Common barriers to thesis completion
Strategies to keep you on track
Download a PDF of this resource here.
It’s important to set goals and strategies for yourself while you’re writing every day, and more importantly, that the goals be achievable. Some strategies that work for both students and faculty are listed below:
Free writing
Just write. Don’t edit. This activity helps get you into the practice of writing. Get into the habit of free writing for 5 minutes at the beginning of each day:
- Keep your hands or fingers moving
- Go for your first thoughts
- Don’t edit
- Don’t stray from the topic
- Be specific
- Don’t worry about punctuation and grammar
- You are free to write the worst junk imaginable
Goal setting
Some people are able to sit for hours at a time, continuously writing. Others, not so much. One of the first goals to get you started is to just stay seated for an extended length of time, maybe X minutes, while doing nothing but writing. Once that time is up, check it off your list.
Positive reinforcement
You may want to reward yourself in some way after accomplishing your goal. Maybe you’ve earned a walk in the neighbourhood or some musical instrument playing after a few hours of writing. Whatever you enjoy doing, be sure to only reward yourself with that activity once you’ve reached your writing goal. This actually works.
Create a time and place to work
Be sure that your work space is in a place you enjoy working, and when possible, stick to that space. As well, as much as possible, stick to a schedule where you’re writing/working at that space each day at the same start time to the same finishing time. Structuring your day in this way helps you to feel more in control of the process.
80/60/40
One formalized way of doing all this is the 80/60/40. This method allows you to get everything you need done in one go but you do not leave your seat for each allotted time for writing. Some people like to start with different time frames, such as 60/40/20 and then work up to larger ones. This means that at the beginning of your day you:
- Write for 80 minutes.
- TAKE A TEN MINUTE BREAK*
- Write for 60 minutes
- TAKE A TEN MINUTE BREAK*
- Write for 40 minutes
- You’re done.
* At each break, be sure you don’t do anything that will be too distracting from your mental space for writing. Go for a walk, make some tea, whatever. Just don’t check email, Facebook, etc.
Helpful links
Having trouble staying off the internet? See our resource on Focus and Concentration, including a list of free or low-cost apps to help you focus.
Still having trouble? Maybe this is the way to go.
Sample schedule for the first month of reading/writing
Make Free writing a routine, try out some Writing Strategies, then stick with one. Remember to reward yourself with small breaks, but most importantly, keep at it.
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Visual maps and the reverse outline
Download a PDF of this resource.
When reading for research, we need to read with a dialogue in mind. We need to be continually asking ourselves if the information we’re reading is useful to our central argument or interest. This isn’t easy, and students can often get lost in continuous reading. Some ways to stay on track are taking breaks every so often and taking notes on how the information relates to your interest. Not enough time to write all those words? Use visual representations along the margins instead:
Mind mapping
And once you have some writing done, or an initial draft, try a reverse outline.
The reverse outline
If a regular outline is something you do after you draft out your paper, a reverse outline is something you do after you write a draft. A reverse outline can help you make sense of what you’ve done.
The big picture
Reverse outlines can help you see the big picture, most especially with papers that need major reordering of paragraphs or papers filled with paragraphs that have too many ideas in them and don’t hold together.
How to do it?
- Go through the paper and number each paragraph
- On a separate page, record the main point(s) of each paragraph
- Go through the entire paper this way. When you have gone through the entire paper, you will have an outline providing you with an overview of your paper
Then what?
Look carefully at your overview, asking yourself the following questions:
- Are the paragraphs properly focused?
- Does each topic sentence reflect the main idea of each paragraph?
- Do all of your topic sentences create a coherent story?
- When you look at the outline as a whole, does the organization reflect what you promised in your intro/thesis? If not, revise.
Adapted from Craft Of Research by Booth, Colomb & Williams.
Self-editing checklist
If you would like to learn more about how to edit your writing for grammar and sentence-level concerns, try SASS’s self-editing checklist. There is also a short series of videos to walk you through this process of improving your academic writing. If you would like to learn more about how you prefer to write and edit, see the self-assessment below.
Editing self-assessment
Try completing both of these sections sequentially.
From Barbery Nyce Dougherty, Composing Choices for Writers McGraw-Hill 1985
When I write, I
__ a) can’t get started until I have found a thesis
__ b) begin writing as soon as I have sufficient material
When I write, I
__ a) make lots of revisions in my first draft without losing my thread of meaning
__ b) write straight through to get at the gist of my ideas
When I write, I
__ a) write one draft, making only a few revisions after I am done
__ b) revise, completely, once or several times
When I write, I
__ a) have my context point pretty clearly in mind before beginning
__ b) wait to discover my main focus
When I write, I
__ a) follow a writing plan I have worked out in my head or on paper
__ b) don’t have a plan worked out, but wait to discover my structure
When I write, I spend most energy proportionally
__ a) planning and writing what I have to say
__ b) writing and revising
Revising a Draft
__ I revise my work before handing it to someone else
(If you are a frequent reviser, answer the following)
__ On average, I revise “X” number of times
(If you never or only sometimes revise, answer the following)
I don’t revise because…
__ a) I don’t have time
__ b) my first draft is usually pretty polished
__ c) I have never been required to revise
I revise…
__ a) while I write the first draft as well as after
__ b) only after I have my first draft
I revise…
__ a) on my own
__ b) after consulting with someone
Did you get mostly As? If so, you may want to spend some more time practicing writing and being less concerned with editing while writing. Try the next section.
When I revise, I
__ a) search for a better word
__ b) rewrite awkward sentences
__ c) make sentences less wordy
__ d) check spelling and punctuation
__ e) rework my introduction or conclusion
__ f) check my paragraphing and my transitions
__ g) rework my topic sentences
__ h) edit for coherence
__ i) reformulate my thesis
__ j) rework my writing plan
__ k) evaluate the match between content and audience
__ l) reorganize the order of my ideas
__ m) reconsider my stance toward topic and audience
In the revising section, if you found you checked mostly a-d, you’re predominantly copyediting. If you found you checked mostly e to h, you’re stylistic editing. If you found you checked mostly I to m, you are for the most part doing structural editing. All three stages of editing are required, but remember that when you do edit that STRUCTURAL EDITING comes first, STYLISTIC EDITING comes second, and COPYEDITING is done last. It’s easy to convince ourselves that we’re editing when we’re actually doing the easiest stage (copy editing), and ignoring the others.