Do's and Don'ts of Writing a Ph.D. Dissertation in Finance

If you are writing a Ph.D. dissertation in finance, you are definitely struggling for a certain scientific grade. You surely know what you need to do but, as well, you need to know what you shouldn’t do.

Do’s of Dissertation Writing:

• Do plan your time. You need to know how much time you have and how much time you will need to complete each of the stages of writing your project. You will need some time to complete your own research in the area of finance and some more time to find enough reliable reference information. Besides that, you will need about a week to check everything, turn your draft into a blank copy, and submit your paper.
• Do ask for the help of specialists. Don’t be afraid of turning to your supervisor for some assistance. You need to know whether you are moving in the right direction.
• Do consult clever books on formatting and organization of academic papers. Guidebooks can be extremely useful if you need to format your paper as the chosen academic writing style demands.
• Do fight procrastination. The sooner you start working over your paper, the sooner it will be done, and you will have some time to rest.
• Do resort to professional helpers in case you are short of time or see that you cannot handle the project on your own. You need to plan it in advance because they also require time to complete your request in a high quality.

Don’ts of Dissertation Writing:

• Don’t ignore drafts though they require time. If you have a draft, you can handle the blank copy easier. While working with a draft, you can cross out, insert, and shift big pieces of text in order to come to something really good.
• Don’t get desperate if you cannot write a line on certain days. All people have these days when they can’t do a thing. Use the time to work over such parts of the dissertation that don’t need much brain work. For example, you can start composing the bibliography or any other quite formal part of your work.
• Don’t leave pages like acknowledgments or reference list for the last days. Give them attention in advance because they require quite a lot of time and thinking. If you do them in an off-hand way, it will be visible. If such acknowledgments will be located at the beginning of your work, they can easily spoil the entire impression of the project.