Dissertation Defensiveness

Now, you probably have some mixed feelings about the dissertation defense- but what about your feelings of dissertation defensiveness? You know, those feelings that rise up whenever anyone asks you "Are you done yet?" "When will you be done?" "What’s taking you so long?" "Why are you writing your dissertation anyway…?" Dissertation defensiveness arises, usually, when we feel somehow embarassed or ashamed by our progress, process, or approach to writing the dissertation. We might feel isolated or misunderstood. We feel our own internal stress about how long this is taking us, and we don’t want to have that magnified or pointed out by other people. A few good tips for combating dissertation defensiveness: 1) Schedule in regular progress updates with important people. Let your spouse, best friend, mother, father, or sibling know that you’ll check in with them about once a month to share your progress on the dissertation. 2) When you do talk about the dissertation, try to speak about what you are accomplishing, NOT what’s left to be done. 3) If anyone asks you how you’re doing, always try to start with what’s going right and well. 4) Consider educating people on what it takes to complete a dissertation- let them know that it is a really big undertaking- help them appreciate what you’re doing through. 5) Finally, if you feel at all stuck, stymied, or like you’re not making as much progress as you could, get out of being defensive and ask for help. There’s nothing like being on track to make you proud to share your dissertation progress.

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