Productivity

tired graduate student sits at desk in front of a laptop with her head on her hand, frustrated with her dissertation research

Navigating the Challenges of Dissertation Research: Results from a Survey of PhD and Master’s Graduates

“This grad. school thing is a walk in the park,” said no graduate student, ever — at least no one I’ve ever met. If you find graduate school hard, you’re not alone. It was designed that way. By definition, graduate school — especially doctoral programs — is intended to challenge you to hone your research, …

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5 Tips to Boost Your Stay-at-Home Grad School Productivity

Grad school can be a challenging experience even without the added stress of a global pandemic. For many, the abrupt transition to remote grad school life brought with it a host of new difficulties and pitfalls. Now deep into this crisis, many students are still engaging in remote grad school. That’s why I want to …

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How to Make the Most of Back to School: Reimmerse Yourself in Writing

Back to school already, where did the time go?! Even if you’re well rested and ready for the new school year (which I never was at the end of the summer, by the way!), it can be tough picking up where you left off with your writing. You’ve likely lost some of the momentum that …

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Tips for Conquering the Literature Review from the Beginning

The literature review process can be one of the most stressful aspects of the dissertation, often because it comes so early in the writing process. This single chapter of your dissertation represents all of the background research you’ve done on your topic, the long history of academic work that has been completed on your area …

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How to Become More Productive Through a Dissertation Writing Group

One of the main tools that boosted my productivity when I was earnestly trying to write my dissertation was a writing group. Despite having written countless papers, reviews, and articles in the past, I found myself frozen and overwhelmed when facing the prospect of writing a whole dissertation. Instead of trying to write something, anything, …

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