Buchtipp Oktober 2020

Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day. A Guide to Starting, Revising and Finishing Your Doctoral Thesis

Joan Bolker

1998, 184 Seiten

ISBN 978-0805048919

Signatur  (Mediothek Am Neuen Palais): 2.2.3.84

For graduates and thesis advisors, Joan Bolker has collected field-tested strategies for writing a dissertation. Different techniques can be explored and discarded or kept corresponding to their effectiveness. As there is no one and only approach to writing, she aims at teaching readers to discover which writing process is fruitful for them (or their students). 

Uniquely, Bolker doesn’t confine the would-be writer into a peculiar parallel world accompanied by books, articles, computers, and writing techniques only. From the beginning on, she stresses the interaction with the outside world and – depending on the circumstances - ways to profit or to deal with it. 

The chapters in her book mirror the temporal structure of the writing process, creating the chance for readers to easily find the information corresponding to their phase of writing. Her advice ranges from the first mental explorations via communication with the advisor, starting the first draft, writing progress, interruptions (both from the out- or inside) to revising and finishing the text envisaged.

In clear and empathetic wording, she encourages writers to take responsibility for their respective writing project and their writing process. However, will you finish your dissertation when writing 15 minutes a day, is the crucial question, isn’t it? Bolker replies that starting to work “on your thesis fifteen minutes a day … will dramatically increase the odds that you’ll finish it”.

If you wish to be guided through your dissertation – from the early beginnings to thesis defense and maybe even publication – Bolker will prove an insightful and reliable companion. 

Rezensiert von Eva Dietrich, September 2020