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Overcoming Anxiety to Write Your PhD Thesis: Strategies for Success

Writing a PhD thesis is a monumental task that often brings with it a significant amount of anxiety. This anxiety can stem from various sources, including the pressure to produce high-quality work, tight deadlines, and the fear of failure. However, with the right strategies and support systems in place, it is possible to overcome this anxiety and successfully complete your thesis. This article explores effective strategies for managing anxiety and achieving success in your PhD thesis journey.

Key Takeaways

• Understanding the root causes of thesis anxiety can help in developing effective coping strategies.
• Effective time management and strategic planning are crucial for reducing stress and ensuring steady progress.
• Building a robust support system, including advisors, peers, and professional counselors, can provide much-needed guidance and encouragement.
• Adopting a resilient mindset and embracing setbacks as learning opportunities can significantly enhance your thesis-writing experience.
• Utilizing academic resources and maintaining a healthy work-life balance are essential for sustaining productivity and well-being.

Understanding the Psychology of Thesis Anxiety

As you embark on the journey of thesis writing, it's not uncommon to grapple with anxiety . This emotional response can stem from various sources, such as the daunting workload, a quest for perfection, or the looming fear of failure. Understanding these triggers is the first step towards managing them effectively.

Effective Time Management Techniques

Understanding the importance of time management in thesis writing is crucial for your success. By prioritizing tasks, you can ensure that your efforts are focused on what truly matters. Begin by breaking down your thesis into manageable sections and assign a level of importance to each task. This approach helps you allocate your time and resources effectively.

Creating a realistic schedule is another essential strategy. Set realistic goals that align with your academic and personal commitments. Use tools like the Academic Project Planner to visualize your workflow and keep track of deadlines. Continuously evaluate your time management strategies to ensure they align with your goals.

Utilizing productivity tools can significantly enhance your efficiency. Consider using apps and software designed to eliminate distractions and streamline your work process. These tools can help you stay organized and maintain focus, ultimately leading to a more productive thesis writing experience.

Building a Support System

By leveraging these support systems, you can transform the unknown into a well-charted course towards thesis success. Consciously investing in genuine, compassionate relationships builds a strong support system . Start by talking to your supervisor, grad program director, and other faculty members. Seeking guidance from advisors can provide you with valuable insights and feedback on your work. They can help you navigate the complexities of your research and offer moral support during challenging times.

Peer support networks are equally important. Engaging with fellow students who are going through similar experiences can be incredibly reassuring. You can share resources, discuss ideas, and motivate each other to stay on track. Consider forming or joining a study group where you can regularly check in with each other and hold each other accountable.

Sometimes, the best person to help you through a spell of worry is someone who’s done that for you before—a family member, a friend, or a mentor. Professional counseling services are also available at most universities. These services can provide you with strategies to manage stress and anxiety, ensuring that you maintain your mental health throughout your thesis journey.

Developing a Resilient Mindset

Resilience is not about never facing challenges; it's about bouncing back stronger each time. By building emotional resilience and adopting a growth mindset, you equip yourself to navigate the complexities of academic research with agility and confidence.

Utilizing Academic Resources

Navigating the wealth of academic resources available to you can significantly enhance your thesis writing process. Leveraging these resources effectively can streamline your research and improve the quality of your work.

Maintaining a Healthy Work-Life Balance

Balancing the demands of a PhD thesis with personal life can be challenging, but it is essential for your overall well-being and productivity. Incorporating physical activity into your daily routine can significantly reduce stress and improve mental clarity. Whether it's a morning jog or a yoga session, find what works best for you and make it a habit.

Setting boundaries is crucial to ensure that your work does not encroach on your personal time. Designate specific hours for thesis work and stick to them. This not only helps in maintaining a work-life balance but also enhances your focus during work hours.

Ensuring adequate rest and nutrition is often overlooked but is vital for maintaining high levels of productivity and mental sharpness. A well-balanced diet and sufficient sleep can make a significant difference in how you handle the pressures of thesis writing. Remember, maintaining a healthy work-life balance is not just about managing time but also about managing your energy and well-being.

Practical Writing Strategies

Writing a PhD thesis can be a daunting task, but breaking it down into manageable steps can make the process more approachable. Here are some practical strategies for tackling the PhD dissertation .

Struggling with your thesis? Our Practical Writing Strategies can help you overcome sleepless nights and anxiety. Discover step-by-step guides and innovative worksheets that have been tested and approved by students worldwide. Don't let stress hold you back any longer. Visit our website to claim your special offer and start your journey to confident, fluent writing today!

In conclusion, writing a PhD thesis is a formidable task that can often induce significant anxiety. However, by employing strategic approaches and leveraging available resources, students can transform this challenging journey into a manageable and even rewarding experience. Establishing a clear action plan, such as the Thesis Action Plan offered by Research Rebels, can provide structured guidance and alleviate uncertainty. Additionally, seeking regular feedback, maintaining a positive mindset, and embracing the process as an opportunity for personal and academic growth are crucial steps towards success. Ultimately, overcoming thesis-related anxiety is not only about managing stress but also about fostering resilience and confidence in one's academic capabilities.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can i manage my anxiety throughout the thesis writing process.

Managing anxiety during thesis writing involves staying organized, seeking support from your supervisor, utilizing tools like the Thesis Action Plan, and maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Remember to take breaks, exercise, and reach out for help when needed.

What are common psychological triggers of thesis anxiety?

Common psychological triggers include an overwhelming workload, tight deadlines, pressure to meet high academic standards, uncertainty about the research topic or methodology, and concerns about the thesis defense and future career prospects.

How does anxiety impact cognitive function during thesis writing?

Anxiety can impair cognitive function by affecting concentration, memory, and decision-making abilities. This can lead to difficulties in organizing thoughts, staying focused, and effectively processing information.

What are some effective time management techniques for thesis writing?

Effective time management techniques include prioritizing tasks, creating a realistic schedule, and utilizing productivity tools. Breaking down the writing process into manageable segments can also help maintain steady progress.

How can I build a support system during my thesis journey?

Building a support system involves seeking guidance from advisors, joining peer support networks, and considering professional counseling services. Engaging with a supportive community can provide emotional and practical assistance.

What resources are available to help with thesis writing?

There are various resources available, including university services, online databases, and thesis writing guides and templates. Tools like the Thesis Action Plan can provide structured guidance and reduce uncertainty.

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The Savvy Scientist

Experiences of a London PhD student and beyond

PhD Burnout: Managing Energy, Stress, Anxiety & Your Mental Health

PhDs are renowned for being stressful and when you add a global pandemic into the mix it’s no surprise that many students are struggling with their mental health. Unfortunately this can often lead to PhD fatigue which may eventually lead to burnout.

In this post we’ll explore what academic burnout is and how it comes about, then discuss some tips I picked up for managing mental health during my own PhD.

Please note that I am by no means an expert in this area. I’ve worked in seven different labs before, during and after my PhD so I have a fair idea of research stress but even so, I don’t have all the answers.

If you’re feeling burnt out or depressed and finding the pressure too much, please reach out to friends and family or give the Samaritans a call to talk things through.

Note – This post, and its follow on about maintaining PhD motivation were inspired by a reader who asked for recommendations on dealing with PhD fatigue. I love hearing from all of you, so if you have any ideas for topics which you, or others, could find useful please do let me know either in the comments section below or by getting in contact . Or just pop me a message to say hi. 🙂

This post is part of my PhD mindset series, you can check out the full series below:

• PhD Burnout: Managing Energy, Stress, Anxiety & Your Mental Health (this part!)
• PhD Motivation: How to Stay Driven From Cover Letter to Completion
• How to Stop Procrastinating and Start Studying

What is PhD Burnout?

Whenever I’ve gone anywhere near social media relating to PhDs I see overwhelmed PhD students who are some combination of overwhelmed, de-energised or depressed.

Specifically I often see Americans talking about the importance of talking through their PhD difficulties with a therapist, which I find a little alarming. It’s great to seek help but even better to avoid the need in the first place.

Sadly, none of this is unusual. As this survey shows, depression is common for PhD students and of note: at higher levels than for working professionals.

All of these feelings can be connected to academic burnout.

The World Health Organisation classifies burnout as a syndrome with symptoms of:

– Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; – Increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job; – Reduced professional efficacy. Symptoms of burnout as classified by the WHO. Source .

This often leads to students falling completely out of love with the topic they decided to spend years of their life researching!

The pandemic has added extra pressures and constraints which can make it even more difficult to have a well balanced and positive PhD experience. Therefore it is more important than ever to take care of yourself, so that not only can you continue to make progress in your project but also ensure you stay healthy.

What are the Stages of Burnout?

Psychologists Herbert Freudenberger and Gail North developed a 12 stage model of burnout. The following graphic by The Present Psychologist does a great job at conveying each of these.

I don’t know about you, but I can personally identify with several of the stages and it’s scary to see how they can potentially lead down a path to complete mental and physical burnout. I also think it’s interesting that neglecting needs (stage 3) happens so early on. If you check in with yourself regularly you can hopefully halt your burnout journey at that point.

PhDs can be tough but burnout isn’t an inevitability. Here are a few suggestions for how you can look after your mental health and avoid academic burnout.

Overcoming PhD Burnout

Manage your energy levels, maintaining energy levels day to day.

• Eat well and eat regularly. Try to avoid nutritionless high sugar foods which can play havoc with your energy levels. Instead aim for low GI food . Maybe I’m just getting old but I really do recommend eating some fruit and veg. My favourite book of 2021, How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reduce Disease , is well worth a read. Not a fan of veggies? Either disguise them or at least eat some fruit such as apples and bananas. Sliced apple with some peanut butter is a delicious and nutritious low GI snack. Check out my series of posts on cooking nutritious meals on a budget.
• Get enough sleep. It doesn’t take PhD-level research to realise that you need to rest properly if you want to avoid becoming exhausted! How much sleep someone needs to feel well-rested varies person to person, so I won’t prescribe that you get a specific amount, but 6-9 hours is the range typically recommended. Personally, I take getting enough sleep very seriously and try to get a minimum of 8 hours.

A side note on caffeine consumption: Do PhD students need caffeine to survive?

In a word, no!

Although a culture of caffeine consumption goes hand in hand with intense work, PhD students certainly don’t need caffeine to survive. How do I know? I didn’t have any at all during my own PhD. In fact, I wrote a whole post about it .

By all means consume as much caffeine as you want, just know that it doesn’t have to be a prerequisite for successfully completing a PhD.

Maintaining energy throughout your whole PhD

• Pace yourself. As I mention later in the post I strongly recommend treating your PhD like a normal full-time job. This means only working 40 hours per week, Monday to Friday. Doing so could help realign your stress, anxiety and depression levels with comparatively less-depressed professional workers . There will of course be times when this isn’t possible and you’ll need to work longer hours to make a certain deadline. But working long hours should not be the norm. It’s good to try and balance the workload as best you can across the whole of your PhD. For instance, I often encourage people to start writing papers earlier than they think as these can later become chapters in your thesis. It’s things like this that can help you avoid excess stress in your final year.
• Take time off to recharge. All work and no play makes for an exhausted PhD student! Make the most of opportunities to get involved with extracurricular activities (often at a discount!). I wrote a whole post about making the most of opportunities during your PhD . PhD students should have time for a social life, again I’ve written about that . Also give yourself permission to take time-off day to day for self care, whether that’s to go for a walk in nature, meet friends or binge-watch a show on Netflix. Even within a single working day I often find I’m far more efficient when I break up my work into chunks and allow myself to take time off in-between. This is also a good way to avoid procrastination!

Reduce Stress and Anxiety

During your PhD there will inevitably be times of stress. Your experiments may not be going as planned, deadlines may be coming up fast or you may find yourself pushed too far outside of your comfort zone. But if you manage your response well you’ll hopefully be able to avoid PhD burnout. I’ll say it again: stress does not need to lead to burnout!

Everyone is unique in terms of what works for them so I’d recommend writing down a list of what you find helpful when you feel stressed, anxious or sad and then you can refer to it when you next experience that feeling.

I’ve created a mental health reminders print-out to refer to when times get tough. It’s available now in the resources library (subscribe for free to get the password!).

Below are a few general suggestions to avoid PhD burnout which work for me and you may find helpful.

• Exercise. When you’re feeling down it can be tough to motivate yourself to go and exercise but I always feel much better for it afterwards. When we exercise it helps our body to adapt at dealing with stress, so getting into a good habit can work wonders for both your mental and physical health. Why not see if your uni has any unusual sports or activities you could try? I tried scuba diving and surfing while at Imperial! But remember, exercise doesn’t need to be difficult. It could just involve going for a walk around the block at lunch or taking the stairs rather than the lift.
• Cook / Bake. I appreciate that for many people cooking can be anything but relaxing, so if you don’t enjoy the pressure of cooking an actual meal perhaps give baking a go. Personally I really enjoy putting a podcast on and making food. Pinterest and Youtube can be great visual places to find new recipes.
• Let your mind relax. Switching off is a skill and I’ve found meditation a great way to help clear my mind. It’s amazing how noticeably different I can feel afterwards, having not previously been aware of how many thoughts were buzzing around! Yoga can also be another good way to relax and be present in the moment. My partner and I have been working our way through 30 Days of Yoga with Adriene on Youtube and I’d recommend it as a good way to ease yourself in. As well as being great for your mind, yoga also ticks the box for exercise!
• Read a book. I’ve previously written about the benefits of reading fiction * and I still believe it’s one of the best ways to relax. Reading allows you to immerse yourself in a different world and it’s a great way to entertain yourself during a commute.

* Wondering how I got something published in Science ? Read my guide here .

Talk It Through

• Meet with your supervisor. Don’t suffer in silence, if you’re finding yourself struggling or burned out raise this with your supervisor and they should be able to work with you to find ways to reduce the pressure. This may involve you taking some time off, delegating some of your workload, suggesting an alternative course of action or signposting you to services your university offers.

Also remember that facing PhD-related challenges can be common. I wrote a whole post about mine in case you want to cheer yourself up! We can’t control everything we encounter, but we can control our response.

A free self-care checklist is also now available in the resources library , providing ideas to stay healthy and avoid PhD burnout.

Top Tips for Avoiding PhD Burnout

On top of everything we’ve covered in the sections above, here are a few overarching tips which I think could help you to avoid PhD burnout:

• Work sensible hours . You shouldn’t feel under pressure from your supervisor or anyone else to be pulling crazy hours on a regular basis. Even if you adore your project it isn’t healthy to be forfeiting other aspects of your life such as food, sleep and friends. As a starting point I suggest treating your PhD as a 9-5 job. About a year into my PhD I shared how many hours I was working .
• Reduce your use of social media. If you feel like social media could be having a negative impact on your mental health, why not try having a break from it?
• Do things outside of your PhD . Bonus points if this includes spending time outdoors, getting exercise or spending time with friends. Basically, make sure the PhD isn’t the only thing occupying both your mental and physical ife.
• Regularly check in on how you’re feeling. If you wait until you’re truly burnt out before seeking help, it is likely to take you a long time to recover and you may even feel that dropping out is your only option. While that can be a completely valid choice I would strongly suggest to check in with yourself on a regular basis and speak to someone early on (be that your supervisor, or a friend or family member) if you find yourself struggling.

I really hope that this post has been useful for you. Nothing is more important than your mental health and PhD burnout can really disrupt that. If you’ve got any comments or suggestions which you think other PhD scholars could find useful please feel free to share them in the comments section below.

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Tip 1: Break it into such small, discrete goals that you almost feel silly writing them down individually.

This is by far the most important skill on this list. I only started developing this skill while writing my thesis but have since honed it while working in industrial R&D.   Subscribe to our newsletter at the bottom of this page   for the next blog post “Why I left academia in search of self-development”.

The value of this skill cannot be understated and luckily can be easily learned by anyone. Here’s how I make it work: Set aside 15 minutes for planning out your next 10-20 hours of work on a project. Create a large to-do list for each project (there are a lot of great Excel templates online). You can list some big milestones further out but keep the tiny details within range of tasks you could finish in the next few days. Every morning, review your tasks, add new discrete tasks that are now within range. Add a number (1-10) to every task to denote the order you’re going to work through them for this specific day. Stick to the list and avoid jumping to topics off-list that pop up. If something important   and   urgent pops up, add it to your list and give it a number.

Some examples for your shortlist if you were writing a thesis:

• Send email to professor about feedback from Chapter 4
• Re-format figure captions from Chapter 4
• Write two paragraphs about results from experiments on October 4 th -12 th
• Create summary plot for above experiments
• Import and reformat data from experiments October 19 th -27 th
• Write rough outline for rest of Chapter 5
• Send outline of Chapter 5 to professor
• Review feedback from professor on Chapter 4
• Make list of changes in Chapter 4 based on professor’s feedback this morning

Are you the type of person that writes “Make List” on your to-do list just so you have something to cross off? Do you write down tasks you just finished just to cross them off?

If you are, you have a head start on this method! Creating and working through a list in this much discretized detail has a lot of secondary effects. You’ll be forced to plan out your work in greater detail (and prioritize better). You’ll be more likely to use small chunks of time effectively to make progress and free up more time for yourself. Most importantly,   you’ll finish your day with a sense of accomplishment and forward momentum because you got things done , instead of the feeling that you moved the needle from 23% to 24% complete after 10 hours of work. As ridiculous as this list may sound, I’ve found it has a profound psychological effect on my motivation and momentum for the rest of the day. The key is to have the discipline to spend those first 15 minutes of your day planning instead of reacting to every thought or email that comes in. Try it out for one week straight and make modifications based on what is working for you.

