Hi, my name is Sarah Fetterman.
I just finished the doctoral program
at the School for Conflict Analysis and
Resolution at George Mason University and
a number of my colleagues have been asking
me, how do I finish my dissertation?
I get asked this question so
often that I decided to sit down and
actually think about how I finished it and
I put together some ideas and
strategies that I thought would really
help anyone finishing a dissertation,
a research paper, thesis or article.
So, I wanna share some
of this with you today.
Again, this is for
anyone who's maybe you started and
you are not sure what to do next or
you finish your research and your sitting
with it and your not having compile it.
Or you've compiled it, but
you just not able to get yourself writing.
So I wanted to talk a little
about how you do that and
it's writing strategies, but
also first, I notice that people who
are finishing the program quickly have
a really good reason for finishing.
Those who are taking a long time, they
tend to think that it's something that
they should do or ought to do,
but it's not an absolute must.
So, I wanna talk about
how to make it a must.
Before I go into that, just a brief
story about kinda how I got to this.
I've been a rating advisor for
the University of Pennsylvania and
the American University of Paris
where I also wrote a guide on how to
write a master's thesis and
then I've been working with Bedford/St.
Martin on their writing textbooks for
about 20 years.
So I've really worked with different
kinds of writing and revision, so
that made me comfortable with it,
but I didn't start out that way.
I mean, in elementary school,
I was in remedial reading and
writing and it took me years
to really kind of catch up.
So it's not to say that the people who
finish or the people who do this have
magic in any way or natural ability,
which is what makes me,
I think a better teacher of this,
cuz I had to learn it from scratch.
So, I hope to share with you and
hope some of the things I share with
you are able to get you moving.
The main difference with what I'm
doing then, a lot of the other guys or
talks about finishing dissertations is
that I'm not treating it like a disease,
like how to get through it?
Or how to survive it?
The first thing I think really
helped me is I saw this process and
see it still as a great privilege.
How many people wish they could spend
a few years studying a topic they chose?
And if you have a scholarship,
which is fantastic to help
support you in doing that.
Most people are tweeting half
thoughts all day long and
you actually have the time to go deep and
more and more people are writing about how
that's really gonna be the skill,
that's gonna be of interest in the future.
People can actually not
only just read data,
but actually know what to do with it.
And that's what you're gonna be learning
and that's what you are learning in this
process of earning a dissertation,
our thesis or our papers.
How to go deep and
really synthesis information and
you may feel like you're missing out
from this quick paced universe, but
you'll hop right back in
with something much deeper.
So, I wanted to talk about really
encouraging to see it as privilege.
The main thing I see between as I said,
between people who finish and
who are taking longer is having this,
like finishing mindset,
making finishing a must.
For me, my deadline was I must finish
by the time my scholarship runs out.
I just didn't wanna keep working without
being covered financially for it.
Of course, not everyone can do that,
but you can create your own must.
I wanna do it, finish it by the time
I'm 30, by the time I'm 40,
by the time I have a baby or before I
have a baby or before I get married, but
to create that real marker for yourself.
And then when you know when you wanna
finish, one of the most helpful things I
did, which someone advised me to do was to
say, this is when I wanna graduate, then
meet with my committee, my advisor and
say, let's create a calendar backwards.
What would I have to have by to you
when to have me finish at this time.
And then so together, you create this
calendar and then you talk about it.
You can use it and say, we can change
it here or elongate it there, but
having that calendar and sticking to it
is what make a big difference for me.
Yeah, this was something that I want to
say that sounds trivial, but because I
study narrative, the way in which
stories impact the way we see the world.
People in your life might say things like,
when they hear you're doing a dissertation
or research paper or thesis,
my God, that must be terrible.
And the temptation is just to say
right back to them, my God it is.
You'll never, my God, I just feel like I'm
carrying around this burden all the time.
Well, it seems like a nice way to
connect with people, but what happens
unfortunately in the brain is it starts
to prepave an experience of suffering for
yourself.
You start to tell yourself that this isn't
experience of suffering versus privilege.
So really connecting with people and
saying,
yeah, it is a lot of work, but I'm so
thankful to be able to be doing this.
And there are challenges,
but ones that I'm enjoying.
If you can reframe that, it really
ends up making your experience better.
If you say, it's gonna be horrible,
[LAUGH] it tends to be that way.
So, one of the things that I think
would be very helpful for people.
