Steve Tippins argues dissertations stall because of broken systems, not student failure. Supervisors are overburdened, feedback is vague, and there are no structured checkpoints. Half of doctoral students drop out.
Your chair will probably never tell you this, but this is why your dissertation is taking longer than you think. In doctoral programs, your success is your problem. The system is built on assumptions that simply do not hold up. One busy supervisor is enough, but they have their own research, their own classes, so it's not enough support for you and your biggest project. You can decode vague feedback. Being told that this needs more depth doesn't actually make sense if they don't explain to you what depth even means. You can figure it out alone. Managing a multi-point project through trial and error without checkpoints is a trap. This is why 50% of doctoral students drop out. So it's not that they're not capable, it's that the system has failed them completely. Comment "help" and we will send you the link to my free dissertation help community. You've got this!
