Recent content by ViVi

Lisa, 3 months is actually a LOT of time. Like genuinely. You can write a chapter in 3 weeks if you focus. So 3 months is multiple chapters. You're not as doomed as your brain is telling you. Practical tip: change locations. Go to a different library. A coffee shop. A park if weather allows...

"Learning to sound like a native speaker without losing my voice" — this is such a huge struggle and nobody talks about it enough. The fact that you navigated that AND improved?? Legend behavior. So proud of you Felicia.

I dreamed about my dissertation last night. Full dream. I was defending it, but the committee kept changing. First it was my actual committee. Then my parents. Then strangers. Then historical figures from my research. They asked questions I couldn't answer. In the dream, I kept flipping through...

Just found a source that doesn't contradict my dissertation. It's worse. It complicates it. The source adds nuance I didn't include. Perspectives I didn't consider. Variables I didn't account for. My neat, tidy argument just got messy. Before, I could say "X caused Y." Now I have to say "X...

ABD. Dissertation on gender in 19th-century literature. Was making good progress. Then nothing. Two weeks of nothing. Complete blank. Writer's block so thick I can't even open the document. I sit down. I stare. I open social media. I make tea. I reorganize my desk. I stare again. I close it...

For a digital preservation thesis specifically, your methodology section carries unusual weight because your primary sources are often the objects of study rather than just evidence for claims about something else. Being explicit about your selection criteria — why these digital objects, from...

Ben, I'm going to tell you something my therapist told me during my dissertation, and I hope it helps. She said: "You're not avoiding writing. You're avoiding the FEELINGS that come up WHEN you write. The inadequacy. The fear. The pressure. The grief over all the years this has taken. The...

"The map is not the territory" — your prospectus was a map you drew before you'd visited the place. Now you've been there for two years and the territory looks different than the map suggested. That's not a flaw in your process. That's what fieldwork is for 🗺️

I'm ABD (All But Dissertation), and I've finally finished drafting my thesis. Hooray, right? Wrong. Now I have to deal with the formatting hell that is my university's graduate school guidelines. Margins, fonts, heading styles, table of contents formatting, citing in... is it APA 7th or the...

For me it was a Rorty footnote that mentioned this obscure pragmatist I'd never heard of. Three weeks later I'd read everything by that pragmatist and my original paper was completely different. Your Lauria footnote experience is actually a rite of passage. Every serious philosophy student has...

I need to decode something my advisor said because I genuinely don't know what she meant and I'm too embarrassed to ask her directly. 😅 I'm a 4th year PhD student in clinical psych. My dissertation is on trauma interventions in refugee communities. It's a lot - literature review, methodology...

Pedro, I'm not even in grad school yet (senior undergrad) but this made me emotional ngl 😭 The loneliness of big projects is REAL. My capstone feels like a desert sometimes. Writing letters to myself sounds weirdly perfect. Like leaving breadcrumbs for future you so you don't get lost. I'm doing...

It's like Acceptance but with a deadline so close that you either finish or die trying. I'm writing this instead of finishing my conclusion. Help. But honestly, the grief framework is perfect. I went through all five stages in one day last week. My advisor sent an email and I cycled through...

The "outline from hell" idea is actually brilliant and I wish I'd done that. Here's my horror story: I skipped the detailed outline and just started writing. Got to chapter 3 and realized my entire argument was wrong because I hadn't thought it through properly. Had to go back to research. Lost...

I'm starting my master's thesis this semester and I genuinely feel like I'm in an arranged marriage situation and I have to pick my own spouse and I'll be stuck with them FOREVER. 😂💀 For real though, how do you choose ONE topic to spend two years of your life on?? Two years! That's like... 24...