If you don't have a finishing mindset or
you're trying to figure out how to get it
is to think about the costs and even
talk about the costs of not finishing.
And by costs, I mean,
it might be the financial costs.
What are you not able
to do with your time.
because you are doing this dissertation?
What's the emotional cost in you?
Or of carrying this around every day,
how is it impacting other relationships?
What other opportunities are you not able
to say yes to, because you have this?
How is it impacting your relationships at
home that you're carrying this around?
And then a professor also said to
me something very interesting.
If you really wanna get some good
leverage over yourself, he said,
I know a lot of people who haven't
finished their dissertations and
they carry a lot of shame around with
them throughout their adult lives.
And really for people to think about,
do I wanna finish this?
And if I do, like let's actually do it and
carrying around that weight might help you
say, I don't wanna ten years look back and
say, why didn't I just sit down and
finish that darn thing?
Now I do think there are cases
where it's okay to walk away, but
you have to be at peace
with yourself with that and
not walk around with that
shame your whole life.
Then on the upside,
really think of the benefits of finishing.
Where you're gonna be able to go?
How good is it gonna feel to actually say,
you did this and have it be your research?
What's it gonna mean for
your friends and family?
How proud will they be?
How will you be able to help other people,
because of this research?
So, those are some of
the other ones to think about.
The costs of not finishing and
the benefits of finishing, then on a more,
you when you're about to write,
one of the lines I read in Jeff Davis's
Journey to the Center of the Page talks
about saying to yourself every
time when you're about to write.
What am I writing this for?
What am I writing this for?
And of course, often the first answer that
shows up is just to finish the darn thing.
But when you think about it, you start
to connect with some deeper reasons.
Like I asked a colleague,
why he wanted to finish?
He said, to finish the darn thing.
But when he reflected on it, he said, no.
Really, I'm a refugee and I spend a lot
of time interviewing other refugees and
I owe it to them to get their stories out.
I really owe it to them.
He also said, I really wanna do it for
my advisor, he's been so good for me and
I wanna do it for him.
So to really connect with some
motivating factor within you,
something lead you to the research
to follow it and to finish it.
I wanna talk about actual
writing strategies.
So that's the mindset, which I think has
to happen first, cuz just the strategy of
writing is not going to make a difference
if you don't have a real reason to finish.
There's a great quote from
the World According to Garp,
if you've ever read John Irving and
it says, Garp did not write faster
than anyone else or even more.
He simply worked with the idea
of completion in mind.
I read that book 20 years ago, but I
always think about that when I'm writing.
Yeah, Garp just worked
with completion in mind.
There are tons of crappy books and
movies, and
TV shows that are those people who
are making them are not smarter than you.
You can definitely finish it, it's just
that they have a finishing mind set.
So, that's something you can acquire and
I wanna talk a little bit about myths
about writing when you're
actually sitting down.
A lot of people believe they
have to feel inspired to write.
No, you don't need to
be inspired to write.
One famous short story writer said,
she said,
I just go to the computer every day from
9 to 12 in case a good idea comes along.
So, that's her strategy for
creative writing.
Some people believe and
sometimes I believe that I can
only work i certain conditions.
I need it dead quiet and so on,
but I found that I can do a lot of work
[LAUGH] in many different conditions.
I need to know what I want to say before
I sit down don't worry about that
a lot of things come while
you're just sitting there.
I also believe that writing whole
experience has to happen in isolation and
partnering with other friends and
faculty really helped me get through.
So, this is something I wanted to say.
Talk about support, getting support team
not just your academic committee who may
have advise you actual
mechanics of your writing,
but actually other colleagues are other
people that are trying to write.
Either me together and write together or
set up goals were you check in and
text during the day,
that made a very big difference to me.
Other writing rituals that are just
little things that can make
a world of difference.
One is every day before
you close your computer,
write down what your plan is for
the next day.
Do not wait until the next
morning to open up your computer,
because then you'll spend half an hour, an
hour trying to figure out what to do that
day and it gets your mind to keep kind
of working while you're sleeping,
maybe like on that project.
So, that's one.
When you're setting the goals for
the next day, while you're setting time,
I'll work from 8 to 10 let's say.
Don't just set a time, set an actual
amount that you want to finish.
I wanna revise the first ten
pages of part one, for example.
So, an actual task.
Otherwise, time can just kind of,
you can fill the amount of
time when you're writing.
I also think texting people
when you're during the day,
like your writing buddies to say,
how you're doing on your progress helps.
