Speaker 1: Hi everyone, my name is Laura and welcome back to my channel. If you're a student who has to write their dissertation or their thesis and you're just basically looking for help, this video is for you. I'm going to tell you everything that I did when I was writing my dissertations and everything I learned and I will share every single tip that I have with you guys. So if you're interested, continue watching this video. If you're new to my channel, I make new videos every week and I talk about learning, lifestyle design, minimalism, veganism, and traveling. So if you're interested in any of these topics, you can subscribe to my channel and you can click the bell so that you're notified whenever I post new videos and you can follow me on Instagram if you'd like to see more of my daily life and some pictures that I take and you can also join my Facebook group where I share more inspirational content with you guys. I graduated from university from my master's degree in 2019, so last year for you guys. And before that, I did my bachelor or my undergraduate degree and that was in 2017. And in 2017 and in 2019, I wrote my dissertations and I learned a lot throughout the process and I also learned what to do, what not to do, and I'm going to tell you everything. So let's start with the most important thing first, which is if you don't have your topic yet or you don't have your research question, don't pick anything too broad and let me tell you why. When I was about to write my dissertation, my first dissertation, and I was about to brainstorm the topics, I wanted to write about grammar because I was minoring in linguistics and it was my specialization and I really, really wanted to write about grammar, something about grammar. And I was really into comparative grammar, comparative linguistics. So I wanted to, in my dissertation, I wanted to compare the grammar of French and the grammar of English and what happened was I said it to my advisor, I said, look, I want to compare grammars. And he was like, yeah, how much time do you have for it? And I was like, yeah, a few months. Yeah, you can't do that because it's just too broad. There's too much to talk about. So at first I wanted to compare grammars, but what I ended up with was I compared the subjunctive mood in French and in English. And I also wanted to see if Polish has it, but I didn't really have the time for it. And that was just too much work because I had already been exploring two languages. And that was a very good choice because I could really, really focus on specifics and not write a book about it. It was just a dissertation. And then when I was choosing a topic for my master's dissertation or my master's thesis, I knew that I really had to go narrow again. It had to be a very specific research question. At that time, I was really inspired by agreements, syntactic agreement. And so I chose a specific type of agreement that I was going to focus on. I chose to focus on agreement with coordinated subjects in Slavic languages, in Polish in particular, but that was something that was very, very specific. So again, you have grammar, then you have syntax and you have subject verb agreement. And I chose subject verb agreement with coordinated subjects in specific languages. So instead of going very, very broad in your niche, in your area of expertise, instead of going very broad, go as narrow and as specific as possible. That will help you choose the literature that you're going to reference. And it's going to help you focus on one specific thing and not be too overwhelmed with what you have to write about. So I'm going to tell you how I wrote my master's thesis, because when I was writing my BA dissertation, it was just too much and I didn't have the guidance and I didn't know what I was doing really. But I took whatever I learned from my BA writing, from the writing of my BA dissertation, and I either applied it or I rejected it when I was writing my master's thesis. And everything I'm going to tell you now is my refined process of dissertation or thesis writing. So the second stage is planning. Planning is key. You have to plan your writing process. That all depends on how much time you have. But really planning everything out and setting up stages for your writing process is going to help you so much. So you can focus on short-term goals that are, I don't know, within a week or within a month. And you can focus on long-term goals. So the goals that you have for the whole term or the whole semester or the whole year. Allocate an amount of time that you know you're going to focus on doing specific things in. You can divide it by chapters. So let's say that you will finish chapter one by December and finish chapter two by February and finish chapter three by April. But you can also do it in a different way. You can divide it by stages of writing. So like let's say reading and researching by February and then organizing your notes by March and writing everything by April. It's up to you. But if you focus on long-term goals then divide it even further and set up more smaller goals like things that you can do in a week so that you know that you're going further and you're getting things done and you're actually progressing with your writing. And when you have a plan like that it helps you realize that it's not really a big deal. Everyone has to write it. Everyone has to write a diploma paper at some point if they are going to uni or to college. But it's not so scary. It's not as dreadful as everyone paints it out to be. So create a plan and follow it and you'll see that you're making progress every single day. What you can then do is you can take a look at your weekly schedule and you can allocate some time every single day for working on your thesis or your dissertation. And you can do it in a way that you only focus on one stage or one thing on a given day. So please avoid the mistake of doing every single thing at once. Do not research. Do not read and do not write at the same time. Imagine just reading. Okay, I found this and putting it into your notes and then writing it in your main file. