How do I write a Ph.D. Thesis?

What is a dissertation?

Every postgraduate academic education (master's, graduate, PhD) ends with the writing of a dissertation. Depending on the institution, the requirements for the dissertation vary, but it is still possible to summarize. Read more here: https://studybay.com/phd-thesis-editing/

The dissertation is the first independent research effort in an academic's life, and the last if you decide to work outside the academy. It is for this reason that the dissertation is jokingly referred to as "the worst of the difficult research papers" - it is more difficult to write due to lack of experience, and the output is often more modest than subsequent research papers, which will be written in a more professional manner.

A dissertation is the first independent research in an academic's life

Scholarly publication

One has to understand that the primary means of communication in academe is scholarly articles. Academics, by duty, have to be skeptical-they have to verify information. And to explain your discovery so that everyone can double-check it, you have to write a detailed article about it and publish it in a respected journal.

The more people subscribe to the journal, the more people will read about your discoveries and use them for further research. Of course, getting published is very difficult - you have to go through many levels of filtering, including an anonymous committee of colleagues working in the field. This is how scientific publications differ from your blog or youtube channel. In this way, the dissertation prepares you for a lifetime of scholarly publishing.

The de facto standard for dissertations is:

A Master's Thesis equals one scholarly article, and a PhD Thesis equals three.

Contribution

Every dissertation is a research paper, and therefore must contribute to science - something no one else has done before. You can't just summarize all the discoveries in a field and defend yourself. And the contribution doesn't have to be significant - you can repeat someone else's model in a similar field.

For example, in economics, you can completely replicate an interesting analysis of the American markets for the markets in Zimbabwe - if no one has conducted a similar analysis for Zimbabwe, this also counts as a contribution to science. Of course, one must not forget to mention the author's name and provide a link to the original article, otherwise it will be considered plagiarism.

Timeline

Usually, it takes one year to write a master's thesis and three years to write a PhD thesis. But it's different for everyone - Greg Mankew, for example, finished his Ph.D. in one year of graduate school. And there are those who finish in four years, or who drop out altogether and never finish. Some even comfort themselves that they have an ABD (All But Dissertation) degree.

Defense

The thesis defense is a Power Point presentation of the paper to a three-person committee of your thesis advisor and two other professors from your institution.

If your thesis advisor has allowed you to defend your thesis, your thesis is ready. If your thesis fails, you simply will not be allowed to defend it. That's why it almost never happens that a student gets flunked at the defense itself.

2. topic definition.

If you've read the first section or skipped it because you already know how academia works, it's time to share my experience.

The ideal theme is one that you like and everyone is interested in

First, you need to decide on a theme. This process is the most advertised chip of the academy - "at the academy you do what you like, not what your superiors make you do."

This is partly true, but if you like a very niche field (The economic effects of producing a Jaguar car for the city of Lankester in the second half of the sixties), no one will give you a research grant, and even if you do it yourself, no major journal will publish you.

But if you are marginal or fighting the system, you can sacrifice bonuses for an idea.

If your expertise is marginal, you will not get grants, you will only publish in small journals and live on your salary.

Therefore, it is better to choose a more mainstream topic (Economic effect of blockchain implementation in twenty large firms) for a good life. Then there will be money, honor, and fame. Maybe there won't be happiness - you decide for yourself.

If you are a mainstream expert, then you will have grants, you will be called to conferences and your books will be bought by many.

Personally, I could not write a dissertation on the topic that interests me (Chaos Theory and Complex Adaptive Systems in Economics) - in our institute there were no professors who specialize in these topics, who could be my supervisor. And every time I wanted to study it, I stopped myself and forced to spend my energy on writing my dissertation on another topic (Financial economics of dynamic investments).

But one thing I can say for sure, like it or not, I became an expert in financial economics the entire time I was writing a research paper. Still, the first thing I did after completing my dissertation (even before defending it) was to go to the library to catch up on a year's worth of research on a truly interesting topic. I hope this underscores the importance of making the right choice