Tip 2: Write everything that comes to mind, then trim and re-organize later.

If it’s flowing in your mind, get it into the whitespace of your document   somewhere . I’ve found that most technical writing blocks come when a person doesn’t know how exactly to write the next thing or isn’t sure what exactly should come next, even though they have ideas and words in their head for later sections. Your brain can get stuck running in circles testing out different ways to present the information and become paralyzed by the endless possibilities coupled with the lack of a clear path.

How can you put a puzzle together if you don’t know what the pieces look like?

It’s much easier to decide on the best idea flow   after   you’ve put the bulk of each idea onto the paper. When you have all the information in place and pseudo-organized, pick through it with a fine-tooth comb to trim down superfluous sentences and smooth out the transitions between paragraphs. Then, send the section to your adviser and group members for feedback. Continue writing other sections while waiting for their feedback.

Tip 3: Recognize that you don’t have to close every single loose end.

The point of your thesis is to document your discoveries and progress so that a new person can carry the torch forward without starting from scratch. If you found something interesting but can’t explain it, just present the data and state the questions still to be answered. Include your ideas about what could be done next to get closer to the answers. If you’ve spent more than three hours banging your head against the table staring at one plot, it’s time to move on to the next section. You’ll be surprised how working on other parts can stimulate ideas that can help close the difficult section off later.

Tip 4: Set up your formatting correctly immediately when starting.

Hopefully you’re proficient in LaTeX. If not (I wasn’t), learn how to properly assign section and sub-section headings in Word and to keep consistent formatting between them. This will be critical for auto-updating your table of contents. It will also help you collapse sections and jump around in your 200+ page document from the sidebar “Navigation Pane”. Create actual captions for your figures and tables using the built-in functionality and link references in the text to those captions. Now, when you add a new image earlier in the document, the figure and all its references will be updated automatically. Make sure to also set up your citation editor right away using the recommended format and make sure it can auto-generate the reference list. You may have gotten away with manually formatting these for short journal article submissions, but you will have untold headaches clicking through the text and re-numbering each reference if you don’t do this from the start. Check with your Graduate Studies department to see if they have a pre-formatted document you can use.

Tip 5: Remember that this is a struggle for   everyone .

If you find yourself getting lost in self-deprecation, re-frame your thinking. Instead of “Why can’t I focus on this?” ask yourself “What factors are causing me to lose focus and how can I limit these or mitigate their effects?” Instead of asking “Why can’t I make sense of this data?”, re-frame it as “How can I present this data factually while pointing out the unknowns?”

Tip 6: Put your phone on airplane mode and out of arms’ reach.

You already know that your phone is the #1 distraction you have. Make the distraction less of a willpower issue and more of a practicality issue by putting your phone on airplane mode and putting it somewhere on the other side of the room, in a box, in another room, etc. The further away, the better. Now you’ll have to weigh the hassle of getting up and retrieving it to quickly check it for notifications.

Tip 7: Use an auto-responder on your email or put it in Do Not Disturb mode.

Once your phone is hidden, it’s time to take care of distractions on your computer. Both Gmail and Outlook have functions to turn off notifications or stop retrieving messages altogether for set periods of time. For instance, you could set your send/receive interval to once every 4 hours. Another trick is to turn on your auto-responder to say something along the lines of “Thanks for your message. In order to focus on my writing, I’m currently only checking email at noon and 6pm. I will get back to you as soon as possible.” Others will pick up on this and email you less often and only about real issues.

Tip 8: Set a visible timer for focused work periods.

I found it much easier to sustain a 45-minute focused session if I knew I had a planned break coming up soon. There are several apps available for setting timers and some that can also mute your notifications while running. If you schedule your breaks (and actually give yourself a break when the timer runs out), you’ll be less likely to want a break at the first sign of frustration.

Tip 9: Build in a short 5-10 minute exercise routine for your breaks.

After a few good hours of focus my biggest hurdle was feeling anxious or restless. Some nights I would decide it was a “workout” night and every 30 minutes or so, I would get on the floor and do a few minutes pushups, crunches, bicycle kicks, leg lifts or planks. After a few minutes of this I’d be tired enough that I would   want   to sit back down and settle in. The big advantage was getting my blood flowing, which can stimulate your brain and give a small energy boost.

Tip 10: Work in an environment around other people who are focused (leverage social pressure).

Do you feel like exercising at high intensity more in an empty gym or one where there are dozens of others giving it their all? For me, it’s the latter. There’s a subconscious social pressure I feel to not stick out as slacking. I found the same effect in the library or coffee shop.

For some ridiculous reason, I felt like people behind me would judge me if I had Facebook up on my screen or was playing a game on my phone.

Even if that judgement was an illusion, I harnessed it to stay on-task. I found this especially helpful after 11pm or so to know that there were others doing the same thing. If all your friends are going out to the bar, do you get FOMO (fear of missing out) more at a coffee shop around others who are studying or staying home in the dark by yourself?

Tip 11: Change scenery regularly until you find your ideal spots.

My favorite part about thesis writing is that   I could work from anywhere . This is a novelty you may never have again in your life, depending on your field. Take advantage of this and find those magical hangouts where you can find your flow and blaze through your work.

In three months of writing, I visited at least eight different coffee shops plus every library on campus.

There were two or three that really worked for me, depending on the time of day. Even after a half-day at one of your favorite spots, it can be reinvigorating to move to another later in the day.

Tip 12: Find your best writing jams and don’t listen to them unless you’re ready to get in the zone.

This is a proven psychological trick. Do you still have a throwback song you associate with middle school or high school sports? Something your team listened to in the locker room to get pumped up? You can manufacture these associations in your brain in a similar way. Find your best playlists, and make sure to pause them while you’re taking breaks or if you find yourself distracted. When the music is on, it’s time to work. Listening to your best playlists while doing other things will dilute the association in your brain, so stay disciplined with this one!

Tip 13: Take a mid-day break with some form of exercise or activity.

The most productive day you can hope for is 10-12 hours of focused effort. If you deprive yourself of breaks early in the day you’re likely to grind to a halt in the evening and lose the equivalent of your would-be break time in procrastination and distraction. Be proactive about scheduling in your down time to elevate your productivity later in the day. For me personally, my best days included several short breaks evenly spread throughout the day plus one mid-day break of ~2 hours. This larger break was usually some combination of exercise, cooking, eating or cleaning. Experiment and find what works best for you!

Tip 14: Set aside 10 minutes in the morning to honestly review what went well and what didn’t work the previous day.

An honest self-assessment will do wonders for improving your methods each day. Approach it like an athlete watching game tape to identify weaknesses. Where did your distractions come from? How did you feel throughout the day?

When was your most productive time and what factors lead to that productivity?

Make changes in your strategy for the upcoming day, and review again the following day to see if it was an improvement.

Tip 15: Add an expected time of completion (ETC) to every item on your to-do list for that day.

This follows Tip #1 to break down projects into tiny discrete and definitely conquerable tasks. Make a reasonable guess of how long each thing should take if it goes smoothly. If you do well and get ahead of schedule, reward yourself with an extra break. If you get behind schedule, you’ll start to feel a sense of urgency that will motivate you to catch up.

The alternative is giving yourself 3 months to complete thousands of micro-tasks, at which point you’ll always feel overwhelmed and unsure of your pace to completion.

Tip 16: Take care of your body.

This is a marathon, not a sprint. Monitor your caffeine intake, your hours of sleep, your periods of exercise and the types of foods you eat. Keep it balanced day-to-day with only the occasional late night push when you're really in the zone. 

Tip 17: Dedicate time to being social!

If you’re writing your thesis you are likely approaching the end of your time at your school. This may be the last few months you have to spend with all of the friends and colleagues you’ve made along your journey. Don’t forget to dedicate a few hours a week to be social and relish in the time you have left to all be together. This is a time of your life you’ll remember forever, so better mix in some great memories!

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

“How is your thesis going?”–Ph.D. students’ perspectives on mental health and stress in academia

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliations Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany, sustainAbility Ph.D. Initiative at the Eberhard Karls Universität, Tübingen, Germany

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Writing – review & editing

Roles Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Roles Writing – review & editing

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Software, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

• Julian Friedrich, 
• Anna Bareis, 
• Moritz Bross, 
• Zoé Bürger, 
• Álvaro Cortés Rodríguez, 
• Nina Effenberger, 
• Markus Kleinhansl, 
• Fabienne Kremer, 
• Cornelius Schröder

• Published: July 3, 2023
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288103
• Peer Review
• Reader Comments

Mental health issues among Ph.D. students are prevalent and on the rise, with multiple studies showing that Ph.D. students are more likely to experience symptoms of mental health-related issues than the general population. However, the data is still sparse. This study aims to investigate the mental health of 589 Ph.D. students at a public university in Germany using a mixed quantitative and qualitative approach. We administered a web-based self-report questionnaire to gather data on the mental health status, investigated mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety, and potential areas for improvement of the mental health and well-being of Ph.D. students. Our results revealed that one-third of the participants were above the cut-off for depression and that factors such as perceived stress and self-doubt were prominent predictors of the mental health status of Ph.D. students. Additionally, we found job insecurity and low job satisfaction to be predictors of stress and anxiety. Many participants in our study reported working more than full-time while being employed part-time. Importantly, deficient supervision was found to have a negative effect on Ph.D. students’ mental health. The study’s results are in line with those of earlier investigations of mental health in academia, which likewise reveal significant levels of depression and anxiety among Ph.D. students. Overall, the findings provide a greater knowledge of the underlying reasons and potential interventions required for advancing the mental health problems experienced by Ph.D. students. The results of this research can guide the development of effective strategies to support the mental health of Ph.D. students.

Citation: Friedrich J, Bareis A, Bross M, Bürger Z, Cortés Rodríguez Á, Effenberger N, et al. (2023) “How is your thesis going?”–Ph.D. students’ perspectives on mental health and stress in academia. PLoS ONE 18(7): e0288103. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288103

Editor: Khader Ahmad Almhdawi, Jordan University of Science and Technology Faculty of Applied Medical Science, JORDAN

Received: March 23, 2023; Accepted: June 20, 2023; Published: July 3, 2023

Copyright: © 2023 Friedrich et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: The anonymized data set is available at https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.12914 . All code for the analysis can be found at https://github.com/coschroeder/mental_health_analysis .

Funding: We acknowledge support by the Open Access Publishing Fund of University of Tübingen. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

Work situations can be demanding and have a profound influence on employees’ mental health and well-being across different sectors and disciplines [ 1 ]. Multiple studies show that the mental health status of people working in academia and especially that of Ph.D. students seems to be particularly detrimental when compared to the public [e.g., 2 , 3 ]. Disorders such as anxiety and depression are on the rise in the general population [ 4 , 5 ]. Multiple studies show that this is even more severe in academia [ 6 – 10 ] and in particular Ph.D. students are affected by mental health problems [ 11 , 12 ]. Worldwide surveys grant support for Ph.D. students’ suboptimal and alarming mental health situations [ 13 , 14 ].

A comprehensive study with more than 2000 participants (90% Ph.D. students, 10% Master students) from over 200 institutions across different countries showed that graduate students were more than six times more likely to experience symptoms of depression and anxiety than the general public [ 2 ]. Furthermore, a global-scale meta-analysis [ 3 ] and several other studies concerned with the mental health of Ph.D. students in different countries, e.g., the United States [ 7 , 9 ], the United Kingdom [ 6 ], France [ 15 ], Poland [ 8 ], Belgium [ 16 ] or Germany [ 11 , 12 ] voice concerns about the mental health situation of Ph.D. students. Recent research conducted in Belgium has consistently found a higher prevalence of mental health problems among Ph.D. students compared to different groups of other highly educated individuals [ 16 ]. In the same study, 50% of the Ph.D. students reported that they suffer from some form of mental health problem, and every third is at risk of a common psychiatric disorder [ 16 ]. A similar picture is forming in Germany. For example, the prevalence of at least moderate depression among doctoral researchers at the Max Planck Society, one of the biggest academic societies in Germany, was between 9.6% and 11.6% higher than in the age-related general population [ 11 ].

Increasing numbers of anxiety and depression among Ph.D. students

Recent studies describe not only a high prevalence but also a rising tendency of mental health issues among Ph.D. students. In a study from 2017, 12% of the respondents reported seeking help for depression or anxiety related to their Ph.D. [ 13 ], while in 2019, the result was even more drastic, as 36% of the respondents reported that having searched for help for those same reasons [ 14 ]. Several studies among doctoral researchers within the Max Planck Society show similar results. For instance, a survey in 2019 showed that the average of the Ph.D. students were at risk for an anxiety disorder and another sample from 2020 provided even more robust support for this claim [ 11 , 12 ]. Furthermore, the mean depression score increased from 2019 to 2020 in both samples [ 11 ].

Risk factors and resources

Given these alarming statistics, several studies addressed risks and resources for increased mental health issues. Other studies have revealed that gender, perceived work-life balance, and mentorship quality are correlated with mental health issues [ 2 , 17 ]. Specifically, female gender [ 17 ] and transgender/gender-nonconforming Ph.D. students are, on average, more likely to suffer from mental health issues [ 2 ]. In contrast, a positive and supportive mentoring relationship or a supervisor’s leadership style, and a good work-life balance are positively associated with better mental health [ 2 , 16 ]. While some authors [ 18 ] reported a negative correlation between the Ph.D. stage and mental health, with students at later stages disclosing greater levels of distress, others [ 16 ] did not find significant differences in this regard. Moreover, another report identified that Ph.D. students’ satisfaction levels strongly correlate with their relationship with their supervisors, number of publications, hours worked, and received guidance from advisors [ 19 ]. Furthermore, several studies showed a positive correlation between job satisfaction [ 20 , 21 ] as well as a negative correlation between job insecurity [ 22 ] and mental health or perceived stress, also in Ph.D. students.

Aim and research questions

Taken together, the alarming findings on the psychological status of Ph.D. students around the globe cannot be denied. However, data on the situation of Ph.D. students in Germany are scarce [ 11 , 12 , 23 ]; thus, comparisons of different universities within a country can hardly be made. However, addressing those differences is particularly relevant since the working conditions, concerning contract types, financial situations or supervision vary strongly among different countries, geographical regions and universities or institutions [ 24 ]. Furthermore, little is known about the reasons for this precarious situation and where exactly the need for action lies [ 25 ]. Therefore, the aim of this study was to conduct a survey among Ph.D. students at a university in the southwest of Germany to assess Ph.D. students’ mental health status. Additionally, the present study also reveals information on the extent of the need for additional support services and pinpoints the specific areas where these services ought to be emphasized. In order to help identify relevant indicators, this investigation provides empirically sound findings on the mental health situation of Ph.D. students in Germany.

Materials and methods

Sample and procedure.

Overall, 589 participants (60.3% female, 0.8% of diverse gender, M Age = 28.8, SD Age = 3.48, range 17–48 years) out of a total of enrolled 2552 Ph.D. students (response rate: 23.1%; actual numbers of Ph.D. students at the University of Tübingen higher as some Ph.D. students are not enrolled) took part in an online survey from October to December 2021. Instructions, items, and scales were all presented in English. Participants could answer the open questions in German or English and were comprised of Ph.D. students across various stages of their Ph.D. at the University of Tübingen without further exclusion criteria. The online questionnaire was sent to Ph.D. students’ email addresses via mailing distribution lists in cooperation with the central institution for strategic researcher development (Graduate Academy) of the University of Tübingen and with Ph.D. representatives of different faculties. Ethics approval was obtained by the “Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Economics and Social Science of the University of Tübingen” and written informed consent was given by the participants.

The distribution of faculty affiliation of the participants was heterogeneous with shares of 61.8% Science, 12.4% Humanities, 11.7% Economics and Social Sciences. These numbers reflect the different sizes of faculties and are roughly aligned with the relative numbers of students (41.7% Science, 24.8% Medicine, 16.2% Humanities, 7.5% Economics and Social Sciences), with a clear underrepresentation of the Medical Faculty. Faculties with less than 20 participants or participants with multiple answers were grouped into one category for further analysis (Others 14.1%, see S1 Table ). 67.9% of the participants were German and in total, 82.9% came from European countries. During data collection, the participants were at different stages of their Ph.D. ranging from 0 to over 130 months with a mean time of two and a half years (30.0 months) of Ph.D. progress.

First, demographic data and background information on the current Ph.D. situation were collected. In a second part, to get a differentiated view, we included different measures to operationalize the mental health status of Ph.D. students. The quantitative questionnaire assessed 1) general health, generalized anxiety disorder, as well as internally reviewed self-generated questions, 2) life and job satisfaction, and quantitative job insecurity, and 3) stressors (institutional and systemic), causes of stress and potential solutions. This study also collected information regarding the degree of participants’ familiarity with the mental health resources available at the university, e.g., points of contacts for counseling, in order to evaluate whether Ph.D. students make use of these services. Moreover, participants were asked to name additional services that they may consider necessary.

General health and stressors.

