Revising Theses and Dissertations by Sean

 Revising Theses and Dissertations

Written by Sean


Hello! I hope our readers are having a wonderful and productive semester! My name is Sean, and I am in the process of finishing up my Ph.D. in the Psychology program (about two months away from my defense! 😬). I’ve been working as a Graduate Writing Consultant since last year, and today’s topic came from what I’ve been working on almost every week for the past six months: revising dissertations! At some point during most of our graduate school careers, we will inevitably have the daunting task of writing a master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation. Personally, I am right in the middle of writing my dissertation – I was literally working on revisions just before writing this! If there’s anything I’ve learned from working on the revisions for this document, my master’s thesis, and my comprehensive exam, it’s that revising long, technically detailed documents like this can sometimes feel impossible. It can feel overwhelming to know where to start with revisions, and you may be wondering things like: what sections need to be revised? How so? Where do I even begin? Most importantly, when do I know I’m done? On that note, today I’ll be talking about how to work on revisions for a thesis or dissertation.

Over the last several months, I’ve spent countless hours going through multiple stages of writing with my dissertation, and by far the most difficult portion has been the literature review. After coming up with an outline for what I should include in the review, I wrote. And wrote. And wrote. And then wrote more. Eventually, I got to a point where I literally didn’t know what else to write about until my advisor pointed out several areas that I should deeply expand upon. Which brings me to my first piece of advice when revising these documents: when we get so far into the literature, it’s easy to reread what we have so far and feel overwhelmed with where to stop making revisions. What else could I possibly add? But getting peer or mentor feedback is exceptionally useful. Sometimes all we need is a fresh pair of eyes to take a look at what we’ve written and pose questions to us, like have you thought of this? Or what about this? Can you make a connection between this and this? My faculty mentor has been a rock in this regard, and I can’t thank her enough for giving me new things to think about that I never would have thought about on my own. That’s also another great reason to come to the Writing Center so that we can help you brainstorm revisions!

Furthermore, I am a huge believer in taking breaks from writing. Burnout is so easy to experience when revising extremely long and deep documents like this, and we know from burnout research that sometimes all you need is to step away. If it’s just for an hour, or a day, or a week, let your brain have a break. I know from my own experience that it’s undeniably easier to come back to revisions after I’ve had a break. During that time, letting myself process and step away actually makes me more creative – when I come back to revisions, I find myself thinking of new ideas I hadn’t thought of before and being able to more easily add new details and make more connections.

Finally, I think the reality with theses and dissertations is that it’s never going to be possible for you to review literally every single citation that could theoretically be relevant. Of course, make sure to include enough that your mentors understand that you know your stuff, but don’t get carried away with trying to include every single citation from an entire field of research. You’ll know when to stop revising when a) any mentors who’ve read your draft think it’s sufficient and b) when you feel ready. For any readers currently revising any theses or dissertations, good luck with your revisions and most of all good luck with your defenses!


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