Dr. Steve Tippins, who has guided over 300 dissertations in 35 years, shares seven strategies to finish faster without burning out. Write daily in protected time, aim for done not perfect, separate writing from editing, use the official template early, track committee feedback in a change matrix, plan each session with one clear goal, and get feedback from someone who knows academic writing.
I'm Dr. Steve Tippins Ph.D. I've worked in academia for 35+ years, served on over 300 dissertations, and over time I've found that these 7 tips help people write their dissertations faster and allow them to keep their mind. So if you follow these 7 tips or any of the ones that apply to you, you're going to move forward faster. And in no particular order, The first one is to write every day. And look, I know life comes up and you may have to take a day off or something like that, but have time set aside to write on a very consistent basis. Those are the people that make progress. And by set aside, I mean it is set aside. It's not, I'm going to sit down and first look at my emails and then, you know, the bills need to be done and something else needs to be done, and all of a sudden that time has shrunk dramatically. This is sacred time for doing your writing because that's when it gets you finished. The next thing you want to think about and be doing with your writing is your goal is to finish, not to be perfect. Okay? So the people who go slower are writing for perfection, and one of the problems with writing for perfection is You are not the keeper of perfection. It's your committee that tells you when it's enough or good enough or even perfect, but they're the ones who get to approve this and sign off. So good enough is what you're looking for to start with to submit to your committee. Do not keep going over and over and over again for perfection. And that can follow into this next tip. Keep writing and editing separate. It's when you sit down and you write a sentence, then you edit it, then you do a little, and then you edit it, and then you edit it. They're different brain functions. Write, do the writing, keep writing, write and write and write and write. Then you can edit. Okay. It also is good to, you know, once you've written a lot, then your editing knows where it's headed towards. But if you just have one sentence and keep editing it, you don't really know where it's going. So keep writing and editing separate, and you're going to move forward much faster. If your university has a template, start with that template early and stick with it because that's going to tell you what they need and what they're looking for. If they have a template and you don't use it until you get to the end, you may find there are sections that you haven't done, or you may find you have sections that aren't part of the template. That's not as bad as not have done— having done a section that they need because now you have to go back. The other thing is sometimes these templates can get a little wonky and hard to deal with. So if you're trying to cut and paste a whole bunch of stuff into it, it can get harder. So if there is a template, use it. The next point I want to make is if you have gotten comments from your committee, one of the things that slows people down dramatically is not addressing a comment. 'Cause a committee member is gonna say, "Well, you didn't address this last time, so now you have to—" Well, you know, do it the first time. And one way to keep track of whether you've done it is with a change matrix. And a change matrix is a simple document, probably 4 columns. The first column is the date. The second column is what was there originally. The third column is the comment from the, or committee member. And the fourth column is what you did. Doesn't mean you had to have made the exact change they wanted, but it's what you did. I see what you're saying here. However, I kept this because— it allows justification. But it also allows the committee to know that you've addressed their comment. And quite frankly, many times they may just look at the change matrix and not the entire document, which can speed up the review. I find it best when you sit down to write to have a plan. Today I want to write the problem and purpose statement, or I'm going to write the summary to my literature review. If you just sit down without a plan and just say, well, okay, what's going on here? It can take a long time, which ties back into writing every day. Having a plan means I'm building on things. If I'm not writing every day, it's harder to come up with a plan, which means I'm going to take a bunch of time figuring out where I was to then get going. But the consistency of writing every day and of having a plan and writing and not editing at the same time are going to make progress for you in the process. And the final tip, or number 7, is get some support, meaning get someone else to read your document who isn't, you know, living the document, because we tend to gloss over stuff. On things we've written, but that person that's going to provide you support, make sure that they know academic writing. I've seen too many people in the past say, "Oh, I've got a friend who's a writer. They're going to edit this for me." And they may be a writer, they may be a published writer, but they may be a writer of children's books or of novels or something like that. And as you are learning, academic writing is a different language. So if you're getting support, which is great, get support from someone who understands academia and can help you phrase things in a way that are going to get you accepted. So if you follow these 7 points, you are going to finish much faster, and you're not going to lose your mind. Good luck. And if through this process you need help, you want someone to look over your dissertation, you want to understand the process that you're going through, you want even more support moving faster, feel free to join our free dissertation help community by clicking the link in the description.