General health was assessed by two items of the Perceived Health Questionnaire (PHQ-2) [ 26 ]. Participants were asked to indicate how frequently they had experienced depressed moods and anhedonia over the past four weeks on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 4 (nearly every day). Additionally, they were presented with seven items of the Generalized Anxiety Disorder scale (GAD-7) [ 27 ] capturing the severity of various anxiety signs like nervousness, restlessness, and easy irritation on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 4 (nearly every day). Both scales were used in this combination in a previous study in German higher education [ 28 ]. Furthermore, we included two binary questions on whether the participants are currently in psychotherapy and if they have ever been diagnosed with a mental disorder.

The condensed version of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) [ 29 ] was used to get the degree of stressful situations in life in the last twelve months or since the start of the Ph.D. [ 30 ]. The response scale ranged from 0 (never) to 4 (very often), the following being a sample item: “… how often have you felt that you were unable to control the important things in your life?” To check the internal consistency of the four items, we calculated Cronbach’s alpha which was .79.

Job satisfaction and life satisfaction.

Three items on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) were used to measure job satisfaction [ 31 ], where a higher mean score indicated higher job satisfaction. A sample item is: “I am satisfied with my job.” Cronbach’s alpha was .86. Additionally, we added one item concerning general life satisfaction [adapted from 32 ] with the same response categories to get a more holistic insight.

Job insecurity.

To assess the fear of losing the job itself, quantitative job insecurity was measured with three items (e.g., “I am worried about having to leave my job before I would like to.”) [ 33 ] on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). We calculated a mean score with higher scores indicating higher job insecurity. Cronbach’s alpha was .80.

Institutional and systemic stressors.

For institutional stressors, we focused mainly on the role of supervision and included eight questions, four were framed using positive wording and four with negative wording, each with a scale from 1 (not at all) to 5 (all of the time). We summarized these questions in two constructs (positive support/negative support) which had Cronbach’s alphas of .85 and .76, respectively. As for systemic stressors, we included two questions on long-term contracts and on future perspectives, again using a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

To cover the potential impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the implemented regulations, we included two questions to evaluate whether the pandemic affected the students’ general situation. On the one hand, participants were asked to pick the statement that best describes the effects of the pandemic in general (“yes, it improved my general situation”, “yes, it worsened my general situation”, “yes, but it neither worsened nor improved my general situation”, “no”), and on the other hand, they were asked to evaluate whether the particular answers provided in this survey had been affected by the pandemic from 1 (very likely) to 5 (very unlikely).

Rating procedure and open answers

Causes of stress and potential solutions..

We included three open-ended questions in the questionnaire to get a deeper understanding of the perceived causes of stress, potential ways to improve mental health, and ways to improve the overall situation of Ph.D. students. The questions were: (1) “What is/are the cause(s) of your stress?” (2) “What would need to change to improve your mental health status?” (3) “What could be done to improve your situation?” Participants could mention as many points as they wanted (without any word limit). To analyze these questions, we built categories by following the model of inductive category development [ 34 ]. Two raters screened the first and last 20 responses in the data set and created categories for reoccurring topics (for a list containing all categories see S5 – S7 Tables). In the next steps, two new raters rated all open answers with the developed categories and added additional categories if needed. Applicable categories were rated with 1 (“category was mentioned”) or 0 (“category was not mentioned”). For example, the following response to question (1) “[My] supervisor is on maternity leave with open end, i.e. I have no one to talk to about my topic and have almost nothing so far […] I feel like I’m not good enough at this, not sure I will be able to succeed–everyone else has other projects and publications except me–no topic-related network” was rated with 1 in the following four categories: supervision (quality & quantity), social integration & interactions (private & professional), self-perception (internal factors), and perceived lack of relevant competences & experience–(sense) of progress and success. The full list of categories and inter-rater reliability as measured by Krippendorf’s Alpha is reported in Table 3 [ 35 ].

Descriptive statistics of work environment and workload

The largest part of the participants (65.5%) was temporarily employed, 12.1% got a scholarship, 7.6% were permanently employed, and 6.5% were not employed at all. The mean for total contract length was 34.3 months, with a range between two and 72 months. About 10.5% of the participants had a contract for only 12 months or shorter. A similar large variation was found in the percentage of employment with a mean of 63%, ranging from 10% to 100% of employment. For workload, we found a mean of 36.0 hours of Ph.D.-related work per week with a standard deviation of 15.6 hours. After taking a closer look at high workloads, we found that 31.3% of the participants work 45 hours or more (21.5% work 50 hours and more) per week. On top of their Ph.D. work, many Ph.D. students work in other jobs, which combined with the hours spent for Ph.D.-related work, summed up to the mean of 44.1 overall working hours per week. A detailed description can be found in S1 Table .

Faculty-wise comparison

In an explorative manner, we compared the mean differences of the most important variables between different faculties. Most of the analyzed variables did not show significant differences. Still, we want to stress that the highly imbalanced sample sizes (see S3 Table ) could lead to false negative outcomes due to the small numbers of participants in some groups. However, we found that the mean job insecurity was significantly different between faculties ( p < .001, Kruskal-Wallis rank sum test) with comparable low job insecurity in the faculties of law ( M = 2.10, SD = 1.22) and theology ( M = 2.38, SD = 1.19) and high insecurity in the faculty of humanities ( M = 3.32, SD = 0.91).

In total, 41.9% of the participants stated that their general situation worsened due to the pandemic, while 28.5% stated that the pandemic affected but it neither worsened nor improved their general situation. 33.5% of the participants stated that their responses in this study were “very likely” or “likely” to be affected by the pandemic, with a mean of 2.97 ( SD = 1.26).

General health and stressors

The mean of the sum score for PHQ-2 in our study was 2.32 which is below the cut-off of three for major depression [ 26 ]. Yet, 33.1% of the participants were above the cut-off. For the GAD-7, the sum score for the study’s sample was 8.49. Cut points of 5 might be interpreted as mild, cut points of 10 as moderate and 15 as severe levels of anxiety [ 27 ], which implies a mild risk level for generalized anxiety with the suggestion of a follow-up examination in this sample. When asking for mental disorders, we found that 19.9% of the participants ( n = 99) have already been diagnosed with a mental disorder and 15.5% ( n = 77) are currently in psychotherapy. The sum score for the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) of 7.79 (with Min = 0, Max = 15) was above the total sum score compared to a representative British sample (6.11) [ 36 ] and a representative German community sample (4.79 for PSS-4) [ 37 ]. Job satisfaction of our participants with a total sum score of 10.06 was lower compared to a sum score of 12.79 in a German sample of workers in small- and medium sized enterprises [ 38 ]. The mean score for job satisfaction was 3.35, also lower than in a sample of Ph.D. students in Belgium (3.9) [ 39 ]. Job insecurity was with a total sum score of 8.76 higher compared to the German small- and medium sized enterprises sample (5.67) [ 38 ]. Consistently, more than 80% of the Ph.D. students in our study were worried about the lack of permanent or long-term contracts in academia ( M = 4.25, SD = 1.09; 5 indicating a strong agreement). Nevertheless, around half of the participants (54.5%) believed that having a Ph.D. would help them find a good job ( M = 3.49, SD = 0.97). We found a mean score of 3.48 ( SD = 0.98) for the positive support questions which is above average over response levels. Around 57.1% of the Ph.D. students felt supported by their supervisor “most” or “all of the time”. Around 55.7% felt comfortable when contacting the supervisor for support. The negative support construct was with a mean score of 2.18 below average: 46.7% of the participants had never felt looked down, and 62.6% had never felt mistreated by their supervisor. Nevertheless, 28.6% of the Ph.D. students answered feelings of degradation and 19.1% felt mistreated more than “some of the time”. When it comes to the frequency of the meetings with the supervisor, the mean reported a value of 2.4 laying somewhere between having meetings once a month (2) and at least every three months (3). However, 18.2% reported meeting their supervisor only once every six months or less. For sample items and detailed values see S2 Table .

When we analyzed the relationship between the studied outcomes, we found that all major constructs correlated significantly (see Table 1 ). High correlations occurred between the items of the related PHQ-2 and GAD-7 as well as their connections to the PSS. Understandably, the two institutional support dimensions were highly correlated ( r = -.69).

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288103.t001

Regression for perceived stress, depression, and anxiety

To predict potential driving factors for the two more direct mental health measurements, namely depression and anxiety, and for perceived stress, we employed linear regression models with these three constructs as response variables controlling for age and gender. We included relevant risk factors and stressors such as job insecurity, perceived stress, negative support and resources such as job and life satisfaction, and positive support to get a comprehensible overview over predictors. All analyses were carried out in R statistics version 4.1.3.

For depression, significant predictors were job satisfaction (β = -0.1, SE = 0.04, p < .05), life satisfaction (β = -0.3, SE = 0.04, p < .001), perceived stress (β = 0.4, SE = 0.05, p < .001) and negative institutional support (β = 0.11, SE = 0.05, p < .05, see Table 2 ). The model explained 46.7% of the variance, F (8, 482) = 54.5, p < .01.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288103.t002

For anxiety, all studied variables except job satisfaction and positive support were significant predictors with a variance explanation of 36.0%, F (8, 392) = 29.5, p < .01 (see Table 2 ). Noticeable was the strong influence of perceived stress on anxiety. Specifically, we observed that with an increase of one unit in perceived stress, the level of GAD-7 increased by 2.02 units and was in line with the high correlation ( r = .52, p < .01, Table 2 ).

For perceived stress, we found that job insecurity (β = 0.15, SE = 0.02, p < .01), life satisfaction (β = -0.32, SE = 0.03, p < .01) as well as negative institutional support (β = 0.13, SE = 0.04, p < .01) were significant predictors with a model variance explanation of 42.7%, F (4, 486) = 53.5, p < .01. The detailed results for this regression analysis can be found in S4 Table .

Qualitative answers

In the following, we report the main categories with short sample quotes as well as the mean frequency of the two raters (see Table 3 ; details in S5 – S7 Tables). The inter-rater reliability as indicated by Krippendorff’s alpha for the top five categories of all questions was above α ≥ .67, except for the category Manageable Workload for question MH06_1 (see Table 3 ) with α = .62; CI [0.50; 0.74]. A threshold of .67 is commonly considered as the lower conceivable limit that still allows tentative conclusions [ 40 ].

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288103.t003

Causes of stress.

The question “What is/are the cause(s) of your stress?” was answered by n = 446 participants. To cover the breadth of the responses, we built 18 categories. The most frequently mentioned categories were Workload & Time Pressure (mean rating frequency = 211), Self-Perception ( M = 132.5), Job-Insecurity ( M = 93), Social Integration & Interactions ( M = 91), and Supervision Quality & Quantity ( M = 88.5). The category Workload & Time Pressure includes all responses referring to the amount of work and/or deadlines. The category Self-Perception includes responses that indicate a perceived lack of competences or other personal doubts, concerns, and worries (e.g., “Since I started my Ph.D. I have almost constantly felt stupid”, “feeling like not belonging in academia, lack of self-confidence, feeling of making too little progress”). The category Job Insecurity reflects responses regarding contract length and general uncertainty about future employment (e.g., “scholarship is to be ended”, “Not knowing how things will work out after the PhD”, “Hopelessness of scientific career because there are too few full-time positions”). The category Social Integration & Interactions covers responses regarding the integration and sense of belonging in the work environment (e.g., “not valued by colleagues”, “being socially isolated at work”) as well as social issues in the private life (e.g., “Mostly my personal life, or often the lack thereof”, “problems with parents”). The category Supervision Quality & Quantity was used to capture all supervision-related responses including comments about the lack of support, feedback, frequency of meetings, or supervisors’ interest in the topics (e.g., “no clear communication with supervisor”, “lack of support from supervisor, even gossiping about me behind my back”).

Potential ways to improve the mental health status.

When asked “What would need to change to improve your mental health status?”, the Ph.D. students’ responses ( n = 307) included various topics, some addressing compensation and income-related aspects, others highlighting supportive supervision. Overall, the responses lead to twelve different categories. Most answers referred to Supportive Supervision ( M = 98.5), followed by Job Security/Contract ( M = 59). Sample quotes with respect to supervision are e.g., “more feedback from supervisor or even more interest in my topic” or “more regular support by supervisor”. The category Job Security/Contract contains comments with respect to contract length and aspects for future employment (e.g., “no more worries about not being able to get my contract renewed”). The category Manageable Workload ( M = 56.5) includes all responses around work-life balance (e.g., “having also activities beside work”, “clear work hours”). The fourth category was Compensation & Financial Security ( M = 35) and included all income- and compensation-related aspects of the job (e.g., “Be paid 100% would be a start”, “Get paid for all the time at work”). The category Less Additional Tasks ( M = 27.5) was used to specifically cover responses mentioning the number of additional tasks within the job (“Less work in teaching/work unrelated to PhD”).

Ways to improve the personal situation.

In addition to the previous question, which focused on general ways to improve the mental health status, we asked the Ph.D. students the following question: “What could be done to improve your situation?” Based on the themes and topics mentioned in the responses ( n = 281) we built eleven categories. The categories mentioned the most were Job-Security & Compensation ( M = 85.5), followed by Supportive Supervision ( M = 68), Services and Support System ( M = 39.5), Decrease Pressure to Perform ( M = 39.5), and Manageable Workload ( M = 36). The category Job-Security & Compensation includes responses like “chances of getting a long-term job in academia, not just the three-year programs” or “Fair payment (half of students get 50% others 65% even at the same institute)”. For the category Supportive Supervision “Regular meetings with people who are supportive & have an expertise in my research topic” can serve as a sample quote. The category Services and Support System was built to cover the responses named a solution outside the working group and team, such as “it would be helpful to see a university-based psychologist outside of the regular working hours” or “more courses (or better communications about them) about stress management”. The next category was labeled Decrease Pressure to Perform and included all responses that highlighted a high level of perceived pressure, such as “the performance pressure (every talk at a seminar is a job talk) is a big problem” or “Instead of pressuring academics to publish as much as possible, there should be more focus on the quality instead of the quantity of their articles/publication”. The last category, Manageable Workload , contained answers with respect to the amount of work (e.g., “Normal working hours, having really free-time without having the feeling that I should be working, it should be normal to take all vacation days”).

Summary of the qualitative answers.

With respect to the open answers, it can be summarized that the factors named as causes for stress and the possible solutions cover a wide range of topics. However, there are reoccurring topics across all three questions, such as supervision, workload, and job security. The role of supervision is a reemerging motif in the qualitative content analysis. While the quality and quantity of supervision were seen as a cause of stress, supportive supervision has a positive impact on the mental health status as well as the whole situation of the Ph.D. students. Furthermore, job insecurity was mentioned as an important stressor, while stable contracts and appropriate compensation for the work and fewer extra tasks were also added for improvement. Workload and time pressure were the most often stated causes of stress, followed by self-doubts and worries about not having enough competencies for the job. A manageable workload, fewer additional tasks, and a lower pressure to perform were indicated by the participants as valuable improvements.

Summary of the main findings

The conducted survey investigates the mental health of Ph.D. students at a university in the southwest of Germany and gives insights into what causes stress and mental health disorders and where there is a need for further support services. Our qualitative and quantitative analyses revealed interesting and consistent results on the alarming situation of the mental health of Ph.D. students.

First, our quantitative results revealed that one-third of the participants were above the cut-off for depression which is an indicator of a high risk of depression that should be checked by a health professional. On average, the surveyed Ph.D. students were at a mild risk level for an anxiety disorder. While our study design does not allow us to diagnose mental illnesses, it identifies problems that need to be pursued further. It reveals some unhealthy working conditions and increased risks for mental illnesses. Our qualitative and quantitative results showed consistently that many of the most prominent issues for our study’s participants are personal factors such as perceived stress, life satisfaction and self-doubt, but modulated by structural deficits such as financial and job security as well as workload and time pressure. The quantitative analyses revealed that life satisfaction, perceived stress and negative support are the main predictors for anxiety disorders as well as depression. Additionally, low job satisfaction was a significant predictor of depression and job insecurity for anxiety. Furthermore, we identified job insecurity, life satisfaction as well as negative institutional support as predictors for perceived stress.

Second and besides mental health problems, our quantitative analyses showed how supervision and the work environment played a role in the mental health and general well-being of Ph.D. students. Deficient supervision could affect Ph.D. students’ perceived job insecurity and job dissatisfaction. Although good supervision was not a predictor for satisfaction, being comfortable with contacting the supervisor could lower the perceived stress. This shows the importance of the supervisor-student relationship and highlights the importance of the social work environment, which was also mentioned by study participants in the open-end questions. While the categories in the qualitative analyses mainly served to find recurring themes, they can also be used to distinguish between different levels. Some participants reflected causes of stress on a personal level (e.g., self-perception). In contrast, others set the focus on the supervisor level or working group level, or even on the more structural abstract level of the academic system.

Third, our study does not only investigate the mental health situation of Ph.D. students, but we also analyze how the situation and mental health status could be improved. Many suggestions were straightforward given the results of the causes of stress, i.e., bad supervision should be improved, and a secure income should be guaranteed. However, we were also able to show that Ph.D. students wish to make use of services and support systems that could be provided by the university. Furthermore, less pressure to perform and a manageable workload with fewer additional tasks besides the Ph.D. project might decrease the stress level and improve mental health status.

