Balancing Feelings & Practicality

I was speaking with someone today about the necessity to balance emotionality (feelings) and practicality when working on the dissertation. Often, I see graduate students struggle with what they feel to be true and what they know they should focus on.

Case in point: you feel like your dissertation has to be perfect, but you know, practically, that it might not be that way.

Or you see that you’ve already written 10 pages more than you need, but, emotionally, you can’t bear to chop these out….so, you spend hours and hours trying to make these fit into your chapter… when, perhaps, it would have been easier to cut them out.

Writing the dissertation is an emotional event….but you also need to balance it with practicality. I’m sometimes accused of making the dissertation writing almost too simplistic…. but, in a way, it really is.

Find a topic. Research the topic. Write about the topic.

That’s really all there is to it (practically speaking). And my basic view of it hasn’t changed over the course of the past six years, not in writing my own dissertation, nor in helping more than 200 graduate students finish theirs. (I don’t tell you this to boast; I only want you to know that I have a basis of experience to draw from).

Anyway, the main message for today is to find a way to balance your emotionality and your practicality. Your emotions may be getting in the way of the your practical considerations, especially if you have been working on the dissertation for a long time with no significant progress.

As we move into the end of 2006, I want you to commit to balancing your emotions and your practicality to make 2007 the year you get your Ph.D.

 

Deal?

 

 

 

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