Steve Tippins, who has served on over 300 dissertation committees, says PhD students get stuck not from bad writing but from vague feedback. Committees know what they want but can't say it clearly. He identifies four hidden patterns that trap students and offers a free workshop on decoding committee comments.
I've sat on over 300 dissertation committees, and I've seen feedback like this cost students months of progress. For example, "Needs more depth," or "Not scholarly," or the dreaded question mark, question mark, question mark, with no explanation of what that means, no examples for what addressing it looks like, no real direction. So the student adds 10 more pages, 15 more citations, rewrites the entire section, submits it again, and then gets comments like, "Well, this is too long," or tighten it up. It isn't a writing problem. It's a translation problem. Your committee knows what they want. They just can't, or often don't, articulate it in a way that you can act on. Once you learn to decode what they're actually saying and actually looking for, the revision cycle collapses. I'm running a free live workshop on this, breaking down the 4 hidden patterns that keep doctoral students stuck and showing you exactly how to bypass them. Comment workshop and I'll send you the link.