Overall, detrimental mental health is a known problem in academia, and we show another example of its extent as well as opportunities for improvement at a German university.

Comparison to other studies

Data on Ph.D. students’ situation in Germany are scarce, and we, therefore, perform a broader comparison with Ph.D. students around the world. However, the results of this comparison should be taken with caution as our questionnaire and time of survey conduction are unique. We focus mainly on PHQ-2 [ 26 ] and GAD-7 [ 27 ], for which other studies in Germany during the pandemic showed that–compared to pre-COVID-19 reference values–these measurements were significantly increased [ 41 ]. Two studies conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic include the same scales [ 41 , 42 ] and reveal similar results for the general population in Germany, while in our later study from October to December 2021, the risk for anxiety and depression is slightly higher. In our study, one-third of the participants (33.1%) was above the cut-off for major depression, compared to the studies in a 1.5-year earlier timeframe, where 14.1% (March to May 2020; n = 15704, 70.7% female gender; 42.6% university education) [ 42 ] and 21.4% (March to July 2020; n = 16918; 69.7% female gender; 42.4% university education [ 41 ] of the participants with diverse occupations were above the cut-off. Furthermore, in our study, 39.2% of the participants were at the mild risk level for anxiety compared to 27.4% of the participants in an earlier study [ 41 ]. This shows the increase in depression and anxiety during the pandemic and even higher numbers in our study compared with the German general population. Nevertheless, compared to a survey at public research universities in the United States from May to July 2020, the number of doctoral students screened for major depressive disorder symptoms with the same measurements PHQ-2 was higher with 36% [ 43 ], indicating high numbers of mental issues in academia in several countries.

While using the same scales and items for job satisfaction and job insecurity, our study showed worse sum scores compared to a sample of employers and employees in small- and medium sized enterprises in Germany (December 2020 to May 2021; n = 828; 53.7% female gender, M = 41.5 years; 38.8% higher education entrance qualification) [ 38 ]. It seems that Ph.D. students have higher job insecurity and job dissatisfaction compared to workers in diverse branches and occupations. This may result from different contract types, as workers, especially in industrial sectors, have long-term contracts. The recurrent factor of time pressure and workload, also mentioned in the open-end questions, is backed up by the raw numbers of the contract types and working hours, which may also lead to job dissatisfaction. Although the mean contract type in our study is 63%, the mean number of hours dedicated to Ph.D. work ( M = 36.0, SD = 15.6 hours) is almost in the range of a full-time position. What is more, the participants reported a total weekly workload ( M = 44.1, SD = 11.4 hours) that exceeds a typical full-time position in Germany [ 44 ]. The discrepancy between Ph.D. work and corresponding contract types results in a mean of 12.1 hours of overwork per week (based on a 38.5-hour full-time contract, which is the standard contract for Ph.D. students in Germany). This is in line with previous studies where the authors found a mean of 12.6 hours of overwork per week for Ph.D. students in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics disciplines in Germany [ 45 ]. However, the authors did not include any further work obligations and corrected for contract types with low percentages, and thus the results are difficult to compare directly. Furthermore, we used gender as a control variable, which turned out to be statistically significant for anxiety and stress. This is in line with related work where the female gender was reported to be higher correlated with mental disorders [ 2 , 17 , 46 , 47 ].

Strengths and limitations

Generalization..

While we aimed for our study to reflect the current situation for Ph.D. students as best as possible, there are points that are limiting the generalization of the results or are beyond the scope of this survey. First, we collected the data between October and December 2021, a time at which the ordinance on protection against risks of infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus (“Coronavirus-Schutzverordnung”) [ 48 ] was still in place in Germany and influenced private and working life. About one-third (33.5%) of our study population stated that it is very likely or likely that the pandemic affected their answers. Nonetheless, a pandemic is a situation that can reoccur and is only one more reason to proactively set up a resilient Ph.D. graduation system. Another research group [ 49 ] investigated how mental health care should change as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic and concluded that the pandemic could even be seen as a chance to improve mental health services [ 49 ]. Nevertheless, we would like to point out that generalizing from a mental health study conducted during a pandemic may be difficult.

Overall, around 23% of all Ph.D. students at the University of Tübingen [ 50 ] participated in our study, which is slightly below the response rate in other similar studies [e.g., 16 ]. Considering that university students are very frequently invited to various questionnaires and studies, and given that our survey lasted approximately 20 minutes, it can be argued that the participants were motivated to invest time into their responses. However, our study population remains small compared to the total number of Ph.D. students in Germany. Moreover, we want to emphasize the likely sample bias in our data. We recruited participants mainly via mailing lists and our project therefore probably has especially appealed to people who are already interested in health or aware of mental health issues. However, given our relatively large coverage of almost a quarter of all Ph.D. students at the University of Tübingen, even a selective sample can give us insights into overall tendencies. The transferability of our results to other German universities or even universities in other countries is also not guaranteed as the academic systems can largely differ. Additionally, the results of this study are influenced by the overall living conditions the Ph.D. students experience. As Tübingen is a small town in the southwest of Germany, a comparison to larger cities or other countries might not be viable as the conditions probably differ largely.

Finally, even within one university, the generalization of our results is further limited by the uneven distribution of the participants across faculties. Most participants (61.8%) were from the Science Faculty, which is also the largest department (in terms of the highest total number of students) at the University of Tübingen. This skewness limits the faculty-wise comparisons, and we would expect to find interesting insights into the different graduate programs by conducting detailed comparisons. These differences could not only arise from different academic traditions but also from the highly varying expectations on the scope of a Ph.D. thesis. It follows that more detailed and systematic monitoring and data collection in national and international surveys are needed.

Methodology.

In a cross-sectional study, we investigate the current situation of Ph.D. students. While this is a valid and important instrument to access the current state, it cannot give us information about the dynamic changes in the transition phase between undergraduate studies and the Ph.D. as well as across the Ph.D. [ 51 ]. To track these changes or make comparisons over time, a longitudinal study design or propensity score matching procedures [ 52 ] could give further insights. It is therefore desirable to establish regular surveys and monitoring systems either on a university level or in a national survey to provide information on the impact of undertaken actions and implemented changes. We used a mixed quantitative and qualitative research approach. While this provides information on distinct levels, there are some pitfalls. For example, the open answer categories were defined post-hoc. While this gives the possibility for the participants to express their thoughts freely, it makes a systematic analysis more difficult, and the analysis might be biased by the evaluators. Overall, it is important to summarize and statistically analyze our study results on an overall level, but it must not be forgotten that every person and Ph.D. project is individual.

Implications for research and practice

The overall scarce data, paired with worrisome flashlights on the mental health situation of Ph.D. students in different countries, highlights the need for more systematic monitoring of mental health in academia. For this purpose, standardized as well as domain-specific scales for Ph.D. students need to be established and longitudinal data needs to be collected. This would enable researchers to measure the effect of larger environmental changes (such as the COVID-19 pandemic or economic developments) and to measure the impact of interventions targeted to improve the situation. At the same time, we propose including qualitative measurements to assess unknown variables and the unique situation each Ph.D. student faces. These could also inform the development of additional quantitative measurable constructs to reflect the dynamic situation in academia. Such monitoring systems can either be implemented at the university level to give detailed insights into the situation at a specific university or on a national level to get an overall impression of Ph.D. students’ health issues. Optimally, a survey should be promoted from an independent self-governing institution dedicated to advancing science and research. While the demands for a better mental health situation for Ph.D. students are obvious, systematical and political changes need to be addressed in the research community and in academia.

Our mixed methods research approach allows us not only to find out more about the issues of Ph.D. students but also to draw conclusions about what is needed to improve their situation. However, finding solutions to a recognized problem is not a straightforward task, and complex problems often require a step-by-step solution. Therefore, we assume that more practical implications, which could be indicated by an established monitoring system, will be necessary once the first steps have been taken.

In general, we can group interventions into at least four levels that can influence each other: the Ph.D. students themselves, the supervisors, the universities or research institutions, and the greater political context and academic culture. Building on the responses about potential improvements and additional services, we identified the following practical implications:

On an individual level, the main interventions could happen in capacity building (e.g., in time/project management, self-reflection or mental health awareness) but also by being more proactive about changing working modes (e.g., establishing collaborations or a peer counseling system) or by improving the social environment. This could additionally lead to a change in self-perception, for which direct interventions might be more difficult. At this point, we want to highlight that changes on the individual level aim to prevent the development of mental health problems and strengthen the resilience of Ph.D. students. They can at no point replace professional support once such problems have been manifested.

The level of supervision seems to be the most urgent and promising target for an improvement of Ph.D. students’ situation. As supervisors are usually defining a project and its goals, but also additional teaching or other tasks, they are responsible for setting the workload and time constraints. Not only the hard constraints of the working conditions but also the quality of supervision was often mentioned to be highly deficient. Possible interventions could target improving the skills in personnel management of supervisors. But also, clear supervision requirements and guidelines could be imposed by the university. Such agreements (including expectations on the thesis, supervision times and conciliation mechanisms) might be an option to enhance the agreements in a supervisor-student relationship. While these suggestions are not new, and some of them are theoretically established in some university departments, our study results suggest that they are often ignored or not properly implemented, and more binding agreements and control mechanisms need to be made. Establishing additional external supervision, where for example the personnel management is reflected, might also give new perspectives and enhance demanding situations. At this point, it has to be considered that there are strong dependencies between Ph.D. students and their supervisors since, in many cases, it is the supervisors who have a major impact on the outcome of a Ph.D. thesis, such as the final grade. It remains challenging how Ph.D. students can criticize the supervising situation without negatively impacting the personal relationship with their supervisors.

Further interventions on the level of universities and research institutions might include support in bureaucratic processes and providing more information on different contact points (e.g., for mental health services). It is obvious that the aforementioned interventions (such as capacity building courses for Ph.D. students and supervisors) are dependent on the support of the central facilities of the research institution. Furthermore, highlighting the high prevalence of mental health problems, for example, at mandatory introductory sessions for Ph.D. students, might help to raise awareness about this topic. This could help unexperienced young researchers to notice signs of anxiety and depression early on before these mental disorders manifest. Finally, public events on this topic could reduce the stigma associated with it, making it easier for affected Ph.D. students to seek help. Such events might also be used to remind the students that it is important to take care not only of their physical but also mental health, for instance, by strengthening social relationships and pursuing hobbies which are not work-related.

Lastly, there are also changes in the political setting and academic culture needed. This includes a fair payment system, reasonable control of contract lengths and extensions, and more perspectives for long-term positions in academia. Considering that the vast majority of Ph.D. students will end up in positions outside of academia, it could be beneficial to better prepare students for careers in alternative job markets, such as industry. Such interventions might directly influence the job insecurity and job dissatisfaction of Ph.D. students. In Germany, the current regulations for temporary academic employment are being evaluated [ 53 ], but even propositions from the conference of university rectors [ 54 ] seem not to be sufficient for fundamental changes. These changes would also need a shift in the academic culture [ 55 ], in which “publish or perish” is still a guiding theme leading to high pressure to perform. Working on a cultural shift is a task for all scientists. This will lead to a more sustainable work culture from which all stakeholders might benefit.

All in all, there is an interplay and dependence of all mentioned levels. Importantly, most problems mentioned in the survey can result from shortcomings on multiple levels, and therefore interventions on more than one level are needed for a satisfying solution. For example, changes to improve the mental health situation on an individual level can be dependent on the consent of the supervisor and can also be negatively impacted by already existing mental health issues. In addition to individual responsibility for health, it is important to systematically target prevention and change the system on the aforementioned levels so that Ph.D. students are better and more quickly supported when mental health problems arise.

This study shows once again the detrimental mental health situation of Ph.D. students in academia. By analyzing the mental health of Ph.D. students at a German university, we found alarming hints of depressive and anxious tendencies that are in line with other comparable studies. Furthermore, we have identified main stressors, such as perceived stress or self-doubts, and resources, such as a positive student-supervisor relationship. Understanding conditional factors and being able to improve the situation depend on such identifications. With our study, we provide first insights of the status quo for the University chair, the Graduate Academy, and other stakeholders in the academic system. We invite them to inspect the results and suggestions responsibly so that actions to assess and improve the conditions for Ph.D. students’ mental health and well-being can be taken in the future. Based on our data, additional offers for Ph.D. students, as well as their supervisors, should be created and existing ones sustainably modified. Positive conditions and resources for mental health and well-being will not restrict to academia but will affect all areas of life. While an increased mental health state is an indispensable value on its own, additional benefits can be created for research, teaching, practice, and society. As such, mental health is a big part of sustainable living and should have a high priority for all people. While this is already acknowledged in the sustainable development goals, further steps need to be taken to raise awareness and provide support throughout society.

Supporting information

S1 table. sample items and descriptives of ph.d. students ( n = 589): percentage (%), mean ( m ), standard deviation ( sd ), minimum and maximum ( min - max )..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288103.s001

S2 Table. Used scales and items with percentage (%), mean ( M ), standard deviation ( SD ), minimum and maximum ( Min - Max ), median , Cronbach’s alpha .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288103.s002

S3 Table. Faculty wise mean comparison on the job insecurity scale.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288103.s003

S4 Table. Linear regression model for perceived stress and the predictors.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288103.s004

S5 Table. Categories and ratings for the causes of stress.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288103.s005

S6 Table. Categories and ratings for an improvement of mental health.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288103.s006

S7 Table. Categories and ratings for an improvement of the situation.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288103.s007

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our gratitude to all participants of the survey as well to the sustainAbility Ph.D. initiative at the University of Tübingen. We thank Dr. Stephanie Rosenstiel for support with the ethics approval and Prof. Dr. Birgit Derntl and Prof. Dr. Andreas Fallgatter for their helpful feedback on the conception of the questionnaire. We thank Mumina Javed and Monja Neuser for their support in the early phase of the project.

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3 tips for managing thesis writing stress

9 August 2019

Writing your thesis can be a stressful experience. Here, Dr Sonia Greenidge from UCL's Student Psychological and Counselling Services gives you her top tips to manage this stress.

The process of writing your thesis is a long one and the stress that can build up over this period of time can lead to writer's block and worryingly long periods of unproductiveness. Here are my top three tips to help you lower your stress levels allowing you to progress with your thesis.

Break it down

Rather than thinking that you have to dedicate lengthy periods each day to writing up, a helpful method to manage the stress of thesis writing is to break the day into small bite-sized pieces. Even if you dedicate a whole day to your write up, this should still be broken down into bite-sized periods.

Make sure that alongside your work times you also schedule in some break times. For example, work for 45 minutes and then break for 15 minutes, continue this until breaking for lunch for an hour then continue the 45-minute work and 15-minute break routine.

Be specific

Assign a specific task to do for each study period. Having a clear idea of what you are doing can alleviate the ‘so much to do, how am I going to do it?!’ stress. For example, plan to specifically ‘finish discussion paragraph on self-reflection’ not generally ‘write some more of the discussion’.

Assigning specific things to do in your break times can also help manage the stress that comes from feeling you have so much to do and so little time to do it all. Have a break for checking emails, a break for making calls, a break for making lunch etc. This way you still get all your 'life admin' done alongside getting that all important thesis written up!

Free writing

Experiencing writer’s block and feeling that you are not progressing as you would like to can be a huge trigger for stress. With free writing, you write whatever comes to mind on a topic without stopping to censor or make corrections.

Do this for a while until you feel yourself in the flow and then…keep going! You will probably have a lot of useful material from your free writing time that you can go back and tidy up later.

Dr Sonia Greenidge, UCL Student Psychological and Counselling Services (SPCS)

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Management of Stress and Anxiety Among PhD Students During Thesis Writing: A Qualitative Study

Affiliation.

• 1 Author Affiliations: Department of Medical Education, Medical Education Research Center, University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan (Drs Bazrafkan, Yousefi, and Yamani); and Applied Linguistics, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences (Dr Shokrpour), Shiraz, Iran.
• PMID: 27455365
• DOI: 10.1097/HCM.0000000000000120

Today, postgraduate students experience a variety of stresses and anxiety in different situations of academic cycle. Stress and anxiety have been defined as a syndrome shown by emotional exhaustion and reduced personal goal achievement. This article addresses the causes and different strategies of coping with this phenomena by PhD students at Iranian Universities of Medical Sciences. The study was conducted by a qualitative method using conventional content analysis approach. Through purposive sampling, 16 postgraduate medical sciences PhD students were selected on the basis of theoretical sampling. Data were gathered through semistructured interviews and field observations. Six hundred fifty-four initial codes were summarized and classified into 4 main categories and 11 subcategories on the thematic coding stage dependent on conceptual similarities and differences. The obtained codes were categorized under 4 themes including "thesis as a major source of stress," "supervisor relationship," "socioeconomic problem," and "coping with stress and anxiety." It was concluded that PhD students experience stress and anxiety from a variety of sources and apply different methods of coping in effective and ineffective ways. Purposeful supervision and guidance can reduce the cause of stress and anxiety; in addition, coping strategy must be in a thoughtful approach, as recommended in this study.

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10 tips for writing a PhD thesis

Ingrid curl shares simple rules for keeping your work clear and jargon-free.

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Writing up a PhD can often take place in a frenzy of activity in the last few months of your degree study, after years of hard work. But there are some steps that you can take to increase your chances of success.

