The 4 secret ingredients of good PhD thesis writing

phd.academy/the-writing-course
One of the reasons why writing is so stressful is that very few people are actually taught how to do it. I remember when I was a PhD student it was just kind of expected that you should be able to write, and although I had a great supervisor who was supportive and gave feedback, there really wasn’t anything in the way of formal training.
A lot of the guidance that does exist treats writing as this mysterious process where you have to turn off your thinking brain, get words down on the page and hope that somehow you get something that you can then somehow shape into a coherent text.
But actually writing is a skill that you can learn, and it’s entirely possible to carefully and deliberately construct a narrative without having to go through the endless cycle of drafts that so many students experience.
In this video I’m going to run through 4 key aspects of good thesis writing, and if you stay till the end I’ll also talk a little bit about my new PhD thesis writing masterclass.
0:00 Introduction
1:23 The foundation: You need to have done the research
2:59 Pillar 1: Confidence
5:42 Pillar 2: Structure
9:15 Pillar 3: Problem solving

[@James_Hayton]

Check out my PhD Thesis Writing Masterclass: phd.academy/the-writing-course

[@michellepaz938]

Love the content of your videos, Dr. James. I always share them with other PhD candidates. I would suggest a video about the strategy to produce quality results and publish them in a limited time period. Since PhD scholarships usually last 3 years (or 4 years when you need to teach) and the requirements to defend the PhD thesis vary a lot (minimum 3 first author papers or 4 considering also co-authored papers in my program), most PhD students feel overwhelmed.

[@James_Hayton]

It's difficult to give a specific strategy... To produce quality results, you need to be good at whatever research techniques you're using and you need to be confident in making decisions (based on your knowledge and experience, ideally with help from your supervisor or others). The specifics would depend on what kind of research you're doing.

[@tejavati0078]

Thank you very much for your video Dr. James. I know that this video really change my thought. I have been strugging with to solve the problem for more than a week and cannot move on. when I cannot move on, I am depressed and cannot continue.thanks really.

[@GreenCubeLandscapes]

Looking forward to it. Your focus on writing I've always found extremely helpful

[@MrZERK7]

Thank you so much James! Looking forward to your masterclass

[@abirdynumnum9612]

Thanks, James. Very helpful information indeed!

[@tawfiqezaz3455]

Great Tips, Useful

[@stephenconnolly1830]

Yeah, writing PhD theses is a drag and challenge (having had a hand in two myself plus being the supervisor of 3). The best place to begin, when dealing with technical subjects, is the method and results sections dealing with all the factual information; key experiments and experimental data. Thereafter, the discussion/conclusion is easiest to tackle followed by the introduction and finally the 'dreaded' abstract which needs to focus on the significance of the work and overall conclusion (as Aristotle said: "tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them").

[@James_Hayton]

I always start with the introduction- there's absolutely no reason to leave this to the end, and writing it first sets up the context for everything that follows. In my experience, those who leave it till last often end up with very repetitive writing, where every chapter has to state, again, what the point of the study is. It's awful to read (and it tends to take students longer to finish). By the time you're writing up results, you should be able to write an introduction. If you can't then there's a problem!

[@sashanealand8315]

Also dont use complicated words like thereafter,just say it.

[@LEARNWITHPANDA]

Agree with James that writing is stressful. To overcome - Here are 4 secrets: 1) Good research; 2) Confidence; 3) Structure; 4) Problem solving. Many thanks

[@sashanealand8315]

what if a lot of your experiments did not work and the results dont tell anything conclusive even though you had a lot of good ideas and did a lot of work and problem solving. For instance I came up with a lot of new ways to separate but still only found known compounds of very closely related structures and mixtures that wouldn't separate. Also struggled a lot with lack of basic lab supplies so had to innovate around all that very often but my results look ordinary to people from well equipt labs that have ordinary basic solvents, gas and working lab instruments that dont have to be brought back from the dead first (took me a lot of time source supplies and cobble instruments). Please dont say ask advisor who has been out to lunch for the duration and also have that problem that this cant be mentioned during any presentation. During my yearly presentation seminars, I always get the question why didnt you just use xyz supply and why didnt you ask your advisor how to do this technique or that technique. Im not kidding when I say I have been asking and asking and although the advisor is considered an "expert" they dont remember basic science about how to do techniques and also not willing to buy basic supplies or talk about experiments, always end up changing the subject and talking about something else or avoiding. I think some kind of advisor nervous breakdown or dementia has been happening for quite a bit before I came but of course none of this can be said out loud. They are able to talk well enough about the general subject that those outside of the particular field dont know that they dint know, but anyone inside can notice that things said dont make any sense. For instance the postdocs coming to the lab are fooled during the initial interview but when they get to our lab quickly realize that they are going to have to rely completely on previous training in this area and that there will not be any rational scientific discussions with the PI. but as a PhD I dont have a previous training from another lab to fall back on.

[@James_Hayton]

Are you sure it can't be said out loud? Suffering your way through in silence when your supervisor is a barrier doesn't seem a good idea... after 6 years it's unlikely to change, so what's the outcome going to be? Too many students put up with terrible supervision, thinking that to say something, change supervisor or walk way is impossible, but the PhD has to serve you in some way. It's not about suffering to prove your worth- the PhD has to be good enough for you, too.