The Expert's Secret To Dissertation Success | Writing

By KalindaRoseStevenson,PhD
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Word Count: 585

People struggle with theses and dissertations for psychological reasons more than writing reasons. The psychological challenge behind writing a dissertation is that you must claim that you are now an expert.

When you write a thesis, you need to see yourself differently. Instead of seeing yourself as a student, you need to position yourself as an expert ready to take your place among the other experts and authorities in your field.

For most of us, our educational experiences don't prepare us to make this psychological shift. How often did anyone regard you as an expert on anything in your student years?

In reality, for many of us, the entire education process throughout our lifetimes can be summarized by the phrase: "Learn the right answers." The right answers were defined by the "experts" who taught us, the "experts" who wrote the books we read, and the "experts" who judged our exams, essays, and papers to determine if we had learned the "right" answers.

It is entirely possible that you can reach the point of writing a dissertation without ever writing an original word about anything in your field of study. Teachers tend not to shower good grades upon original thinkers. Good grades are most often given to those who supply the predetermined "right" answers.

If your educational experience was typical of most of us, you learned how to write essays and term papers. You learned to demonstrate that you had learned your lessons and could provide the right answers. In all of this, you were probably never taught how to write a thesis.

The typical term paper, in secondary schools and universities, is not based on your own original research in some topic. Instead, you gather information about your topic published by various experts in the field. Your objective is to summarize the material you gathered on your topic in a coherent way.

An essay is not the same as an argument to prove a thesis. Essay questions provide an opportunity for you to present your opinions, but a thesis requires more than opinion.

What most people find so difficult about writing a thesis is that the writer must make an original contribution to the field. After going through high school and colleges, writing term papers and essays, it is an entirely new experience to write a thesis, arguing for an original point of view. But this is exactly what you must to do write a thesis.

What happens when you come to the point of writing a dissertation? You must now take your place among the experts in your field. Now it is your turn to ask new questions and provide new answers. After a lifetime of learning the right answers, this is a dramatically new stage of your educational process.

This is the real secret of success behind a successful dissertation. Your success is no longer measured by your ability to learn the right answers. Your success comes from your ability to ask new questions and provide new answers as an expert.

If you don't make your claim that you are an expert in your field, by offering a new perspective, you are not writing a thesis. It doesn't matter if your thesis is simply a tiny step or a giant leap forward in your field. To write a thesis, you must offer an original perspective and new answers, as an expert.

A dissertation is a claim to the world that you are now an expert in your field. You are no longer simply a student. This is the expert's secret behind a successful dissertation.

About the Author

Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Ph.D Http://www.WriteToPersuade.com. If you are unsure about your thesis, I have a writing a dissertation guide for you. My ebook, What's Your Point? gives solid methods to get to your point.

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