• Do not be daunted by the task of “writing up”. Work on the text as your PhD takes shape, remember that all writers need editing, and help yourself by using these basic tips to make life easier. Read what great writers say about how to write before you start, and take their advice to heart. There is no dark art to clear, concise work; it is mostly a result of editing, and editing again. Above all, keep Elmore Leonard’s advice in mind: “If it reads like writing…rewrite it.”
• Plan the structure of your thesis carefully with your supervisor. Create rough drafts as you go so that you can refine them as you become more focused on the write-up. Much of writing comprises rewriting so be prepared to rework each chapter many times. Even Ernest Hemingway said: “The first draft of everything is shit.”
• Academic writing does not have to be dry. Inject some flair into your work. Read advice on writing and remember George Orwell’s words in Why I Write : “Never use the passive where you can use the active”; and Mark Twain’s on adjectives: “When you catch an adjective, kill it.” If you prefer, Stephen King said: “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”
• Do not write up in chronological order. Work on each chapter while it is fresh in your mind or pertinent to what you are doing at that moment, but come back to it all later and work it up into a consistent, coherent piece, restructuring sections where necessary.
• Think carefully about your writing. Write your first draft, leave it and then come back to it with a critical eye. Look objectively at the writing and read it closely for style and sense. Look out for common errors such as dangling modifiers, subject-verb disagreement and inconsistency. If you are too involved with the text to be able to take a step back and do this, then ask a friend or colleague to read it with a critical eye. Remember Hemingway’s advice: “Prose is architecture, not interior decoration.” Clarity is key.
• Most universities use a preferred style of references. Make sure you know what this is and stick to it. One of the most common errors in academic writing is to cite papers in the text that do not then appear in the bibliography. All references in your thesis need to be cross-checked with the bibliography before submission. Using a database during your research can save a great deal of time in the writing-up process. Helpful software includes EndNote or Paperpile. Managing your bibliography from day one may seem obsessive but it will save you a great deal of time and stress by the end of the PhD process.
• Use a house style. Professional publications such as Times Higher Education use a house style guide to ensure consistency in spelling. For example, do not use both -ise spellings and -ize spellings, stick to British spelling and be consistent when referring to organisations or bodies. Because dictionaries vary in their use of hyphenation, use one dictionary and stick to it throughout the writing process. If you consult the New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors , you will note the extraordinary number of words with alternative spellings. It can also be a very useful guide to preferred spellings, use of italicisation and foreign phrases.
• Take care when quoting from other sources. Ensure you note whether the italic emphasis is in the original and take careful notes when you are collecting quotes for your thesis. Transcribe them accurately to save work later and keep original spellings (even if they differ from your chosen style) to ensure fidelity to your source.
• Think about plagiarism. If you are quoting from works, quote from them accurately and paraphrase where necessary for your argument. This is where careful note-taking and use of references is invaluable and will help you to avoid even inadvertently plagiarising another work.
• Remember that your thesis is your chance to present your work in the best possible light. Consider your opening paragraphs, entice your reader with your writing and above all be clear about your hypothesis and your conclusion. Append material where it adds value but not where it merely bulks out your work. Consider your reader at all times. This is your chance to showcase your work.

If you stick to these simple rules, your writing will be clear and jargon-free. Above all, take to heart Orwell’s advice: “Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.”

Ingrid Curl is associate editor of  Times Higher Education , and a former PhD student.

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• Dealing With PhD Stress The Right Way: Advice From 3 PhD Graduates

Do you know who gets the PhD? The person who perseveres. And dealing with the stress is one key factor that you must overcome in order to successfully graduate. You may experience one (or a combination) of the following during your PhD and at different stages of your graduate career ( and are signs to look for and not ignore ):

• Constantly feeling you can’t work hard enough
• Feeling overwhelmed by the workload
• Feeling like you are not working to your true ability
• Inability to focus
• Feeling like nothing you do has any impact, and that you have no control
• Feeling that even easy things have become difficult
• Constant fear of failure
• Feeling like you don’t belong in a PhD program, and that you will be “found out”
• Physical or mental exhaustion

Whatever you have experienced up until this point whether you are in your first, second, third, fourth of fifth years and beyond-You know what’s crazy? In many ways, these feelings are “normal .” If they weren’t, it wouldn’t be much of a PhD. Or at least you’re not taking it “serious” enough (at least from what I was told and programmed to believe as a graduate student).

The point is that many PhDs may experience similar pain points and stress, but many will handle it in different ways-as the reason to start, endure, and finish a PhD is entirely individualistic. But this certainly does not mean you should ignore the warning signs  if the stress becomes overwhelming, as graduate school depression and anxiety is very serious.  You’re not alone , so don’t be afraid to seek help from a counselor, family, or friends.

What you have to keep in mind is that once you defend, these feelings that you are experiencing now will fade into the background . They become a thing of the past. Yes, it is hard to get through but remember it is only temporary .

If you do an informational interview with a PhD 10 or 20 years out, they will carry nostalgic memories and certain stories with them like how they used to be in lab till 2 in the morning. But the fact of the matter is, they have moved on (they have a job, a family, and aren’t eating out of a soup can everyday). They don’t want to remember the feelings of doubt, stress, and pressure (although when you spend 5+ years of your life in grad school there are just some things you will never forget). But, that’s why when you tell them the stress you are going through in your PhD program, you will still get a reaction out of them because you are taking them back to their old grad school days and they have shared those same struggles/feelings at one point in time.

So, in order to capture these “feelings” in their right moment, I asked two of my UW-Madison friends who just recently received their PhDs to write some tips on how they kept their stress levels low and successfully defended their PhD.

If you haven’t already, check out my previous article on 10 Ways to Successfully Defend Your PhD . Due to overwhelming requests and emails asking for my defense video and for additional tips on how to keep stress levels low, I decided to write an additional article focusing just on the stress issue. And I have posted the link to my defense video below.

Some emails I have gotten recently are (they will remain anonymous):

I am approaching the end of my PhD cycle and becoming increasingly nervous and anxious about the public discussion of my thesis! It has been a very lonely and long walk! Would it be possible to watch the video of your PhD defense? Just read your “10 Ways To Successfully Defend Your PhD,” which I found both enjoyable and stimulating. You mention a video of your own defense. I’d love to see it, if you’re still happy to share it. If you’ve seen other good defenses on youtube or elsewhere and have any additional links, those too would be much appreciated. I read your blog in the title of “10 Ways to successfully defend your PhD”. I think it is very useful for me; however, I want to request an example video of a defense talk that you suggest in your blog. I have a plan to defend my thesis on next Thursday. I feel very nervous, and I think my presentation is too long (80 slides). Do you agree with me ?

**My PhD defense video can be viewed here:

Http://bit.ly/1sait7o.

For a quick recap, the top 10 highlights were as follows:

• Do not underestimate how long it takes to prepare your slides/talk and make sure you give multiple practice talks (and in terms of how many slides or how long your talk should be-you should have this figured out by giving your practice talks and getting feedback from others)
• Listen to other thesis defense talks
• Have your friends, labmates, and others drill you with questions
• Re-read over your entire thesis and write out your own list of questions
• Don’t let distractions get to you
• Get plenty of sleep, keep your diet in check, and take care of yourself
• Keep your cool and relax**
• Don’t focus on the after-party until you have actually reached the after-party
• Have a good structure
• Visualize yourself giving your defense each day and think about how good it will feel when it’s over

What I want to focus and expand on here in this article is #7: Keep your cool and relax . Your nerves are going to be running high and it may be hard to sleep at night. But the goal of this article is to help put your mind at ease. There may be some overlap here (with #1-10 above), but since PhD “stress” is deeply-rooted-it is important to look at the overall big picture and have multiple solutions/approaches.

Advice From PhD Graduate #1

Dr. Jamie Hadac had these words to say before we cut to the chase:

First, let me start off by saying congratulations! You have made it this far, now it’s time for the final push. Hopefully your thesis is in good working order and now you just need to prepare for the big day. I recently defended and I have some tips. In general, do whatever it takes to keep your confidence high and your stress low. I have divided these tips into two sections (8 Tips total), Professional and Personal.

Professional

• Practice, practice, practice ! Your talk will probably be a big source of stress. Try and practice in any way you can. I gave two talks to public audiences, (set up by a partnership through my university), two job talks, posters, and practice talks to lab mates. Of course you won’t always be giving the same talk as your defense talk, but you can gain a lot of insight for your Big Presentation. Things like timing, clarity, and other people’s critiques can be carried over from other talks. It will be a major confidence booster . The last thing you want to do at your defense is read word for word off your slides.
• Communicate with your thesis committee . Your defense should not be the first time you’ve talked to them since your last committee meeting. If you have committee members in close proximity, take some time to chat about your progress. They can provide a different perspective that you might not receive from your PI alone. Also, you can address their questions or concerns in a much more low-key environment. Be sure to ask how they want your thesis delivered: some prefer paper, others electronic.
• Think ‘Big Picture’. You now have to take your research in one little area and weave it into a greater body of knowledge. You will also be transitioning in to a new career or position. If anyone asks “so what?” you should have a solid and accessible answer. Your committee will see that you have thought about future directions for the lab, for your career, and for society. Show off the independence, perspective, and creativity you have cultivated.
• Be organized with dates and times . Chances are your graduate school has specific timelines for things like paperwork. Make sure you have done everything that needs to get done and clue your PI into these deadlines. Plug them into your phone if necessary. You don’t want to be messed up by an administrative technicality or forgetting to get a form.
• Make your healthcare a priority. I have some medical conditions that were exacerbated by stress. You are making major life changes, and it’s totally normal that they affect you on a physical level! I met with my primary care physician and we developed a strategy to make sure my health did not fall to the wayside during this time. Even if your health is fine, your insurance may cover things like massages or dental cleanings that will boost your confidence and reduce your stress.
• Clear your mind by moving your body . Your brain is probably doing a million things at once. Try and find an activity that lets you focus on one thing, like running, paddleboarding, or yoga. You may say you don’t have the time, but make the time . It will have profound affects on you physically and mentally .
• Banish negativity . You spend so much time thinking critically about experiments, data, and other people’s papers. Don’t let that carry over into being critical about yourself! Now is not the time to doubt or beat yourself up . Any time you have critical, confidence-ruining thoughts about yourself, write it down. Then write next to it why you are wrong or exaggerating. Then, if necessary, create solutions. If your mind says, “I’m terrible at public speaking, I can’t do it” remember you have spoken in public before, you aren’t terrible, and you have improved greatly in the last few years. Then, make some steps to get in some practice.
• You’ve done a lot of work, keep your energy high and stress low by getting a good night of sleep . Perhaps try going to bed 10 minutes earlier every night. By the end of the week you can get an extra hour in. Your brain needs it!

Advice From PhD Graduate #2

Dr. Nate Wlodarchak had these tips to share, focusing more on the earlier/during thesis writing stages:

The last two months before the defense were a challenge but they went fairly smooth despite many small road bumps. First, a little background: my PI is a new PI, so not very experienced in the process of matriculating students. That being the case, I didn’t have my PI to rely on to know what to do so I had to figure a lot of things out for myself. Having to talk to a lot of different people to figure this out was crucial, and communication was absolutely vital.

Sitting down to write the first time was a really daunting task . I looked at other people’s theses and thought how am I ever going to get to 200 pages ? I started by looking at my outline (from the 6 month meeting) and went from there. First, I had to find a place to write. Every time I went into lab I was asked so many questions and everyone needed so much help, I couldn’t get any work done. I also had to make a lot of figures, and making them on a laptop was just annoying, so the library wasn’t the best option for me either. I ended up doing most of my writing at home. It wasn’t as ideal but it worked pretty well.

The biggest problem was getting stressed whenever I wasn’t productive . I had to let that go and realize that some days are going to be more productive than others. I had mornings where I did a little bit, then goofed off all afternoon, but then was super-productive in the evening…even missing dinner. Forcing myself to stick to some arbitrary 9-5 schedule was stressful because if I wasn’t productive, my “relax time” wasn’t really relaxing. I had to sort of let the writing dictate the schedule. Obviously there were deadlines to meet, so sometimes I couldn’t afford that luxury, but when possible, it was a great stress reducer.

Of course during two months of writing, life happens too . I had weddings and family functions to attend as well as some other extracurricular activities. I found that these things reduced the stress level quite a bit, but needed to be planned for well so I didn’t have the writing monster always looming behind me. I also kept the important “life things” scheduled but made sure not to accept any extra responsibilities that would just add stress. Most importantly, if I didn’t keep some time for friends and socializing, I wouldn’t have been able to keep the stress down.

Sometimes stress is just out of your control though . Like when your PI gets you all of your corrections back three days after it was due to the committee and they blame you for it (despite the aforementioned PI having ample time to work on it). I was lucky enough to have a good support structure for those times, and don’t know what I would have done without them.

When all else failed, I took lots of walks, lots of bike rides, and sometimes just sat on the porch with a beer and watched the world pass by, remembering that in the big scheme of things life is just too short to waste time worrying .

Advice From PhD Graduate #3

Now I am going to add to the advice listed above. Based on the emails/requests that I have received on how to deal with the stress during a PhD (especially during those final weeks), my short answer (as cliche as it sounds) is that you must take each day at a time, but by all means- DO WHATEVER WORKS FOR YOU . That is why you have 3 different people who have successfully defended their PhDs (included myself) providing you with advice and what worked for them. From this, I hope you can find your ‘personalized solution’ . Find out what that is and stick to it . I hope the advice so far has been useful. I will just add 3 additional tips:

2) If you are just a stressed out person by nature no matter what you do, and you are doing a combo of many of the things listed above (i.e. practicing your talk, getting sleep, getting exercise, eating right, keeping caffeine low, taking breaks, etc.), try a combo of magnesium and valerian root to calm your mood and help with night anxiety/insomnia.

3) Boost your confidence ! You’ve heard this before: Doing practice talks and getting feedback is the easiest way to feel like you are in control. The people who are the most nervous/anxious may also be the ones who haven’t spent enough time practicing/preparing.

I thought I would also add to this ‘theme’ of stress since there seems to be a link between stress and demotivation (becoming paralyzed, overwhelmed, fearful, feel like you’re going to have a nervous breakdown, too much to handle, etc.). Not only does stress weigh you down, but it can affect how you perform those final weeks leading up to your defense-the weeks that really count. Just to put it in perspective, here are the top 10 things that may be causing your demotivation :

• You’re demotivated by fear *
• You’re demotivated by setting the wrong goals
• You’re demotivated by lack of clarity about what you want
• You’re demotivated by a values-conflict
• You’re demotivated by lack of autonomy
• You’re demotivated by lack of a challenge  (or being “over-challenged”)
• You’re demotivated by grief
• You’re demotivated by loneliness *
• You’re demotivated by burn-out *
• You’re demotivated by what to do next (or you are distracted.. planning the PhD ‘after party’.. daydreaming)

The full context of these ’10 demotivators’ and how to keep the motivation is outside the scope of this article. But you can read some tips for how to get motivated again here . Additionally, some previous articles, such as 10 Ways to Be A Successful PhD Student and How To Win/Graduate Faster touch on motivation and how to graduate in a timely manner.

What I want to hit on is #1, #8, and #9, since they are the most relevant to PhD students. That isn’t to say that the other 7 points aren’t relevant or have some affect on you, but for the purposes of this article I have picked the tops ones.

Now you may be someone who is very motivated, but is just really stressed out. Or you may be someone who is lacking motivation and is stressed out. Or you may be someone who is highly motivated and has low stress (best-case scenario):

A) If you are very motivated and really stressed out, then you need to find ways to deal with your stress until you defend (see above).

B) If you are someone who is lacking motivation and is stressed out, you will benefit from the additional #1, #8, #9 tips.

C) If you are someone who is highly motivated and has low stress all the way up until your defense, then you’re lucky.

#1) If you are demotivated by fear find out what it is that is haunting you. Write it down. Go through each fear individually. Ask yourself where this thought or fear comes from . Fear can slow you down. It can make you feel lethargic.

If the fear you have is something like “I’m going give a poor thesis defense talk” why are you thinking this? Overcoming a certain fear isn’t exactly easy if it is something that has stuck with you for a long time. Do you know what my fear was? That I wouldn’t be able to answer the questions the audience or my thesis committee members were going to ask me. My fear was that I would embarrass myself and I would bomb a question .

Here is the bottom line: You know more about your project than anyone . This is 5-7 years of your life so you are the expert. If you have a fear then come up with a plan, break it into chunks, and come up with ways to boost your confidence.

When it comes to #8/#9 and dealing with PhD loneliness and burn-out..

If you are lonely/struggling with lack of social life, please read this article about Dealing with the Lack of Social Life in Graduate School , or Maintaining Relationships During Graduate School . Don’t be afraid to take breaks and get out there and be social to keep your sanity ! As Dr. Wlodarchak stated, during those two months of writing, life happens too. And you should let it happen. You will feel like someone locked you in a cave and you haven’t seen daylight for weeks. Once your thesis is handed in, that is a huge milestone but remember-it’s not over. But do whatever it takes to unwind, and keep the stress low-even if that means you go out for a night with your friends. Don’t feel guilty for doing this. Many PhD students shut out their social life/friends during those final weeks and months.

