{credit}Image credit: Daisy Hessenberger{/credit}

Contributor Daisy Hessenberger

Four months ago I, the trepid explorer, started on the last great adventure of my PhD – writing the thesis. I immediately faced the well-known challenges associated with this journey: too much procrastination and too little motivation. Sometimes I found it impossible to start writing and when I did, it was hard to maintain the momentum. And although I enjoy writing, I was starting to hate my thesis.

Looking at thesis writing tips only made me feel worse. The number one tip? Start writing earlier in your PhD. It was a bit late for that now. What I needed were thesis-writing tips for the left-it-to-the-last-three-months thesis writer.

Salvation came in the form of a friend. A fellow PhDer asked me whether I would like to start a writing group. In its very basic form a writing group is when PhD students at a similar stage of writing up (and thus sharing similar stress levels) agree to meet up and write together. Continue reading →