Wednesday, April 15, 2009

The Psychological Secret That Will Help You Write A Successful Dissertation

One of the fundamental reasons people struggle with theses and dissertations has less to do with the process of writing the dissertation and more to do with the psychological process behind the writing. The greatest psychological challenge to writing a dissertation is that it requires you to claim that you are 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, in secondary schools and universities, is not based on your own original research in some topic. Instead, you gather information about your topic published by various experts in the field. Your objective is to summarize the material you gathered on your topic in a coherent way.

Essay topics provide an opportunity for you to present your opinions, but an essay expressing your opinion is not the same as an argument to make your case.

It is possible to go through high school and college without ever being asked to make an original contribution to your field. But this is exactly what you are being asked to do when you write a thesis. And this is what people find so difficult.

After a lifetime of being rewarded for giving the right answers, suddenly you are the one who is asking new questions, and providing answers to the questions you asked. You are no longer simply a student. A dissertation requires you to take your place among the other experts in your field.

This is the real secret of success behind a successful dissertation. Your success is no longer measured by your ability to learn the right answers. Your success comes from your ability to ask new questions and provide new answers as an expert.

Your dissertation help might be a tiny step forward. Or it might be a landmark thesis in your field. It will probably fall somewhere in the middle. But, if you don't stake your claim that you are an expert, by offering an original perspective, 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.

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