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't want to do that because your brain will get overwhelmed. And if you do that, if you've been doing it that way, this is probably why you're overwhelmed now and we want to avoid that. So when you take a look at your weekly schedule, imagine that every single thing that you do is a separate stage. So read on Mondays and then make notes on Tuesdays and write on Thursdays and proofread on Sundays. But please don't do everything or even two things on the same day. Don't write and proofread on the same day because it's not going to do anything. It's not going to help you. It's not going to make you progress. It's not going to help you with your writing because your brain needs breaks. Your brain needs to be fresh and focus on specific things. And if you ask it to do everything at once, you will feel like you're doing everything at once and you will feel like you're exhausted. So trust me, I did it this way when I was writing my master thesis and I felt more in control and I felt like, okay, this is easy. I'm just doing everything that I need to do in the specific order. So this is very important. If you're feeling overwhelmed, maybe this is something that you have to improve about your writing process. By the way, guys, I made a video on working and studying from home and all of the tips that I shared in that video will help you write your dissertation. So if you haven't seen it, the link is here and in the description box below, but make sure to watch this video right until the end. And yeah, you can watch that one later. Okay, back to the video. Then, of course, we haven't even started talking about writing because I believe that writing is the least time-consuming part of writing your dissertation or your thesis. Most of it lies in preparation and in research and in making notes. So I think you know about Google Scholar and Google Books. Collect all of your resources, collect everything that you're going to use when you write in one place. So if you have your articles in Google Scholar or on other websites, or if you download things, or if you have books and articles from the library, know where everything is. I want you to know where everything is so that later you will know where you got everything from. Be organized. Pay attention to how you store your files and how you use your resources because it's going to help you. Because if everything is messy on your computer and in your bookmarks or anywhere else, it's going to create a messy writing environment and you'll feel like you're messy and that you are not in control. So from the very beginning, from day one, be organized about it and pay attention to detail and to how you store everything that you're going to use. Again, before you start writing, create separate files for everything. So don't write your dissertation in your master file. Have a chapter draft file. Have a reference draft file. Have a notes file. Have a different file for everything. Name them accordingly so that after the comments from your supervisor at the very end of the writing process, you will just copy and paste everything to the master file. But don't have just one file because everything will be messy if you make notes in one file, if you put references in one file, and if you just create and work in one file, everything is going to be messy. So if you start from writing your chapters, have chapter one draft file. And don't even make notes there because this is where you write your chapter. So have a chapter one notes file. And have a references file where you organize your references and you put everything that you read there and everything that you're going to read there and have everything separately and know where everything is and name these files so that they are easily accessible and you know that this is a notes file and it doesn't have to be very very nice and clean. And this is a chapter draft file where you write everything that you're going to say and argue for in your chapter. So be clear and specific and structure everything, divide everything into separate files. So now we're getting into reading and making notes. So when you have your literature and you know what you're going to use for your topic, make sure that you are taking good notes. And what it means is that in your notes file you want to have titles and subtitles of your chapter and of your sub chapters so that you know that when you're reading something you know that you want to use it in a specific place in a specific section of your chapter. So when you have your notes structured like your chapter and every section has subheadings, you know that everything that you just read is going to be used in this specific sub chapter. So make sure that your notes are structured that way. And when you're reading, you can of course copy whole quotes and you can copy and paste them in these specific areas. But this is where I want you to pay special attention. When you're copying these things in your notes file, I want you to mark the following. I want you to write who the author is, the title of the paper, the page where you found this quote on and where you can find it in your references later. So whether you got it from Google Books or Google Scholar or from a book from your library, anything. I want you to put every single piece of information there because later on when you go back to your notes, you want to know where to go back to. So you want to know which specific article it was and you want to know where to find it. And also when you're copying this quote and you're putting this information down, I want you to make notes to your future self. So why did you copy this quote? Why is it useful for you? What does it highlight? What does it argue for? Do you agree with this person? Is this something that you're going to reference in your previous subchapter or in your subsequent subchapter? Make notes to your future self because you will have a lot of quotes and you will have a lot of references and you don't want to be lost. So you want to know why this quote is in your notes, how you're going to use it and paraphrase it because when you have this quote there and you're going to use it and you're going to reference this person and you're going to argue for something that they argue, you want to use it but you don't want to use their language. You want to paraphrase it. You want to contribute your own thoughts and your opinions. So when you're copying it and you're already paraphrasing it, you'll have material to use in your chapter because you already wrote some things. So then when you go to the writing stage, it will be easier because then you'll have something