Grad Students: Avoid The “ABD” Doldrums

Going to graduate school is a huge accomplishment, and many grad students balance school with work and family. Unfortunately, though, many grad students fall victim to ABD, all but dissertation. In order to graduate with a Ph.D., grad students are required to not only complete their coursework, but also required to complete their dissertation. Some students complete all the coursework and then become distracted by real life to complete their dissertation. Some stay victim to ABD for years, while others never actually get around to completing their dissertation and instead remain ABD for life.



If you’re currently in grad school, the following are five tips to help you avoid ABD doldrums.

1. Create a schedule.

When you were completing your coursework, you likely used a schedule in order to maintain a work/home/school balance. When it comes to your dissertation, you need to stick to the same schedule. Create a schedule that you can use to plan all of your activities, from personal life to school life and professional life. This way, you will see where you have time to do your research and start writing your dissertation. If you must, pretend like your coursework is not yet complete and use the time you used to be in class to research and write your dissertation. This can help keep you on pace to complete your dissertation in a decent amount of time.

2. Give yourself a deadline.

In most graduate courses, the dissertation does not have a specific due date, and this is what causes students to put it on hold. Instead of allowing this to be the reason you suffer from ABD, give yourself a deadline. Once you have that end date in place, rework your schedule to find the time to perform your research and start writing your paper.

3. Use small incentives.

While attaining your Ph.D. should be incentive enough to write your dissertation, sometimes it’s not. In these instances, it’s a good idea to give yourself small incentives. For example, give yourself some type of reward for every hour you spend doing research. This can be something as simple as enjoying a piece of candy to buying yourself something pretty. Continue to use these incentives until you finally complete your dissertation.

4. Don’t lose momentum.

Once coursework is completed, many students decide to give themselves a week or so off school before starting to write their dissertation. While this break may seem like a necessity, it can also force you to lose momentum. Once you stop familiarizing yourself with school mode, it will be hard for you to get back in. Instead of taking a break after your coursework is complete, stick to it and continue acting as if nothing has changed. This will help you find the time to perform your research and write your dissertation.

5. Get help.

There are plenty of tools out there that can help you research and write your dissertation quickly. For example, using a tool like Evernote can help you to better organize your research documents. You can save everything from personalized notes to web URLs to PDFs in one easy to access location. Plus, you can access your Evernote account from anywhere, so it doesn’t matter where you’re doing your research, you’ll still be able to access and save what you find wherever you are.

You should also consider utilizing academic research transcription. For example, if you take audio recordings of interviews or audio notes during field research, you may have a hard time going through it all to access the information you need. Instead, you should invest in a reputable academic research transcription service to transcribe your audio files for you. This way, you’ll have a hard copy of your notes to make research easier on you.

Guest Author: Lizzie Lau is a freelance writer and online marketing consultant with SEOMap.com. Lizzie combines personal opinions and research to create appealing and informative articles on various topics.