The other and this is major.
[LAUGH] This is major for me.
Turn off the Wi-Fi.
Turn of the Wi-Fi.
Keep a pad next to your computer and
write down everything you think you
had to look up while you were working.
I wrote down lists and it turns out that
everything that I thought I had to have,
I was able to look up later,
it wasn't that urgent.
But just keep a little notepad,
but just keep that Wi-Fi off.
So that's really, really important or
on set times where you can go on, but
do not be poking around the internet.
The other thing that really helps with
writing and writing consistently, and
this was advised to me as well
is give yourself rewards.
You need to have small rewards for
the end of the day and
large rewards when you
finish larger chunks.
Seeing friends going for runs, exercising,
dancing were my rewards on a day
to day basis and I went to go see the
Northern lights in Alaska when I finished
a big chunk of my dissertation
to reward myself that way.
That really teaches yourself
that you will be rewarded for
your hard work rather than punished,
so that was good.
A note about that though is not
just to use food as your reward,
because it can be a very slippery slope
if you're sitting all the time and
then eating junk food as your reward.
I don't know if you've heard
the expression that sitting
is the new smoking.
And it really,
we now know the impact of sitting is
can be really detrimental over time.
So, you wanna be getting
up every 25 minutes.
I set a timer, actually and
I do certain exercises.
Peter Egoscue has a method that I use, but
there's a lot of different
things you can do just to move.
If you're drinking lots and
lots of water, you're gonna have to go to
the the bathroom every 30 minutes anyway,
which is great.
But you are on a long distance
journey when you are writing and
you really wanna be optimizing your food,
you wanna be eating whole grains.
I could talk about this for
hours, but I won't.
The other reason why people want to
drink to release the stress, but
alcohol does kill a lot of brain
cells that are hard to replace.
So you kind of need your brain, so
heavy drinking is probably
not gonna be helping you.
Well, now I'm just gonna close this out.
I have much more I can offer you, so
you can email me if you have questions or
areas where you're getting stuck or
ideas that you think would work for
other people, please do let me know.
We'll have my email at the end of this,
but
I just wanna give you a couple emergency
tactics if you're absolutely stuck.
So, here are four tactics you can use
when you feel you can't move forward.
The first is something that
a friend of mine mentioned,
he could not get himself
to finish his dissertation.
He'd taken off a year and
he couldn't get started again.
He was so hated that he had to do it.
He hated the topic.
He didn't wanna start again and he said,
what got him going is he
wrote the acknowledgements.
He sat down and wrote the name of every
person who contributed to him on this
journey and he said, he was so moved
when he thought about those people and
what they meant to him and what they gave
to him that he didn't wanna let them
down and he really wanted to finish and
he just felt filled with appreciation.
So, that's one.
Write the acknowledgments page,
then the other is to
set a minimum everyday.
Like I'm at the very least, I'm gonna
pick up a draft of my dissertation or
a draft of my outline and
walk around the room with it.
Just to acknowledging
the task in a physical way,
actually keeps your brain engaged with it.
So that's another one.
Just even a minimum even at the even days
you wanna do nothing, just do something.
Open up the computer and just write
one sentence, that's really important.
The other one which has worth,
Cloe Madanes who is a renowned coach and
family therapist used this with a client.
She had a client who couldn't finish her
dissertation and during her sessions with
the woman, Cloe discovered that she
really didn't like her sister-in-law.
So Cloe made an agreement
with the woman and said,
okay, you think you need to do ten pages a
day to finish by the day you wanna finish.
Every day you don't reach ten pages,
I want you to send money or send a card or
do something nice for your sister-in-law.
The woman did not wanna do this.
She really did not like her sister-in-law,
but begrudgingly, she complied.
And not only did she finish her
dissertation, but she actually,
totally transformed her relationship
with her sister-in-law,
because she had been having to do all
these nice things for this woman.
So I like that procedure, as well.
The other one someone suggested to me
recently was if you absolutely feel no
passion for your topic,
find someone you don't know and
explain to them what you're researching.
Somehow, explain to somebody new and
trying to sell them on what's exciting
actually can sell yourself
back into why it matters.
So, those are just four little ones.
I can go into more details.
I'll go into more detail, people with
actually how you do the planning and
the research and the lit reviews and
all that, but this is just basic
getting in the right mindset and
then some basic writing tactics
that will move you forward.
Thanks for listening and good luck.
