To give you a dose of reality, the attrition rate at any PhD school is very high. Anywhere from a third to half of those that enroll at a PhD university will not end up graduating and finishing their dissertation. In fact, the figure of 40%-50% of failing PhD students has been fairly stable over the past three decades. In 1990, Baird reported that PhD completion rates in most disciplines hover around 50% and are even lower in the arts and humanities. In 2003, Elgar conducted a detailed study of … [Read more...]
How to Write an Effective Dissertation Proposal: Part I
Not every dissertation proposal will have the same structure since the specific structure for a proposal varies according to guidelines stipulated from each university department. However, the basic compositions of a proposal (things like theme, audience, purpose, etc.) are one and the same. In addition, the general structure is always similar. To help guide you in writing a winning proposal, this article introduces to you several important concepts. These include the dissertation proposal’s … [Read more...]
How to Write an Effective Dissertation Proposal: Part II
In part one of this article, we discussed the main aspects of what makes a winning proposal. In particular, we talked about a dissertation proposal’s main ingredients as well as the purpose, the audience, and the first five elements of its structure (title, abstract, introduction, problem statement, and purpose/research questions). This second part talks about the rest of the structural elements (literature review, methodology, significance, structural overview, workplan, and … [Read more...]
Tips for Surviving Your Dissertation: Dissertation Help
As most doctoral students know firsthand, keeping up with your dissertation, let alone completing it, is a major challenge. However, if a few principles are followed, no matter at which stage of the dissertation process you apply them, you can make it much easier on yourself. You can always seek dissertation help. The following are some principles that any doctoral student should take seriously when writing his or her dissertation and, in the end, following them will help you immensely in … [Read more...]
SPSS Help: A Brief Tutorial
SPSS Help: A Brief Tutorial What is SPSS? Do you need SPSS help? SPSS is an IBM creation and stands for the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. It is an effective yet simple software for analyzing data inputs. This data can come from just about any source you can imagine: dissertation research, a customer resource management database, in-house marketing research, or even the server log data of a website. SPSS is also able to open numerous file formats, usually those related to … [Read more...]
A Dissertation Checklist: 5 Questions to Check Your Progress
A Dissertation Checklist: 5 Questions to Check Your Progress How hard do you work? How hard do you study? As a student who has reached the doctorate level, no doubt you’ve worked very hard to get to this point. With that being said, do you feel like no matter how hard you work, you are still behind on the dissertation goals you set for the coming months or year? If this is the case, you probably think to yourself that you simply must work harder and longer. Or maybe you are questioning … [Read more...]
7 Ways to Meet your PhD Deadlines
Do you find it really difficult to meet dissertation deadlines that you set? Do you find it hard to fulfill your personal deadlines especially when there is no great amount of extrinsic motivation coming from colleagues, dissertation supervisors and others? If so, this article discusses different ways that will greatly help you meet your deadlines and finally achieve those dissertation goals. In my experience, I found that there were 7 steps that I keep taking in order to stay motivated and on … [Read more...]
Dissertation Writing: How to Write your Conclusion
In this blog post, you’ll learn exactly how to write the last chapter of your doctoral dissertation. In particular, you will get oriented with the overall goals of the conclusion chapter. Then, you’ll be taught on how to go about writing the chapter itself. Finally, you will be given guidance on what things to avoid in the ever-important final chapter of your dissertation. The Main Goals of your Dissertation Conclusion Before going into how to actually write the conclusion chapter of your … [Read more...]
Dissertation Pitfalls III: Sinking into your Literature Review
As many doctoral students have already experienced, the literature review chapter can literally be hell. The chapter is completely unique from the other chapters and, for doctoral students inexperienced in advanced academic writing, it can lead to all kinds of trouble. Therefore, this article is written as a guide containing certain principles for you to keep in mind when writing your literature review chapter. Following them will help you avoid sinking into the literature review quagmire. This … [Read more...]
12 Steps to Write an Effective Discussion Chapter
This article gives doctoral dissertation students valuable guidance on how to go about writing their Discussion chapter. The article starts by outlining the main goals and writing approaches. Then the article explains 12 specific steps to take to write an effective discussion chapter. Discussion Chapter: Main Goals and Writing Approaches You should always keep in mind the main goals when writing your Discussion chapter. These include stating your interpretations, declaring your opinions, … [Read more...]