Remember at the beginning of this article I said, “What you have to keep in mind is that once you defend, these feelings that you are experiencing now will fade into the background . They become a thing of the past. Yes, it is hard to get through but remember it is only temporary? ” Therefore feeling burned out or lonely is also temporary . At least once you graduate, you’ll have more free time (hopefully) to make changes in your life and recoop certain ‘losses’ or put your time towards things you always wish you had (but couldn’t).. I can tell you for those who skip the post-doc and go directly into industry working a fulfilling job, this is the case (this will be a future post on the Post-PhD Life).

I myself experienced signs of burnout. But you have to learn to recognize it and fight it. And I pushed through. In fact, I was working a 20+ hour a week internship in industry while writing a thesis, doing paper revisions and experiments, and maintaining tissue culture. And that was for 7 months with 80+ hour weeks.  To this day, these are still the Top 10 Things that got me through and what helped me keep my motivation.

Overall- if you follow some of these tips to keep motivation levels high and your stress levels low, you will increase your chances of successfully defending your PhD and moving on to the next chapter of your life . And yes, the grass is greener on the other side. You will just have to find your own personalized solution to get you there.

 Further Reading:

An Anxious Mind

Tell the Negative Committee to Shut Up

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Management of Stress and Anxiety Among PhD Students During Thesis Writing

A qualitative study.

Bazrafkan, Leila PhD; Shokrpour, Nasrin PhD; Yousefi, Alireza PhD; Yamani, Nikoo MD, PhD

Author Affiliations: Department of Medical Education, Medical Education Research Center, University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan (Drs Bazrafkan, Yousefi, and Yamani); and Applied Linguistics, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences (Dr Shokrpour), Shiraz, Iran.

Authors' Contributions: Leila Bazrafkan developed the study design, conducted the interviews and analysis, ensured trustworthiness, and drafted the manuscript. Alireza Yousefi, as the supervisor, participated in the study design, supervised the codes and data analysis process, and revised the manuscripts. Nikoo Yamani and Nasrin Shokrpour, as research consultants, participated in the study and advised during the study.

Funding/Support: The present article was extracted from the thesis written by Leila Bazrafkan and was financially supported by Esfahan University of Medical Sciences (grant no. 92-6746).

The authors have no conflicts of interest.

Correspondence: Nikoo Yamani, MD, PhD, Department of Medical Education, Medical Education Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Esfahan, Iran ( [email protected] ).

Today, postgraduate students experience a variety of stresses and anxiety in different situations of academic cycle. Stress and anxiety have been defined as a syndrome shown by emotional exhaustion and reduced personal goal achievement. This article addresses the causes and different strategies of coping with this phenomena by PhD students at Iranian Universities of Medical Sciences. The study was conducted by a qualitative method using conventional content analysis approach. Through purposive sampling, 16 postgraduate medical sciences PhD students were selected on the basis of theoretical sampling. Data were gathered through semistructured interviews and field observations. Six hundred fifty-four initial codes were summarized and classified into 4 main categories and 11 subcategories on the thematic coding stage dependent on conceptual similarities and differences. The obtained codes were categorized under 4 themes including “thesis as a major source of stress,” “supervisor relationship,” “socioeconomic problem,” and “coping with stress and anxiety.” It was concluded that PhD students experience stress and anxiety from a variety of sources and apply different methods of coping in effective and ineffective ways. Purposeful supervision and guidance can reduce the cause of stress and anxiety; in addition, coping strategy must be in a thoughtful approach, as recommended in this study.

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Eight Effective Tips to Overcome Writer’s Block in PhD Thesis Writing

Conquer Your Thesis: 8 Proven Tips to Beat PhD Writer's Block

Are you a Master’s student or PhD scholar struggling with writer’s block in your academic journey? Don’t worry; you’re not alone. Even I struggled during my research journey due to writer’s block. Many of us experience this at some point of time in our academic career, especially when writing our research paper or thesis. In this article, iLovePhD will provide you with eight useful and realistic tips to overcome writer’s block. I am sure that these tips will help you to complete your research paper or thesis writing successfully.

Struggling to write your PhD thesis or master’s dissertation? Feeling stuck and overwhelmed? You’re not alone! Dr. Sowndarya, a PhD graduate herself, shares 8 powerful strategies to overcome writer’s block and get those words flowing. Learn practical tips for structuring your writing, managing your time, and staying motivated. Read now and conquer your thesis!

What is writer’s block?

• Writer’s block is a common condition that affects many writers, including academic writers.
• It is considered a temporary inability to write or create new content, even when the writer wishes to write.
• It can be caused by many factors, such as stress, anxiety, fear of failure, lack of motivation, or even perfectionism.

How to Overcome Writer’s Block in PhD Research?

Here are eight useful tips to help you overcome writer’s block in research paper or thesis writing:

1. Identify the cause

The first step in overcoming writer’s block is to identify the cause. Is it due to stress or anxiety or lack of motivation, or something else? Once you identify the cause, you can work on it accordingly.

Extra Tips: Some common causes of writer’s block include:

• Lack of inspiration : Running out of ideas or struggling to find a spark to start writing.
• Fear of failure : The pressure to produce perfect content can lead to anxiety and writer’s block.
• Perfectionism : Setting extremely high standards can make it difficult to start or continue writing.
• Distractions : External or internal distractions, such as social media, email, or self-doubt, can disrupt the writing flow.
• Burnout : Physical, mental, or emotional exhaustion can make it challenging to focus and write.
• Unclear goals or expectations : Lack of clarity about the writing project or audience can lead to uncertainty and writer’s block.
• Research overload : Too much research or information can overwhelm and stall the writing process.
• Personal issues : Life events, stress, or emotional struggles can affect motivation and ability to write.
• Writing habits : Poor writing habits, such as procrastination or inconsistent writing schedules, can contribute to writer’s block.

2. Write every day

Set a manageable target for yourself. Some scholars prefer to work on a time basis. For those of you, my suggestion is, to try to write for 2 hours per day. Ie., 1 hour in the morning and 1 hour in the evening or frame a suitable schedule that works best for you and stick to it.

Some scholars prefer to have several page counts. For those of you, fix a target to complete 1 page per day. The key is you need to be consistent. The next day you need to have the motivation to write for 1 hour or 1 page, or whatever target you have set for yourself. Don’t worry about the format or the style.

It is easier to edit than to start from scratch. So, just keep the words flowing and avoid skipping even one day. If you skip, then the next day will be even harder.

Extra Tips: Writing daily can help overcome writer’s block in several ways:

• Develops writing habit : Regular writing trains your brain to get into a writing mindset, making it easier to start writing.
• Warm-up exercises : Daily writing can include warm-up exercises like freewriting, journaling, or prompts to get your creative juices flowing.
• Builds momentum : Consistent writing helps build momentum, making it easier to tackle larger writing projects.
• Reduces pressure : Writing daily can reduce the pressure to produce perfect content, allowing you to focus on the process rather than the outcome.
• Increases ideas : Daily writing can help generate new ideas and perspectives, helping to overcome writer’s block.
• Improves writing skills : Regular writing practice improves writing skills, boosting confidence and reducing writer’s block.

3. Write without Editing

One of the main causes of writer’s block is perfectionism. So, to overcome this, try to write without revising or editing. Focus on getting your ideas on paper first, and not worry about grammar, structure, and format as the first draft doesn’t have to be perfect. This tip will help you overcome the fear of producing perfect content and allow your ideas to emerge freely.

Extra Tips: Writing without editing can help overcome writer’s block in several ways:

• Silences inner critic : By not editing, you quiet your inner critic, allowing yourself to focus on the creative process rather than perfection.
• Increases flow : Writing without editing helps maintain a fluid writing pace, keeping ideas flowing and momentum building.
• Reduces pressure : Letting go of the need for perfection reduces pressure, making it easier to start writing and keep writing.
• Fosters creativity : Writing without editing allows your ideas to flow freely, without self-censorship, leading to new insights and perspectives.
• Builds confidence : By writing freely, you develop confidence in your writing abilities, helping to overcome writer’s block.

To write without editing:

• Set a timer for a specific writing period (e.g., 25 minutes)
• Write without stopping or looking back
• Ignore grammar, spelling, and punctuation
• Focus on getting your ideas down
• Refrain from deleting or revising
• Embrace the imperfections and keep writing!

4. Take a break

One of the important tips is taking a break: Sometimes, stepping away from your writing for a short period can help you clear your mind and provide you with a fresh perspective. Engage in activities that make you feel good or stimulate your creativity, such as meditation, going for a walk, reading a book, or listening to music. You know, at times, eating your favorite food will make you feel good and relaxed. So, the goal is to generate momentum and overcome the mental blocks.

Extra Tips: Taking a break can be an effective way to overcome writer’s block. Sometimes, stepping away from your work can help you:

• Clear your mind : A break can help you relax and clear your thoughts, making it easier to approach your writing with a fresh perspective.
• Recharge your energy : Taking a break can help you regain your mental and physical energy, reducing fatigue and increasing focus.
• Gain new insights : Stepping away from your writing can give you time to reflect and gain new insights, helping you approach your work with renewed creativity.
• Come back to your work with a fresh perspective : A break can help you see your work from a new angle, making it easier to identify solutions to any challenges you’re facing.

Some ideas for taking a break include:

• Going for a walk or doing some exercise
• Practicing meditation or deep breathing
• Engaging in a creative activity unrelated to writing (e.g., drawing, painting, or playing music)
• Reading a book or watching a movie
• Taking a nap or getting a good night’s sleep

5. Change Your Environment

Find a place where you can sit and write peacefully and most importantly free from distractions. Distractions can make it difficult to focus on writing. So, turning off your mobile phone is important while writing your thesis. In my case, I did all my writing work in my University Library, where I was able to think and write peacefully without any disturbance and distractions. So, you can also try to find a place in your University Library for writing your research paper or thesis.

I’m telling you; you can realize the magic. Very quickly you will start to associate this place with writing. Your thoughts and ideas will automatically turn into your research paper or thesis.

Extra Tips: Changing your environment can be a great way to overcome writer’s block. A new setting can:

• Stimulate creativity : A change of scenery can inspire fresh ideas and perspectives.
• Break routine : A new environment can disrupt your usual routine and help you approach your writing with a renewed sense of purpose.
• Reduce distractions : Sometimes, a change of environment can help you escape distractions and focus on your writing.
• Boost productivity : A new setting can energize your writing session and help you stay focused.

Some ideas for changing your environment include:

• Writing in a different room or location in your home
• Working from a coffee shop, library, or co-working space
• Writing outdoors or in a park
• Trying a writing retreat or workshop
• Even just rearranging your writing space or desk

6. Different writing techniques

Then try to experiment with different writing techniques, such as mind mapping, outlining, or summarizing. Find the method that works best for you to organize your ideas and overcome the block in your writing. Have a habit of using sticky notes. You can randomly make notes on it and from that you can develop your writing.   

Extra Tips: Trying different writing techniques can help overcome writer’s block by:

• Shaking up your routine : Experimenting with new techniques can break you out of your usual writing habits and stimulate creativity.
• Discovering new perspectives : Different techniques can help you approach your writing from fresh angles and uncover new ideas.
• Building writing muscles : Practicing various techniques can improve your writing skills and boost confidence.
• Keeping your writing fresh : Trying new techniques can prevent your writing from becoming stale and predictable.

Some techniques to try:

• Freewriting : Write without stopping or editing.
• Stream-of-consciousness : Write your thoughts as they come.
• Dialogue-only writing : Focus on conversations between characters.
• Description-only writing : Concentrate on descriptive passages.
• Writing prompts : Use exercises or prompts to generate ideas.
• Writing sprints : Set timers and write in short, focused bursts.
• Reverse writing : Start with the conclusion and work backward.
• Sense memory writing : Use sensory details to evoke memories and inspiration.

7. Find a support system

As far as PhD research is concerned, you need a driving force to move forward. Traveling through this journey is a bit tough. All the time you need to be motivated. So, talk to your advisor, friends, and even your parents about your difficulties. They may provide valuable insights and suggestions to overcome it. Also, you can join writing groups, workshops, or online forums where you can connect with fellow PhD scholars who are sailing in the same boat.

Extra Tips: Having a support system can be a great way to overcome writer’s block. A support system can:

• Offer encouragement : Help you stay motivated and confident.
• Provide feedback : Give you new insights and perspectives on your writing.
• Hold you accountable : Help you stay on track and meet deadlines.
• Share experiences : Relate to your struggles and offer valuable advice.

Some ways to find a support system:

• Writing groups : Join online or in-person groups to connect with fellow writers.
• Writing buddies : Find a writing partner to share work and provide feedback.
• Writing coaches : Hire a coach to guide and support you.
• Online communities : Join forums, social media groups, or writing platforms.
• Writing workshops : Attend conferences, retreats, or online workshops.
• Beta readers : Share your work with trusted readers for feedback.

8. Promise yourself a reward

And the last tip is rewarding yourself. After completing every task or milestone, reward yourself. Celebrate your progress. It need not be in a grandeur manner. But you can do things which make you feel happy and energetic. This kind of motivation will automatically turn your efforts into a research paper or thesis. As you make progress, you will look forward to finishing your targets.

Extra Tips: Promising yourself a reward can be a great motivator to overcome writer’s block! By setting a goal and rewarding yourself when you achieve it, you can:

• Stay motivated : Give yourself a reason to keep writing and push through challenges.
• Celebrate progress : Acknowledge and celebrate your accomplishments.
• Boost creativity : Take a break and do something enjoyable to refresh your mind.

Some ideas for rewards:

• Time off : Take a break to relax, read, or watch a movie.
• Favorite activities : Do something you enjoy, like hiking, drawing, or cooking.
• Treats : Indulge in your favorite snacks or desserts.
• Personal pampering : Get a massage, take a relaxing bath, or get a good night’s sleep.
• Creative indulgences : Buy a new book, try a new writing tool, or take a writing workshop.

Writer’s block can be a frustrating and challenging experience but don’t allow it to demotivate your research paper or thesis writing. And most importantly, take care of your physical and mental health. When your body and mind are in good shape, it can impact your writing. Embrace this process, trust in your abilities, and remember that every word written brings you one step closer to your dream. You will certainly forget this pain and struggle, when you walk across that stage to get your PhD degree, and when someone calls you “Doctor” for the very first time.

Eight important tips and tricks to overcome writer’s block are discussed in the article. So, when you experience writer’s block in your thesis writing, don’t panic. Remember these tips and try to follow them. You will be able to overcome it and complete your research paper or thesis writing successfully.

Happy Researching!

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Management of Stress and Anxiety Among PhD Students During Thesis Writing: A Qualitative Study

• L. Bazrafkan , N. Shokrpour , +1 author N. Yamani
• Published in Health Care Supervisor 1 July 2016
• Medicine, Education

5 Citations

A narrative review of anxiety regulation in phd students based on green model, the benefits and drawbacks of writing a b.a thesis as an english major, supporting doctoral candidates through completion and final examination, integrating writing across the curriculum strategies in nursing programs: an avenue to meet competency-based education criteria, exploring the influence of factors causing stress among doctoral students by combining fuzzy dematel-anp with a triangular approach, 32 references, stress and burnout assessment among post graduate dental students, a comparative study of professional student stress., a qualitative inquiry into the challenges and complexities of research supervision: viewpoints of postgraduate students and faculty members, factors contributing to perceived stress among doctor of pharmacy (pharmd) students., medical students’ distress – quality, continuity and gender differences during a six-year medical programme, challenges for better thesis supervision, the effects of acute stress on performance: implications for health professions education, survival strategies: doctoral students’ perceptions of challenges and coping methods, stress among medical students of gorgan (south east of caspian sea), iran., religiosity, anxiety, and depression among a sample of iranian medical students, related papers.

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Dealing With Stress and Anxiety as a PhD Student

Pursuing a PhD can be both interesting and overwhelming. In the beginning, a majority of the PhD students feel energised to conduct extra-ordinary research and submit a PhD research proposal which is unique and innovative. However, with time the task to balance both personal and academic life becomes difficult. As a result, the students try to isolate themselves to focus on their PhD thesis writing. This isolation often makes students stressed and anxious and even leads them to confusion. So, before you try to isolate yourself to introduce the whole mankind to cutting-edge research, read the below tips which will help you to deal with stress and anxiety as a research student.

Be organised

One of the major sources of stress is the inability to control a situation. As PhD proposal writing or PhD dissertation writing are inevitable parts of a PhD academic life, try to manage your time wisely. To keep control over the deadlines, ensure that you do not leave any academic writing task for the last minute. Experts suggest that breaking a major task into smaller goals is the best way to remain organised and stay on top of your PhD work.

Identify and address your dysfunctional emotions

As a number of thoughts run through a PhD student’s mind, to retain the health of your emotions it is important to stay away from any irrational thoughts. Identifying your dysfunctional feelings is a great way to deal with stress and anxiety. Instead of procrastinating your work due to irrational feelings or feeling embarrassed about your research related problems, try to get professional PhD thesis help . Professional help with PhD thesis writing will guide you in completing your work which might otherwise get affected due to negative feelings.

