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| Author: Joan Bolker
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy New: $11.53
You Save: $5.42 (32%)
Rating:  63 reviews
Sales Rank: 10029
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 184
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.5 x 0.6
ISBN: 080504891X
Dewey Decimal Number: 808.066378
EAN: 9780805048919
Publication Date: August 15, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 Solid advice about WRITING May 1, 2000
27 out of 29 found this review helpful
I teach writing, yet I am having a horrible time finishing my dissertation. This book helped me recognize what I know about writing--with the exception of "park on the downhill slope," every bit of advice given in this book is advice I have given my own first-year students, students I tutor in the writing center, and other graduate students. I *know* it's good counsel because I've seen it work! I guess I just needed to hear it from an expert, but now that I have I'm tearing through these last chapters, confidently (most of the time). Don't expect a start-to-finish how-to guide for completing a dissertation, this is about WRITING it.
Compelling advice that is on-the-nose for procrastinators. January 24, 1999
24 out of 24 found this review helpful
Ms. Bolker knows every trick in the book that procrastinators use to put off the inevitable. She jumps in at the beginning to help the thesis student make the best decisions for winnowing a topic, choosing an advisor, setting up a daily writing schedule, to chuggging along on draft five, or heading toward defense. One of her pithy reminders is, "Always park on the downhill slope". By this, she means stop today with an easy to find starting point for tomorrow. Ms. Bolker is kind, understanding, and forgiving. Her advice goes beyond the post-modern "Just Do It". She gives you the plan, the tools, the prodding (even ideas for self-rewards) for getting it done.
An essential book for grad students in the humanities April 27, 2003
23 out of 23 found this review helpful
I believe that this is one of the most helpful guides to writing a dissertation ever published. If you are in the humanities, it is the first book to buy when you enter your program. (The second should be "Professors as Writers" by Boice).
Bolker suggests that students write early and often as they shape their dissertations. And she'll help you find ways to write early and often. Keeping the critic away from the creator is a key element of her program for daily writing. Her hints, especially the concept of a "zero draft" (an even rougher, looser, beginning phase that preceeds the "first draft") will help you avoid or overcome procrastination.
She has useful suggestions for finding a topic, setting up a dissertation support group, choosing and working with your advisor, and taking stock of your process along the way. She will help you take a more practical, supportive stance towards yourself and to stay on task and get finished.
The content of the book is especially useful for students in the humanities. It will be very useful to those in the social sciences as well. However, I believe that this book is comparitively unhelpful for those in the hard sciences or other fields where the structure of the dissertation is a series of two or three journal articles. Her advice about finding a topic is superb for those who must create their own path and have a huge range of choices in subject matter, but doesn't really apply to students working in a lab or with a pre-determined, pre-existing data set. In a related fashion, her advice about choosing advisors is extremely helpful in cases where choices can be made in part on the basis of personality fit but doesn't really apply when it is a specific advisor's grant support and research project that is supporting your doctoral studies. (For students in the sciences, I would strongly recommend starting with "A Ph.D. Is Not Enough".)
Bolker's writing is clear and graceful. Her professional authority comes from years of experience as the cofounder of the Harvard Writing Center. Great credential, eh? Perhaps because of her experience as a counselor, she has more psychological saavy than almost anyone I've read who writes about the academic career path. There is compasion in the tone of her words. Her personal history also explains her empathetic stance -- she began and failed one doctoral degree but went on to later complete a dissertation and get an Ed.D.. She is personally motivated to help prevent people from experiencing the difficulties she once faced.
I'm a clinical psychologist who coaches grad students, post-docs and faculty, and this is one of the first books I recommend (www.successfulacademic.com). I also teach graduate students at UNC -- courses like "Publish not Perish" and "Graduate Student Survival Skills." Students who buy this book at my recommendation almost invariably thank me for introducing them to Bolker's work.
If you can't afford to hire a personal coach, if you are blocked, or just want to proceed even more effectively, this is a great place to start.
Worth its Weight in Gold! September 4, 2005
19 out of 19 found this review helpful
Writing Your Dissertation in 15 Minutes a Day is one of the most practical guides I have ever read. In that this book deals with a topic of vital importance to anyone working themselves through the maze of graduate school, makes it all the more a must-read. I have found many parallels in my experiences as a doctoral student and those of Dr. Bolker's, and I began early in the book to heed the sage advice she offers. I find her writing style humorous in places, and a comfortable, easy read throughout. This is definitely a book worth purchasing.
It got me thinking... October 16, 2005
19 out of 19 found this review helpful
I really appreciate this book. I have a few other books on writing my dissertation and had started the process. Unfortunately, I had also bogged down. The book helped me get going again. The author offers simple ideas, but I actually tried them out and started writing. That is the secret to writing, just write. Simple but dramatic. And I started, as suggested, writing questions and comments to myself on the process of the dissertation. The more I put things down, the more clear they became to me. Amazing. I have really enjoyed this book. Great ideas and the motivation I needed.
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