" Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'"
- Anne Lamott, Bird By Bird: Instructions on Writing and Life

"Ohhhh, so you'll be writing your dissertation under our roof!" my new housemate said, with a glint in her eye reminiscent of a cat ready to pounce on an unsuspecting mouse. She had a PhD in physics so I figured she knew what she was talking about. I nodded and said, "Yes, it will be a long year." But secretly I wondered, how painful can it be? I had already written and submitted three chapters for publication in scientific journals. Only two more to go, plus an introductory literature review. I expected the latter to be fairly straightforward since I had already written variations of it for various grant proposals. Whether it was good mentoring from my advisor, good planning on my part, or just plain good luck, I had it pretty easy.

But for many students, writing the dissertation is a torturous process. Far too often, they wait until they've completely finished their research before they start writing. When they finally do get to it, they're brain-tied by the overwhelming mountain of information in front of them. They would rather do anything else—go to the gym, drink a latte, watch a movie, take up cooking, go hiking, anything—but start their dissertation. They don't know how or where to begin, and just the thought of it can be paralyzing.

But there's no reason to wait until you're done collecting or interpreting all of your data before you start writing about it. Besides, by the time you actually finish all of your research, you'll be anxious to do just that - finish! The last thing you'll want to do is wade through all those files full of data from three years ago, trying to recall exactly what you did (or intended to do). Do what you can to lighten the load early on. You will thank yourself many times over.

A great way to start early is by breaking your research project down into smaller, more manageable chunks that you can write about separately. When I started my dissertation research, it was all one grand feat in my mind. I fantasized about turning it into a single Science or Nature paper at the end. But after I started collecting and analyzing data, I realized that the project could be split into five or six separate, publishable pieces. So I broke it down. I finished an experiment and then wrote about it, then did another experiment and wrote about it, and so on. By the time I was finished with my research and ready to "start my dissertation," I'd already written three-quarters of it!

Some schools even offer "journal format" dissertation (or thesis) options, whereby each chapter is an actual manuscript that has been either submitted or already accepted for publication. This is an excellent strategy for several reasons. Again, it's much easier to manage a dissertation that is broken down into discrete chunks. Second, very few people are ever going to read your actual dissertation if it's just sitting on a shelf in your school library. But if you've submitted chapters for publication, you won't feel quite so anonymous. Third, journals have their own guidelines and styles, and journal articles are usually much more condensed than traditional dissertation or thesis chapters. So if you are ever going to submit the chapters for publication you might as well do it now and save yourself the unnecessary extra work of converting a conventional dissertation chapter into a journal article. Fourth, if your goal is to become a professional scientist, then you might as well start publishing and getting your name out there. Fifth, no matter what your professional goal, having publications on your CV or resume as a grad student looks very good. And finally, your committee will have a difficult time finding fault in something that has already been reviewed and accepted for publication by experts in the field.

The Master's thesis is generally a much smaller and more manageable project than the dissertation, so it makes a lot more sense to wait until you're actually finished your research before you start writing about it. Still, I've known students who have turned even their Master's theses into two or three published papers! As with the dissertation, if you can, break it down.

Before you start writing, be sure to find out what your organizational options are and what your department and especially your committee expect. Schools often have very strict expectations about organization and format, which should be spelled out, in some sort of official document. I had to take my dissertation into the graduate college for a "format check" before I could even schedule my defense, just to make sure that I was "doing it right." For example, you may find that you can't organize your dissertation such that each chapter stands on its own, with its own introduction, methods, results, and discussion. You may have to lump all of your methods from multiple experiments into a single chapter. Nonetheless, you'll probably still subdivide the chapter in such as way that you are describing at least the methods and results of each experiment separately. Thus you can still write in chunks.

The first time you write about something, don't worry about what it sounds like. You don't need to sound brilliant or even well organized. If all that comes out are bits and pieces, that's okay. You can change words, rewrite sentences, move paragraphs around, and piece it all together later. Like any good writer, you'll probably (and probably should) revisit and revise over and over again.

Keep in mind that the introduction is not necessarily the best section to tackle first. The best piece of advice I ever received from one of my committee members was to "start with the methods." Describing what you did should be fairly straightforward since it really doesn't require much thought; you're not interpreting any results or trying to convince your readers why what you did is so important or interesting. Then move on to the results. If you have charts or tables to accompany your text, you may find it easier to construct them before you try to describe their content. Like the methods, describing your results should also be a fairly straightforward writing exercise, unless of course you realize that you don't really understand something as well as you thought you did. All the more reason to hammer out all these nuts-and-bolts details first, before trying to explain why what you found out is so important and how it fits into the "big picture." Save the introduction and discussion for last.

If you don't have your own computer, now is the time to think about getting one. Furthermore, whether it's in your lab, at home, or in a graduate student office, make sure that you have a desk in a quiet area where you know that you will be able to concentrate and write during your working hours. And whether it's your own computer or not, ALWAYS back up your work regularly on a zip disk or CD so that you have an extra copy of all that you have written in the unlikely event that the hard drive crashes.

As any professional writer will tell you, waiting for the muse to strike is a myth (and a waste of time). No matter how inspired you are, writing your dissertation is not going to just happen. Writing is hard work and requires extraordinary discipline. You may find it helpful to plan a daily writing schedule. If writing from 9 to 5 or 9 to noon seems too unbearable or daunting (or simply not possible because of other time demands), then spend just an hour or so a day writing. As that hour becomes easier—which it will, as you become less anxious and your writing starts to feel like a more natural process—gradually increase the amount of time you spend writing.

So start early and write often. The more steps you take, the easier it becomes. And if you don't believe that, then think of it like this: once you take that first step and you get that first chunk written—well, you're that much closer to finishing.

Leslie Pray is a freelance science writer based in Leverett, MA. She has written extensively on the educational and professional development of grad students and postdocs for Science's Next Wave and the Chronicle of Higher Education. She is also a regular contributor to The Scientist. Leslie earned several national awards from scientific societies in recognition of her accomplishments as a graduate student. She received her Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Vermont.

Related Reading

Enjoy Writing Your Science Thesis or Dissertation! by Daniel Holtom and Elizabeth Fisher

Communicating in Science: Writing a Scientific Paper and Speaking at Scientific Meetings by Vernon Booth

The Craft of Scientific Writing by Michael Alley

How To Write & Publish a Scientific Paper: 5th Edition by Robert A. Day

The Craft of Research (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing)
by Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph M. Williams

 

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