Being mindful means paying more attention to yourself and your surroundings. This is one of the proven methods of reducing the stress level as the people who practice mindfulness can easily notice any early signs of stress. It is also the best way to reduce any kind of distress in students during examination periods. To practice mindfulness, just sit quietly and pay attention to your body and surroundings. Do some breathing exercises to relax and reduce any negative thoughts.

The PhD students need to spend hours either standing for conducting a research or continuously sitting for reading and writing PhD dissertation. This adds to the physical and mental stress which you might go through. Taking part in any exercise such as walking, running, aerobics or swimming before starting your PhD work will help you improve your mental and physical health.

Look after yourself

Stress and anxiety can either lead to developing habits such as poor eating, emotional eating, drinking or smoking. Although these habits might reduce your stress temporarily, when continued for a long time, these habits can affect your body and immune system. So, be watchful and never fall prey to any habits which might lead you to nowhere. Additionally, get enough sleep to charge yourself up before doing any intellectual activity.

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How to deal with a total lack of motivation, stress and anxiety when finishing my masters thesis?

I am a master's student in Germany. I am currently writing my thesis and am more or less done with it.

Last week, I wrote my Conclusions and Methodology, so the only things left are the Introduction and the Abstract. But I am not satisfied with my work at all. I do not think I serves any purpose and I do not even think it is worth anything. I am very stressed and anxious, and I am really thinking of not submitting at all. I want to do more work and more research but with only 3 weeks left b before the deadline (there is not much to do). I have pushed writing the Introduction for 3 days now. It is Wednesday and I was supposed to start writing it on Monday.

How do I get myself together and just get it done? 20 days left to the submission.

• 35 "I do not think I serves any purpose and I do not even think it is worth any thing." The purpose of a Master's thesis is to give you some training in whatever your chosen field is and to get you a Master's degree, which then enables you to do other things. I am not sure what other purpose you are imagining for the thesis. Are you by any chance comparing your thesis to research produced by mature, professional researchers with years of practice? Unless the thesis is truly extraordinary, chances that it will be read by anyone are minimal, so there is no point in fretting too much about it. –  Adam Přenosil Commented Aug 9, 2023 at 17:05
• 1 Well I just so happened to read the paper of one of research associates in the department i am currently studying, and their research is incomparable with mine. I feel very shallow and weak somehow, especially knowing that he is going to be on part of my hearing committee. I do not even feel like i have the tools to defend myself against his knowledge. That is what is giving me all the stress. –  Florian Commented Aug 9, 2023 at 20:06
• 6 Have you talked to your advisors or professors ? –  Job_September_2020 Commented Aug 9, 2023 at 20:09
• 24 You are still a student. You have not even finished your Master's degree yet. No-one expects your research output to match the output of more experienced researchers, and it would be non-sensical for you to expect this too. –  Adam Přenosil Commented Aug 9, 2023 at 20:21
• 5 Might be worth reading about imposter syndrome since it seems like it might be contributing: academia.stackexchange.com/questions/11765/… –  Bryan Krause ♦ Commented Aug 9, 2023 at 20:51

8 Answers 8

It is possible that your judgement of the value is flawed. After all, you probably know more about the topic than almost anyone else and so it seems to you, with your knowledge, to be less than it is.

I suggest that you talk to a couple of people. One is an advisor or other trusted faculty member. But the other is a counsellor, who can advise you on why your feelings at the moment might not match the reality of the situation. This is an issue similar to Imposter Syndrome actually, though directed at the work rather than yourself.

A counsellor is good for stress reduction also, I suspect.

You may just need to turn the remains work into a scheduling problem, wading through the swamp of it to reach the other side.

• 15 +1. Your university quite probably has professional services for exactly this kind of situation. Just act now, because they may not be able to meet with you immediately. –  Stephan Kolassa Commented Aug 9, 2023 at 15:37

You are just a master student starting your path in research. From the way your question is worded, your expectations of what your work was supposed to be are extremely high (and probably unattainable). I would suggest you to talk with your advisor (the other person besides you that knows what your work is about), ask him what he thinks about the work you did and about your performance in the program. But, besides everything, try to fix a date where you sit and write what is remaining! For example, promise yourself that this Friday, at 15:00 hours, you will sit down in front your monitor and start writing. Fixing times like that helped me overcome the fear of a blank page . Even if what you write is not good enough, the next day you will not be confronted by a blank page, instead you will have a draft that can be modified. If the thoughts of not being good enough keep lurking you, remember that everybody face that kind of negative feelings.

From Emmy Noether's wikipedia page:

Under the supervision of Paul Gordan she wrote her dissertation, ""On Complete Systems of Invariants for Ternary Biquadratic Forms", (...) Although it had been well received, Noether later described her thesis and a number of subsequent similar papers she produced as "crap".

• 5 Poets also sometimes say their earlier work is crap, but it only indicates growth and the fact that you can and should do better with more experience. –  Buffy Commented Aug 9, 2023 at 19:16
• 3 Masters in Germany generally last 2 years just fyi. There are 1 year masters but generally only with a 4 year Bachelor which is uncommon –  SirHawrk Commented Aug 10, 2023 at 6:22
• @SirHawrk thank you for telling me, I edited my answer accordingly. –  Amelian Commented Aug 10, 2023 at 14:21
• +1 - (very) roughly speaking, as a student, one is still learning; first we learn to actually learn, then, for masters, how to write thesis, and finally, the PhD student is learning how to do real research and write articles that can be published in scientific journals. I suspect even most papers written as a PhD student are fairly insignificant, scientifically. –  j4nd3r53n Commented Aug 11, 2023 at 9:01

It might sound stupid but here is something that just might work for you (everyone is different):

Go to a park (now the weather is also getting nicer again in Germany) with pen and paper, without laptop and start writing about your thesis like you would do for an introduction but also just notes or loosely connected thoughts you might have. The pace, environment is different than on a desk which could get you out of the routine that got you stuck at this point. Maybe you can even bring a friend with you and just talk about the thesis while making notes, a little back-and-forth to even further alter the setting that you are in.

Afterwards use your notes and form it into a proper introduction.

I do similar things when writing scientifically but also for songwriting: Just write something now, make it a proper text later. There is a chance that it might not work for you obviously but 20 days seems like plenty of time to write an abstract and introduction to fool around with some other method for one or two days.

Best of luck!

• 1 I have a variant of this "routine breaking" advice. I simply open a new document and write a vulgar draft, trying genuinely to explain what I did but not "dressing it nicely", allowing myself to lament and vent all my misgivings in the text. Perhaps this makes a 4 page document. A few days later I copy it back into the main document, giggle at the thought of leaving it all in, and begin deleting unprofessional bits. Most of it thus disappears but some of it will be salvageable, maybe 2 paragraphs. Often I'll then want to expand a bit. But even if I am fully demoralized, at least it now exists. –  Eric Nathan Stucky Commented Aug 11, 2023 at 5:04

Try to relax. What you feel is pretty normal.

Most students think they have produced nothing but crap when they are about to hand in their thesis. That's a consequence of the stress you have had in the recent months.

I do not think I serves any purpose

It does. You will get your master's degree. That's the only purpose of a master thesis. Your supervisor will read it, grade it and put it onto a shelf in their office. And nobody will ever read it again. You do not have to hand in hundreds of pages of excellent scientific work. If you want that, continue with a doctorate.

I am really thinking of not submitting at all

Do not be afraid of a bad grade or a failure. At our university, theses usually fail if they are either too short or not handed in at all. As long as your thesis meets the formal requirements (e.g. number of pages) and does not completely miss the point, you will get a decent grade. If you do not submit it, you will fail, though. And believe me, that's not worth it.

I felt similar when writing my master's thesis. I even expressed feelings of having wasted a bunch of time writing something that was so narrow and specific that I couldn't imagine anyone could ever benefit from it. My advisor shared that this is often the way with research. She likened each project to a single grain of sand. In researching, you are illuminating one particular grain of knowledge. Taken with all the other offerings of the rest of your field, we get a clearer and clearer picture of how things really are.

I gave this advice to one of my friends, who finished his thesis, and thought it helpful:

• It's time to write, not read. Start writing what you can.
• You also will have a list of references and/or bibiliography, work on that.
• You likely will have figures, so work on them also.

Also, make a ring on a piece of paper, like a circular pie chart. Estimate the percentage that you are done and start filling in the circle, this will help motivate you.

Finally, you already have an "emergency thesis" in your mind that you will fall back on. Commit that to paper, you can improve it if need be.

Be in communication with your advisor, or if this isn't possible, a mentor that you trust. An "intelligent sounding board" is always useful.

Best wishes!

• 2 Also: don't get sidetracked into displacement activities. Now is /definitely/ not the time to- for example- redraw all your illustrations so that their metadata is compatible with PDF. –  Mark Morgan Lloyd Commented Aug 10, 2023 at 12:01

I do not even feel like I have the tools to defend myself against his knowledge. That is what is giving me all the stress.

That would make perfect sense... if your thesis was in the discipline of Defence Against the Dark Arts .

If someone on your committee will act like it was a confrontation or a battle, that doesn't make them fit for that duty. So, I sincerely hope that nobody during examination will be openly antagonistic and trying to belittle your work. That's not the way to act, and none of that would be your fault. If they only noticed problems with your work during the examination, they have missed their chance at being useful. That's also why it's important that you make sure the committe is acquainted with the current draft of your work, and that you get as much feedback as you can ahead of the examination . Even the strongest critique - should there be any need for that at all - can be delivered in a professional and courteous manner. Academic environment is also about teaching - that means bringing up successors into the field.

Being prepared for examination doesn't mean cramming. Rather it means knowing what to expect from the examiners by interacting with them previously , enough so that you can be fairly confident that they are familiar with your work, approach, style of presentation, etc. and seem comfortable with it. The examination should not have any surprises for you - not because you've re-read all the subject notes from the entire degree's worth of material one week prior, but because you have a feel for what the edxaminers care about, which of their interests may intersect with your work, and so on. It's more about the human side of things that having your mind full of facts.

Unfortunately, on the Master's examination of one of my peers there was an openly hostile examiner who for no good reason whatsoever tried to find everything wrong with the student's work only then in spite of being familiar with it ahead of time, and not really raising any objections earlier. In my opinion that is unproductive - never mind terribly stressful for everyone, and probably cringe-inducing in other, more level-headed examiners in the same room. This is bad behavior - being aware of it should at least help you understand that none of your work can justify that.

Instead of looking for inspiration or motivation to get you going so that you are riding on a wave of enthusiasm or enjoying the task, forget about all of that and only consider what will happen if you do not submit your work, forget motivation or how meaningful it all is or the meaning of life at this moment, just consider what will happen if you simply blow it off and do not submit your final work.

Also remember, perfection is the enemy of all things good.

If you cannot find the energy to do something because you do not see any real meaning in the reward you will get, or you simply cannot summon the interest and attention span to focus on the task, change your focus to the consequences of not doing it instead. You are not cherry-picking the perfect existence at your leisure you are avoiding certain disaster that comes from inaction.

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Four years ago, while I was writing a paper for my Master’s degree at Oxford, I came down with a stomach bug.

No, not a stomach bug, the mother of all stomach bugs. I had the worst stomach pain of my life; I had a fever; I couldn’t sleep, let alone eat. At one point it got so bad that I asked a neighbor to stand guard outside the toilet so I wouldn’t faint and suffocate on my own sick. Dignity be damned; that’s how bad it was.

After a week, it ended. Two months later, it returned.

Over the next three years, I would suffer from the mystery illness for roughly a week every other months. I did all the tests known to medicine and a few the doctors made up just to humor me. The conclusion: “it’s psychosomatic” or “it’s stress”.

But I wasn’t stressed. Once I started my PhD, I was mostly a shining ball of well-organized happiness – apart from those weeks were I was a searing ball of pain.

After three years, when I was just about to give up on ever having a normal, healthy life again, two things happened:

1) A friend convinced me to go running

2) Another friend made me try Mark Williams’s mindfulness meditation program

Initially, I hated both.

Mindfulness meditation is not, contrary to what my friend suggested, the solution to life, the universe, and everything. Neither is it, as I thought, attempting the impossible task to think nothing. It’s mostly lying around focusing on small things – breathing, the sensations of the body, the passage of thoughts.

All that annoying focusing made me notice a few things.

For one thing, the daily focus on how my abdomen feels while breathing made me realize that my stomach was not either fine or a burning ball of pain but that it was always in some degree of discomfort. And that I was really good at not noticing pain.

Then I discovered that when my stomach was worse, I’d usually also find a hand clenched without previously being aware of it.

How can you not be aware you’re clenching your fist? I don’t know; it’s possible.

Then, I realized that on some days, I would find focusing almost impossibly hard. Every time, I’d try focusing on my breathing, I’d remember that I needed to pay a bill, or I’d rerun disagreement I’d had in my mind, or I’d mentally write a paragraph.

I also seemed to notice a relationship between my inability to focus on the meditation and my stomach. The effect was not immediate but when I was unable to focus for a few days, I was sure to find my stomach increasingly painful.

While meditating you are encouraged to acknowledge your thoughts (“I’m worrying” or “I’m planning”) before you return to whatever you’re supposed to focus on.

This categorizing  acknowledgement made me realize that, sometimes, I’d be unable to focus on my meditation not because I was too worried but because I was too excited about my research to focus on anything else. At those times, I was ecstatic. I was definitely not stressed or anxious but I wasn’t calm either.

And here’s the shocker: My stomach does not care whether I am happy or sad.

It only cares whether I am calm.

This is why ‘psychosomatic’ never made sense to me. Yes, sometimes I got sick while I was stressed or anxious. But a lot of the time, I got sick after being happy about my work. A

better way of thinking about my stomach situation would be that it’s not only triggered by stress but when I am adrenalized or excited.

Finally, I noticed that whenever I meditated after going for a run, I would find it unusually easy to focus. I discovered that there were certain physical activities that do something to me akin to turning a computer off and on again.

So at the end of my three year odyssey, here is what I have learnt about managing physical and mental health in a high-stress environment:

1) If you suffer from physical symptoms, see a doctor .

Yes, most thought my symptoms were psychosomatic but one friend told me to seek a diagnosis. “I had similar symptoms and everyone thought it was psychosomatic,” she confided, “It was cancer”. Having a mystery illness checked out might make you a hypochondriac but it might just make you a cancer survivor.

2) If you’re sure you’re physically healthy, find a way to diagnose what precisely it is that triggers your symptoms .

“It’s psychosomatic” or “it’s stress” is hardly actionable. What exactly do your thoughts run to when you’re jittery? What exactly is it that you keep worrying about?

A lot of the time when you think you are anxious about everything, you are actually worried about a curiously specific thing (a paragraph, an unpaid bill). Once you know the specific problem, it becomes much easier to solve. Given the repetitive and specific focus, I think mindfulness meditation works as a diagnostic tool for different kinds of people and stress-related problems.

3) Find a way to deal with whatever is causing your symptoms.

This might be the specific problem but, sometimes, the overworked brain simply needs a reboot. For me the reboot is intense physical activity, preferably on my own, with music in nature.

The crucial thing is that you have to be honest with yourself. As much as I’d like the solution to be junkfood and netflix, these things (fantastic as they are) don’t do anything for my stomach or my stress-level.

4) Once you understand the problem and the solution, make a plan and stick to it.

Mostly, I don’t want to run. But knowing that running will make me relaxed and pain free and staying will make me hurt is infinitely more motivating than dreams of a “bikini body” ever could be. Once you really know what works, discipline becomes easier.

5) Don’t punish yourself for what your body does.

By far the biggest obstacle on my way to well-being was the word “psychosomatic” and my natural tendency to react to lagging productivity by pushing myself harder.

I would often stretch my unproductive, tired, pained days to the agonizing limit because I had not “deserved” a rest. If you do this, stop it. If you feel tired, or overworked, or in pain, take a break, treat yourself, and be kind to your body. If you’re feeling awesome, go work. Use the energy you have; running on empty does more harm than good.

My stomach and I have been fab friends for 6 months and counting.

Do you have physical stress symptoms? What are your tricks to staying healthy and happy in the PhD? What do you do to reboot?

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The Thesis Whisperer is written by Professor Inger Mewburn, director of researcher development at The Australian National University . New posts on the first Wednesday of the month. Subscribe by email below. Visit the About page to find out more about me, my podcasts and books. I'm on most social media platforms as @thesiswhisperer. The best places to talk to me are LinkedIn , Mastodon and Threads.

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Discussion forum for current, past, and future students of any discipline completing post-graduate studies - taught or research.

Procrastinated and now I have 1 month to write my thesis

I majorly screwed up, I've had massive problems with anxiety/procrastination and focus around schoolwork since high school and my thesis that I could've been working on since January (original due date was May, I got it extended to stay a student for longer and do another internship), and I need to defend it by the end of September and turn it in 10 days before the defense minimum. The requirements aren't crazy as it has to be 40 pages and I'm not collecting data, I'll use secondary data.

I'm also working currently so I don't have unlimited free time. But now I'm getting seriously worried the task isn't possible. I feel like I need to go into hardcore mode and spend all free time working on it. The task just seems so insurmontable (thus the anxiety that's gotten me into this place) and I'm terrified of failing and not being able to graduate.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I know it's easy enough to say "just get started" but I've been trying to tell myself this/people have been telling me for months....

