Sooner or later as a PhD student we all come to the point where we have to start writing the thesis.
For as long as I can remember, writing has been a true delight for me. Whether it was creative or academic writing, a poem or an article, short papers or longer dissertations, I loved it! Most of the time, the process of translating ideas in my head into concrete sentences on paper was very intuitive and it never gave me too much trouble.
However, for the first time, I find myself moving towards the more daunting end of the continuum when it comes to writing my thesis.
Experiencing this for the first time, I started to question why writing has suddenly become threatening rather than enjoyable. I could not figure out what was putting me off. In the first instance, one might think it has something to do with the language that is scaring me. Although there is possibly still some truth in that, I am not sure that is the whole story. For sure, not feeling able to express everything as smoothly and accurately as I was used to does not help the situation. But, I am writing for other projects and have moved, more or less, past the fear of the language issue. So it seems like there is something else, something specific and particular to the PhD thesis rather than writing as such. It goes beyond writing in a language that is not my own.
Perhaps it is the case that I am struggling more with writing for my PhD thesis because of the sense of finality it gives me. Though at this stage, I still have many opportunities left to change the wording or to change the text, in fact it is actually highly unlikely that anything I write now will even be still standing as I progress further with my PhD. However, it does give me a sense of finality and maybe this is what holds me back. As one of my supervisors said when I tried to explain, “it is something psychological rather than something functional”. Knowing that it is my own piece of work, that I have been given the opportunity to spend time on one of the things I love the most in my life, gives me some incredible feelings. I can experience joy, happiness, gratefulness and curiosity on a daily basis when carrying out my PhD research. However the flip side is that I am responsible for the end product.
Luckily, I am surrounded by wonderful colleagues and supervised by very understanding academics. Whilst discussing this issue with them, I was advised to build up the thesis step-by-step. To start with the headings, then bullet point my thoughts under each section and keep updating the file while I move on in the PhD. To do it the way I do it naturally for other bigger projects. Because in the past, once I had developed that structure, the words came very quickly and it all moved intuitively into lengthy papers.
For some reason, this approach got lost in my brain when I started facing writing my thesis… It has re-surfaced now and I will give it a go over the next couple of days.
