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by: KalindaRoseStevenson,PhD
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Word Count: 622
One of the greatest challenges in writing theses and dissertations is not really about the writing process itself, but about the psychological struggles behind the writing. The most difficult psychological obstacle involved in writing a thesis is that you must claim that you are an expert.
When you write a thesis, you need to see yourself differently. Instead of seeing yourself as a student, you need to position yourself as an expert ready to take your place among the other experts and authorities in your field.
For most of us, our educational experiences don't prepare us to make this psychological shift. How often did anyone regard you as an expert on anything in your student years?
Throughout our lifetimes, most of us experienced educational processes that taught us the "right" answers. Who decided the right answers? They were the real experts, who wrote the books we read. They graded our exams and papers. They taught us that we were not experts, but were supposed to learn the answers provided to us by the real experts.
It is entirely possible that you can reach the point of writing a dissertation without ever writing an original word about anything in your field of study. Teachers tend not to shower good grades upon original thinkers. Good grades are most often given to those who supply the predetermined "right" answers.
If your education followed the typical path, you learned not to be original and you certainly learned not to regard yourself as an expert, but as the willing student who was able to demonstrate that you had learned your lessons. Throughout this whole educational process, based on learning the right answers, you learned to write essays and term papers. Most of us were never taught how to write a thesis.
The typical term paper, in secondary schools and universities, is not based on your own original research in some topic. Instead, you gather information about your topic published by various experts in the field. Your objective is to summarize the material you gathered on your topic in a coherent way.
Essay topics provide an opportunity for you to present your opinions, but an essay expressing your opinion is not the same as an argument to make your case.
What most people find so difficult about writing a thesis is that the writer must make an original contribution to the field. After going through high school and colleges, writing term papers and essays, it is an entirely new experience to write a thesis, arguing for an original point of view. But this is exactly what you must to do write a thesis.
What happens when you come to the point of writing a dissertation? You must now take your place among the experts in your field. Now it is your turn to ask new questions and provide new answers. After a lifetime of learning the right answers, this is a dramatically new stage of your educational process.
This is the real secret of success behind a successful dissertation. Your success is no longer measured by your ability to learn the right answers. Your success comes from your ability to ask new questions and provide new answers as an expert.
If you don't make your claim that you are an expert in your field, by offering a new perspective, you are not writing a thesis. It doesn't matter if your thesis is simply a tiny step or a giant leap forward in your field. To write a thesis, you must offer an original perspective and new answers, as an expert.
Whatever your topic, whatever your field, when you write a dissertation, you are claiming to the world that you are no longer simply a student. You are now an expert. This is the psychological secret behind a successful dissertation.
Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Ph.D Http://www.WriteToPersuade.com. If you need help with your thesis, here's a writing a dissertation guide for you. My ebook, What's Your Point? gives solid methods to get to your point.