in your own words and you will be able to use it in your writing in your main chapter. Also in my notes, I color-coded everything and I knew if this article is the article that I still have to read or if it's the article that I already read and made notes on and also I knew if I had to go back to specific sections of my chapter and find more examples and more arguments. So color-coding and formatting is amazing. Use it to your advantage as well. So then the writing stage is very easy because after you've read everything and after you've made notes on everything and after you've paraphrased everything, it's really easy to start writing because in your notes, what you should arrive at is a very detailed like a bullet point essay that you just have to expand into paragraphs and pages and it's going to be a lot easier because you already have a body of writing that you can depend on and you can always go back to. So when you start writing everything, it's kind of like smoother. So that's why I talk about preparation and making notes so much because then everything that you write is basically a different variation of everything that you have in your notes. Then if you send some parts of your chapter or your whole chapters to your supervisor or your advisor, make sure to date the versions every time you get your comments back because you want to know what your advisor said and if you've already implemented the corrections that they suggested and if everything that they've said is everything that you've already reworked in your chapter. So make sure to date everything and date every single version that you send them. And one of the most important stages of your writing should be rewarding yourself and this goes for the whole process of writing. So for reading and researching and making notes because this is a huge project. If you never wrote a dissertation before, this is your first time writing something that big but probably you did some writing before. So just approach it with a mindset of, okay, this is just like a few essays that I need to write or I've read every single article. I'm going to reward myself and this is what I did. I rewarded myself with some treats like desserts or I went to the movies or anything like that. Just think of something that is going to be your reward and praise yourself for how much work you're doing because this is a lot. Reading, researching, making notes, writing, proofreading. This is a lot of work and this is a tough thing to do. Not everyone does it. Not everyone goes to uni. You are doing it and you are writing and you are going to get your degree for it. It's amazing and you're amazing and you should reward yourself for it. Praise yourself for it. Say it to yourself. Oh my God, I'm so, so good at it because I'm doing it. Don't compare yourself to your friends who have just finished writing and you are still writing. Don't compare yourself. You're still going to get your degree. I'm saying it because there was this one friend who finished writing way ahead of everyone and I was like, Oh my God, is he a robot or something? But no, no, no. Don't compare yourself and don't think that you're behind. You're not behind. You're doing just fine and keep in mind that it is going to end and you're going to get through this and it's going to be okay. So after you've finished reading it, you want to let it sit. You want to let your dissertation or your thesis just be there and wait for you and you want to proofread it and don't skip this stage because this is the stage where all the magic happens. You will see every single typo that you made and there's probably going to be a lot. You're going to see everything that may not be right. So literally don't work on your thesis for two weeks or a week or however many days you can allow yourself to do that. Don't work on it and let it just exist and come back to it with a fresh perspective and you will see that you still have to do some work. You have to do the final revisions. You have to implement the final corrections but truly don't skip proofreading. You can proofread every single chapter but honestly, after you finish writing your whole dissertation, it's also very, very important to proofread it before you submit it. So remember to proofread and write your introduction and your conclusions last because before you start writing your whole dissertation, you don't know what you're going to write about. You're not going to know what types of arguments you're going to make. You don't really know because you haven't written it yet. So what you want to do is you want to write your whole dissertation and then after you've written everything, the whole thing, write the introduction because you will say, okay, in this chapter, you will find this and I will argue for this in this chapter and you will know that because you've already done it. So don't get stuck on your introduction and don't think, oh my god, I can't get past my introduction because honestly, introduction is the last part of your thesis or your dissertation that you're going to write. So don't worry about it. Don't even think about your introduction yet. And the last thing about proofreading is you can also divide your proofreading into stages. So proofread your chapters on separate days and proofread your introduction and your conclusions on separate days and proofread your references list on separate days. And in this way, you will not overwhelm yourself because proofreading takes a lot. You have to go back through everything, read everything again and think about it in a new way. And it also takes time and energy. You want to do it in a way so that you end up with a very, very good dissertation that is going to earn you a diploma. So make sure to divide your proofreading stage into stages as well and that's going to help you a lot. So I am hoping that my video helped you and it gave you some more structure and ideas on how you can improve your writing process. But of course, if you have any questions, you can ask me in the comments and I'll answer your questions. You can check out my playlists that are now floating on the screen somewhere. And you can follow me on Instagram if you want to see more of my daily life. You can join my Facebook group and you can subscribe to this channel if you like the content that I'm making. Thank you so much for watching. I'll see you in my next video. Bye, guys. Bye.