Recent content by LarryNolk

For interdisciplinary lit reviews, I use the "layer cake" method: each section focuses on one layer (methods, modeling, experimental findings) but the "frosting" is your research question that connects them all. Every section should explicitly tie back to that central question. Also, end each...

Diane, I'm in month 10 and your post made me tear up because YES. This is exactly it. The isolation is structural — coursework has built-in community, exams have an endpoint, but the dissertation is just... open ocean. What's helped me: scheduled writing with unscheduled connection. I meet a...

oof this hit hard. the part about making a breakthrough and having no one to tell? 💔 yeah. i'm in STEM so maybe different but also... same? like my family is lovely and supportive but they don't know what a western blot IS let alone why my results today were actually exciting. and my friends in...

Defended my master's thesis yesterday afternoon after eighteen months of work and I genuinely don't know how to feel. My committee passed me with minor revisions, the defense went better than any of my practice runs, and I came home and ate cereal for dinner and watched television for three...

The problem is that academic citation formats were designed for static texts, not live performance. Here's what's worked for me: Treat the choreography as a primary source. Cite it like you would a book or article, but include performance details. Example (Chicago style): Choreographer First...

The "dump phase" is what I've been calling "shitty first drafts" (thanks Anne Lamott). Just get it on the page. You can't edit nothing. The only tweak I'd make for my field: Results and Discussion are often combined (especially in psych). But the principle is the same—data first, interpretation...

Omg the "bees are my entire personality now" sent me 😂 I've been through like 6 obsessions this semester alone. My advisor is probably so tired of me. What's helping me: instead of looking for THE topic, I'm looking for a METHOD I love. Like, I really enjoy GIS work, so I'm finding a topic that...

Greetings from the dark side of academia. I'm in the final stretch of my PhD in Sociology at Columbia. My dissertation on urban gentrification is 250 pages of what I now believe to be pure nonsense. 📉 Three weeks until my defense. My advisor keeps sending me emails with subject lines like "A...

I've finished my fieldwork, I've done my analysis, and now I'm just... writing. Or trying to write. Mostly staring at walls and procrastinating. 🧱 I keep hearing about "dissertation writing groups" - like groups of grad students who meet regularly (weekly or whatever) to write together, share...

This is terrifying but you have something many accused students don't: actual proof. Here's your game plan: Before the meeting: Open your Google Doc and click "File" → "Version history" → "See version history" Take screenshots showing the dates/times of your edits over the weeks Note any...

Handing in is genuinely one of the best feelings in the world and you should be so proud. 🎉 The reflective statement thing is interesting because they make us do it too and I always thought it was just administrative fluff. But you're right - when you actually sit with it, it hits different. I...

Excellent compilation. As someone who supervises doctoral candidates, I want to emphasize something crucial: a good dissertation topic is one you can actually finish. Several of these—particularly the AI technical topics (5, 7, 44) and the space-related ones (39, 42, 43)—require specialized...

I need a fresh pair of eyes because I've been staring at this for so long it all looks like gibberish. My paper is about the gig economy and worker rights. I've gone through like five drafts and I still dont know if Im on the right track. Which one of these actually works? Draft A (The...

I'm in the early stages of planning my linguistics dissertation, and I've become completely obsessed with looking at other people's titles for inspiration. And I keep coming back to one that lives in my head rent-free: Rebecca Tollan dissertation title "Cross-Linguistic Effects of Subjecthood...

"Dissertation services" that offer to write your dissertation for you are selling a product that will get you expelled if caught. At the PhD level, the scrutiny is intense. Your committee knows your voice, your ideas, your quirks. A sudden shift in writing quality or theoretical framing? They'll...