Expert writing advice from the editor of the Boston Globe best-seller, The Writer's Home Companion
Dissertation writers need strong, practical advice, as well as someone to assure them that their struggles aren't unique. Joan Bolker, midwife to more than one hundred dissertations and co-founder of the Harvard Writing Center, offers invaluable suggestions for the graduate-student writer. Using positive reinforcement, she begins by reminding thesis writers that being able to devote themselves to a project that truly interests them can be a pleasurable adventure. She encourages them to pay close attention to their writing method in order to discover their individual work strategies that promote productivity; to stop feeling fearful that they may disappoint their advisors or family members; and to tailor their theses to their own writing style and personality needs. Using field-tested strategies she assists the student through the entire thesis-writing process, offering advice on choosing a topic and an advisor, on disciplining one's self to work at least fifteen minutes each day; setting short-term deadlines, on revising and defing the thesis, and on life and publication after the dissertation. Bolker makes writing the dissertation an enjoyable challenge.
Joan Bolker, Ed.D., has counseled writers at Harvard, Wellesley, Brandeis, and Bard College. She is a clinical psychologist whose specialty is helping blocked writers. She lives in Newton, Massachusetts.
Dissertation writers need strong, practical advice, as well as someone who understands their particular situation. Joan Bolker, cofounder of the Harvard Writing Center, offers invaluable suggestions for "blocked" writers. She encourages them to discover individual work plans that promote productivity. Using field-tested strategies and positive reinforcement, she buoys the student through the entire process--from choosing a topic and advisor to setting short-term deadlines, revising, defending the thesis, and deciding whether to publish.
"After directing dissertations for decades, I wish I had had Bolker's marvelously helpful book from the beginning . . . Bolker writers with wisdom, humor, and wonderful practicality. Get this book for anyone you know who is contemplating, midway into, or finishing a dissertation; you will be blessed."--Carolyn G. Heilbrun "After directing dissertations for decades, I wish I had had Bolker's marvelously helpful book from the beginning . . . Bolker writers with wisdom, humor, and wonderful practicality. Get this book for anyone you know who is contemplating, midway into, or finishing a dissertation; you will be blessed."--Carolyn G. Heilbrun
"As a writer, I have learned from the practical wisdom of Bolker's fine book. And as a former graduate student advisor, I would require every doctoral student in every discipline in the English-speaking world to read this book."--Donald M. Murray
""Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day" is a great gift not just for 'stuck' graduate students and their advisors, but for anyone having trouble writing anything. It is a jargon-free pleasure to read."--Pauline Maier" "