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Center for Digital Scholarship

University-Wide Requirements for the Ph.D. Dissertation

Dissertations must comply with the specifications set by the Library, by the author's department, and by the University. Departments, divisions, and schools may have requirements in addition to those described in this booklet. Students are responsible for informing themselves of these additional requirements.

The Dissertation Office provides information on the University’s dissertation policies. We help doctoral students understand dissertation formatting and submission requirements, and we assist with the submission process. Students are welcome to contact us with questions.

Contact the Dissertation Office

Web: phd.lib.uchicago.edu Email: [email protected] Phone: 773-702-7404 Visit: Suite 104D, Center for Digital Scholarship, Regenstein Library

Routine Hours: Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Actual hours vary to accommodate meetings, workshops, and training. The office is often closed during the interim between quarters.

Dissertation Requirements

Doctoral dissertations are original contributions to scholarship. As a condition for receipt of the doctorate, all students are required to submit their dissertations to Knowledge@UChicago, the University’s open access repository. If a dissertation includes copyrighted material beyond fair use, the author must obtain permission from the holder of the copyright.

The public sharing of original dissertation research is a principle to which the University is deeply committed, and dissertations should be made available to the scholarly community at the University of Chicago and elsewhere in a timely manner. If dissertation authors are concerned that making their research publicly available might endanger research subjects or themselves, jeopardize a pending patent, complicate publication of a revised dissertation, or otherwise be unadvisable, they may, in consultation with faculty in their field (and as appropriate, research collaborators), restrict access to their dissertation for a limited period of time according to the guidelines outlined by the Dissertation Office. If a dissertation author needs to renew an embargo at the end of its term or initiate an embargo after graduation, the author must contact the Dissertation Office with the embargo request. Embargo renewals may be approved only in rare instances, and in general no more than one renewal will be allowed.

All dissertations must follow the formatting and submission requirements stated in the University-Wide Requirements for the Ph.D. Dissertation , available from the Dissertation Office on the first floor of the Joseph Regenstein Library in the Center for Digital Scholarship.

University-Wide Requirements

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Presenting your thesis

 formatting your thesis.

Please refer to Regulation 7.4.2 for important information on how to format your thesis.

The Library Services guide 'Presenting your thesis' has been written as the standard for all theses presented for research degrees in the University of Birmingham. 

It offers guidance on the practicalities of producing your thesis in a format that is acceptable for examination and for deposit in the library. This guide does not deal with the content and academic standard required of a thesis and on these matters you are advised to consult University Regulations, your supervisor and guidance issued by your School.

Please also see the  Getting your thesis ready workshop webpage .

 Thesis word limit

On submitting your thesis for examination you are required to complete a declaration form confirming the word length of your thesis. You should therefore be aware of the maximum word length for your thesis. See  Regulation 7.4.2 (d).

The stated maximum number of words excludes tables, diagrams (including associated legends), appendices, list of references, footnotes and endnotes, the bibliography and any bound published material. For information on referencing styles see the  iCite – referencing at the University of Birmingham  webpages.

A thesis that exceeds the maximum number of words will not be accepted for examination unless permission to exceed the stated word count has been granted by the Research Progress & Awards Sub Panel. Permission to exceed the stated word count is only granted in exceptional circumstances. If you consider that you will not be able to meet the stated word limited, you are advised to discuss this with your supervisor at an early stage.

 Language of your thesis

 acknowledging collaborative work.

If any material is included in your thesis which is a result of collaborative working, you must include details of how much of the work is your own and how much is that of other people. See Regulation 7.4.1 (h).

It is also important to seek the prior agreement of those other people to make your thesis available in the University eTheses Repository. 

 Previously published or submitted work

You may include work that has already been published providing the work is properly integrated, either in the thesis or as an appendix to which reference is made - see  Regulation 7.4.1 (g). It must be adequately referenced and you are advised to consult with your supervisor if you are unsure about the inclusion of any previously published work in your thesis. 

For additional information please refer to the Copyright for Researchers web page

You may not include material for assessment which has already been submitted for another degree awarded at this or any other University, unless all of the conditions set out in Regulation 7.4.1 (f) are satisfied.

If you are considering including published papers in your thesis, please read the alternative format thesis guide (Word - 22KB).

 Plagiarism

Plagiarism is a form of cheating and is a serious academic offence. It arises where work submitted is not the student's own and has been taken from another source. The original material is then hidden from the marker, either by not referencing it properly, by paraphrasing it or by not mentioning it at all.

For further information see the University’s Guidance on plagiarism for students .

All theses submitted for examination are checked through plagiarism detection software.

 Editorial help for PGR theses

A thesis submitted for examination at the University of Birmingham must be solely the postgraduate researcher’s own work (except where University Regulations permit the inclusion of appropriately referenced collaborative research or work – see Regulation 7.4.1 . A postgraduate researcher must not employ a ‘ghost writer’ to write parts or all of the thesis, whether in draft or as a final version, on his/her behalf.

Editors, whether they are formal supervisors, informal mentors, family or friends or professional, need to be clear about the extent and nature of help they offer in the editing of University of Birmingham PGRs theses and dissertations. Supervisors of PGRs also need to be clear about the role of the third party editors as well as their own editorial role.

PGRs may use third party editorial assistance (paid or voluntary) from an outside source.  This must be with the knowledge and support of supervisors and the use of third party editorial assistance must be stated in the thesis acknowledgement page.

A ‘third party’ editor cannot be used :

• To change the text of the thesis so as to clarify and/or develop the ideas and arguments;
• To reduce the length of the thesis so it falls within the specified word limit;
• To correct information within the thesis;
• To change ideas and arguments put forward within the thesis; and/or
• To translate the thesis into English.

A ‘third party’ editor can be used to offer advice on:

• Spelling and punctuation;
• Formatting and sorting of footnotes and endnotes for consistency and order;
• Ensuring the thesis follows the conventions of grammar and syntax in written English;
• Shortening long sentences and editing long paragraphs;
• Changing passives and impersonal usages into actives, vice versa as may be appropriate;
• Improving the positioning of tables and illustrations and the clarity, grammar, spelling and punctuation of any text in or under tables and illustrations; and
• Ensuring consistency of page numbers, headers and footers.

Where a third party editor is used it is the PGR’s responsibility to provide the third party editor with a copy of this statement (Word - 20KB)  and ensure they complete the Third Party Editor Declaration Form (Word - 32KB)  confirming their compliance with this statement.

When submitting the thesis the PGR must record in the Acknowledgements page the form of contribution the ‘third party’ editor has made, by stating for example, “this thesis was copy edited for conventions of language, spelling and grammar by ABC Editing Ltd”.

Please also see the Code of Practice on Academic Integrity .

 Intellectual property rights

These rights generally belong to the student, but if your work is considered to be commercially significant students may be required to assign their rights to the University. 

For further information please see:

• University Regulation 5.4 covering Intellectual Property
• Regulation 3.16 covering Patents and The Exploitation of Inventions
• The Copyright for Researchers webpage

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PRTH 987 Dissertation Writing in Practical Theology I

• Course Description

For information regarding prerequisites for this course, please refer to the  Academic Course Catalog .

Course Guide

View this course’s outcomes, policies, schedule, and more.*

*The information contained in our Course Guides is provided as a sample. Specific course curriculum and requirements for each course are provided by individual instructors each semester. Students should not use Course Guides to find and complete assignments, class prerequisites, or order books.

PRTH 987 is the transitional course that assesses competency from PhD in Practical Theology course work and prepares the PhD candidate for dissertation writing. This is accomplished through the successful completion of a comprehensive field exam, prospectus development and approval, and pairing the candidate with an appropriate dissertation supervisor. All these tasks are necessary before dissertation writing can formally commence.

Course Assignment

Textbooks readings and lecture presentations.

No details available.

Course Requirements Checklist

After reading the Course Syllabus and Student Expectations , the student will complete the related checklist found in the Course Overview.

Quiz: Preprospectus Proposal Consultation

The student will submit to the instructor teaching PRTH 987 a “Preprospectus Proposal” developed in the Tier II courses for the instructor’s evaluation and feedback, especially as it relates to the three overriding principles of dissertations in the PhD in Practical Theology program; namely, that they must be appropriately biblical, theological, and practical. The student will then meet with the instructor to discuss the details of the proposal before the first draft of the prospectus is composed. This initial consultation will provide opportunity for redirection and refinement as appropriate, along with advice on how the particular topic might best be developed into a library-based, biblically, and practically oriented PhD dissertation. The student will complete a quiz verifying that they have completed the requirement. (CLO: A, B).

Comprehensive Exam 4: Journal Article Proposal Assignment

The fourth and final comprehensive exam requires the composition of an article related to the student’s intended dissertation topic. The article functions as a “field essay” and (1) establishes that the student has “read themselves into the field” sufficient to demonstrate mastery of the issues and literature appropriate to the PhD level of research, and (2) establishes that the student has a viable proposed research topic in the field. In preparation for the exam, the student must write a brief proposal (2-page maximum) to be submitted to the professor for approval. (CLO: A).

Comprehensive Exam 4: Journal Article Assignment

Once the Comprehensive Exam 4: Journal Article Proposal Assignment has been approved by the instructor of PRTH 987, the student must prepare and submit a publishable article on an approved topic relevant to the student’s dissertation that explores a gap in the literature. This exam must demonstrate that the student has a mastery of the field, a grasp of the literature, and an ability to integrate information and themes developed in their PhD in Practical Theology coursework. (CLO: A).

Dissertation Prospectus: First Draft Assignment

The PhD in Practical Theology prospectus will be submitted in two stages: first draft and final draft. In the first draft submission, the student will submit a prospectus containing 4 key components: (1) a dissertation abstract; (2) a description of the dissertation’s research methodology and design of the dissertation’s argument; (3) a chapter-by-chapter outline; (4) a working bibliography. (CLO: B, C).

Dissertation Prospectus: Final Draft Assignment

The final draft of the dissertation prospectus will contain the same 4 components as the Dissertation Prospectus First Draft Assignment and will gather up, address, and remediate any issues raised by the instructor. (CLO: B, C).

Quiz: Dissertation Supervisor Pairing Assignment

The student will complete the Dissertation Supervisor Pairing Quiz to verify that they are ready to be paired with a dissertation supervisor. (CLO: G).

Argument Analysis and Research Methodology Assignment

Considering the elements of a good argument in Turabian’s A Manual for Writers, Chapter 5, “Planning Your Argument,” the student will assess their dissertation’s proposed argument relative to (1) its central claim; (2) warrants on which the claim relies; (3) evidence supporting the claim the student intends to present in the dissertation; and (4) the student’s response to potential objections to the argument. Then, the student will describe their research methodology relative to 4 key concerns: (1) it employs library-based (rather than human subject) research; (2) it employs an evidence-based, logically-defensible research heurism; (3) it is biblical and theological with engagement with primary sources as appropriate; and (4) it is practical. The paper must be double-spaced and between 7-10 pages in length, exclusive of title page, contents page, and bibliography, and follow current Turabian format guidelines, utilizing footnote citations. The paper must consist of two distinct sections: argument analysis and revised research methodology. (CLO: D).

Quiz: Primary Source Research

Because this is a PhD in Practical Theology, engagement with the biblical text (primary source) sufficient to undergird both the theological and practical components of the student’s research is both required and expected. The student will complete a quiz verifying that they have engaged in appropriate primary source research related to their dissertation’s topic and focus. (CLO: E, F).

Quiz: Turabian Review

Because Kate Turabian’s A Manual for Writers is the style standard for the student’s dissertation, the student will complete a quiz verifying that they have reviewed the style guide sufficiently to be able to produce a clean dissertation. (CLO: E, F).

Quiz: Dissertation Supervisor Initial Consultation Assignment

Once the student has been notified of dissertation supervisor pairing, the student will reach out to the dissertation supervisor and request an initial consultation. This consultation meeting will typically be 20 to 30 minutes in length and will be conducted virtually through Microsoft Teams or the current video conferencing platform the university is using at the time. (CLO: G).

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Melissa Smith, PhD, helps workplaces embrace AI

Vol. 55 No. 6 Print version: page 29

• Applied Psychology
• Managing Human Capital
• User Experience Design
• Artificial Intelligence

As artificial intelligence (AI) and automation revolutionize work, employers worldwide are striving to keep pace with the latest developments, maintain productivity, and reduce employee stress.

Applied cognitive psychologist Melissa Smith, PhD, is studying the best ways to help companies and organizations do that as a senior user experience (UX) researcher at Google Workspace, based in Raleigh, North Carolina. The group designs and integrates Google’s vast suite of productivity tools, including Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Meet, into a cohesive service. Using the latest cognitive science, Smith and her team are building more intuitive, user-friendly programs, such as the mobile versions of popular applications like Google Drive and Calendar. Their goal is to boost both employee performance and well-being.

Smith underscores the need for workplaces to adapt to AI and other emerging technologies. She sees these advances not as threats to replace people but as tools to aid in mundane or risky tasks, enabling people to prioritize what truly defines human work: collaboration and creativity. “The beauty of user experience research is discovering what makes someone care deeply about a product, then developing that technology to support their learning and growth,” said Smith.

The Monitor talked with Smith about how she came to UX research and its implications for the future workforce.

How do your team’s strategies and goals stand out from those of other companies developing tools to improve how people work?

Google Workspace products have always been known for their collaborative nature. When I was in early college and Google first introduced Docs, it was revolutionary to be able to have multiple people working on one document at the same time. Today, those collaborative features are an industry norm, and our team is still pushing the cutting-edge boundaries of collaborative work. We are currently incorporating generative AI features across Gmail and Workspace to simplify organization tasks. Soon, you will be able to use Gmail’s side panel to summarize emails and highlight the most important action items. Also, the “Help me write” feature in Gmail and Docs, which uses AI to draft messages based on your prompts, will support Spanish and Portuguese.

Our team also prioritizes tech accessibility as we build new features, making sure that we don’t inadvertently exclude people who, for instance, rely on screen readers or high-contrast screens to interact with our services. Accessibility considerations can be easily overlooked if you don’t actively engage with the many types of consumers who use your services. There are always opportunities for us to improve in creating technology that caters to people with diverse needs or disabilities.

How is your research at Google enhancing employee well-being and shaping how the next generation will work?

User experience research is vital in product development because we are actively incorporating the voices of customers and users. My work focuses on talking with people who use our products to accomplish the diverse tasks relevant to their roles. For example, the needs of a general consumer using our products to complete schoolwork or organize family events differ from those of a small business owner who uses Google Workspace to manage a team.

By making productivity tools more user-friendly, our services streamline workflows and reduce employee stress. Overly complex software and information overload can cause mental fatigue. If we can simplify these processes and present information more clearly, we can help workers focus on essential tasks. This is especially important as workplaces increasingly adopt hybrid work models and communication among workers is fragmented. Our research helps us develop products that better support remote work, such as improved virtual collaboration and scheduling tools that help employees maintain work-life balance.

For example, my team has gained valuable information from users about the importance of seamless connection across multiple platforms and devices which has inspired us to improve the mobile interface for Google Workspace products. Just 5 years ago, I would have never opened a Google Doc on my phone. Now, mobile Docs is far more accessible and offers expanded features for collaboration among employees working from many different locations and platforms.

What led you to user experience research?

During middle school and high school, I was involved with a nonprofit organization called FIRST, which fosters excitement for science and technology among K–12 students through annual robotics competitions. It’s been more than 20 years since I first participated in the program, but that excitement hasn’t stopped. I serve on the FIRST Robotics board and help connect FIRST students with alumni at Google.

One of my goals is to show students the diverse STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)-related careers available to them, beyond the already well-known roles like engineer, lab scientist, or doctor. This is partly influenced by my own experiences. I spent my undergraduate years as a mechanical engineering major because I wanted to work in robotics. But when I discovered human-robot interactions, I found that exploring how people engage with and trust artificial agents, and how robots can improve human lives, interested me far more. So, I changed my major and pursued a PhD in applied cognitive psychology and eventually realized that my research interests aligned with the user experience field.

Your dissertation looked at people’s trust in automation and robotics. How do you bring that knowledge into your current work?

No matter what the technology is—you could insert whichever technology buzzword you want, whether it’s AI, machine learning, or big data—people’s fundamental approaches to adopting new systems follow a similar pattern. There will be the early adopters, who embrace the new technology and trust it even if it’s still being workshopped. Then, there is a larger chunk of intermediary users, who prefer to test the waters and wait for the technology to take off before they immerse themselves in it. Finally, there are the people who resist change altogether—the “if it’s not broken, why fix it?” users, who probably wouldn’t mind using an old-school flip phone.

That research taught me that you need to adapt to each set of users. I emphasize that perspective in every product my team creates because most of us on the development team belong to that first group, who generally trust and understand technology. But we aren’t representative of most consumers, so it’s essential to reach out to our end users, not to convince them to trust our product but to hear their concerns so we can build a product worth trusting.

How will AI continue to influence UX research?

AI is unique in that it doesn’t just offer incremental improvements over existing technologies; it represents a whole new paradigm in how people think about and interact with technology. Consequently, we need to exercise much greater caution when building new products and proactively anticipate how users will interact with these systems. At the same time, AI opens many more opportunities to create magical moments—to push productivity, problem-solving, and collaboration forward. That kind of entirely new technology hasn’t emerged in many years, so it is an incredibly interesting time to be a user experience researcher.

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