through high school and colleges, writing term papers and essays, it is an entirely new experience to write a thesis, arguing for an original point of view. But this is exactly what you must to do write a thesis.

What happens when you come to the point of writing a dissertation? You must now take your place among the experts in your field. Now it is your turn to ask new questions and provide new answers. After a lifetime of learning the right answers, this is a dramatically new stage of your educational process.

Your success in writing the dissertation is no longer determined by your ability to learn the right answers. The thesis requires you to ask new questions and provide new answers to those questions. Your success requires you to become the expert who provides the answers. This is the mindset change behind a successful dissertation.

It doesn't matter if your thesis becomes a landmark dissertation in your field. It doesn't matter if your thesis is just a baby step forward. The critical issue is that you must claim that you are an expert in your field, by offering an original perspective. If you don't offer any original answers, you are not writing a thesis.

Whatever your topic, whatever your field, when you write a dissertation, you are claiming to the world that you are no longer simply a student. You are now an expert. This is the psychological secret behind a successful dissertation.

About the Author

Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Ph.D Http://www.WriteToPersuade.com. If you need clarity about your thesis, here's a writing a dissertation resource for you. My ebook, What's Your Point? gives solid methods to get to your point.