TP 4

The mailman brought me a new book that was recommended by my supervisor. It is called Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day (Amazon UK, US). The author Joan Bolker admits that it she has never heard anyone actually being able to write a thesis using only fifteen minutes a day. That relates to the topic of our yesterday's theme, honesty.

Bolger leans on studies that prove that we learn by writing instead of it being the other way around. Therefore she recommends writing as a learning process. She has a broad understanding of what writing is - it has to do with scribbly notes and research and banging your head on the wall. One does not simply do his research, then sit down and write the thesis. Writing process should improve the research, reveal the weaknesses of it and help to better it.

So far the most valuable piece of information in Bolker's books has to do with motivation. So far I've heard only one person saying that he enjoyed the process. Bolker says,

writing a dissertation can be a pleasure, at least some of the time... Some writers really do enjoy writing their dissertations. This book is meant to help you become one of those writers.

I think I already like this book!

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Quote is from Joan Bolker, Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day (New York: Holt, 1998), xix.