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0 By Matt Jones
A dissertation is undoubtedly one of the most challenging things in your life to date — especially the effect it has on your mental health. From stressing about which topic to write on, to the endless late nights getting it completed. You may feel you need help and support with this.
In this article, we’ll outline a few things you can do to ensure you create the perfect dissertation while keeping your mental health in check.
Plan, plan and plan
Now this may seem like an obvious piece of advice. But more students will fail to plan out their dissertation than they’d like to admit.
It doesn’t need to be a full in-depth strategy plan for your entire dissertation. But there are definitely a few stages that are going to be hugely beneficial to plan out.
Firstly, and possibly most obviously, plan out the topic you’ll be covering. You’ve probably already got a few ideas of what that’ll be, so that’s a great starting place. Write down your idea(s) and plot a few rough notes on what you’ll cover within it. If you can do this for different topics, it’ll be help you more than you realise.
Which are you most passionate about?
The reason this is going to help so much is, naturally, you’ll likely be able to write down more points and notes for one topic than for all the others. What this tells you is that you’re most passionate about that topic. And you’ll have a much easier time creating a masterpiece that’ll secure you that degree.
Once you’ve done the above and found which topic you’ll be writing about, expand on your notes a little. Create a very brief outline of the structure you want your dissertation to follow. These can act as slight ‘chapter headings’ if you like and give you a framework to work towards.
These aren’t set in stone and can easily change once you get your creative juices flowing. But overall, this will give you a starting point when you finally sit down to write your dissertation.
Take short, frequent breaks
Obviously there are not many people who’ll sit down and write up their dissertation in one go. So breaks are obvious during the process. In fact, students can spend weeks on writing their dissertation to ensure it’s the best it can be.
What you want to do, is give yourself an allotted amount of time (a good few hours at least) to sit and work on your dissertation with no distractions.
Inevitably though, your concentration will drop the longer you go, therefore, it’s important to take breaks. The best way to do this is to have short, frequent breaks. This will allow you to get that much needed break away from your screen while ensuring you still stay focussed enough to not lose track of where you were.
If you take long breaks, by the time you get back to your writing, you might forget where you were up to or lose track of your thoughts.
The best thing to do, is for every hour you spend writing, take a short 2-5 minute break, go and get a drink or a snack and stretch your legs.
Lock away any distractions
Maybe not literally locking them away, but moving distractions such as smartphones or tablets out of sight can be a fantastic way to keep focussed.
Too often, we sit down to concentrate on some work and leave our phones next to us. The next thing you know, you’ve spent the last 30 minutes sending snapchats and replying to your group messages on Facebook.
Keeping your phones/tablets in another room is a great way to fight the urges to check every 5 minutes and help you concentrate on your dissertation.
What about the laptop you’re writing it on though? All too often, people forget that the device they’re writing it on is also a way to access Social Media and videos of cats. The best thing to do here, is to sign out of any social accounts that you get notifications on. This will stop anything from popping up and taking you away from the job at hand.
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Find additional help and support
When you’re struggling during your dissertation, stuck inside, trying to overcome your writer’s block, it can be an incredibly frustrating and lonely time. All the other students on your course are going through this, but as you’re all in the same position, it can be a difficult task to find help and support.
Which is why finding a dissertation tutor can be hugely beneficial. Not only will they be able to sit down and go through the process and techniques with you — they’ve been through this themselves. They understand the trials and tribulations you need to overcome during the writing of your dissertation.
Having the help and advice of a tutor isn’t just beneficial to your writing, it’s also beneficial to your mental health. You’ll have support which in turn lowers your stress and having someone with you can help you feel less lonely.
Go and master your dissertation
The tips above don’t cover all aspects of writing a dissertation and there will be other obstacles to overcome during the process. But these are great ways of making it a lot easier for yourself.
It can cause a huge strain on your mental health which then makes it an even harder process. It’s a vicious cycle. Using these tips can help you set out a clear idea of what’s to come and prepare yourself in plenty of time.
If you find yourself struggling, don’t forget you can always use great sites, such as iam1in4 to find support. You can read how other people overcome their struggles and be reassured that you’re not alone.
Author Bio
Matt Jones is an education expert at Tutorful – one of the UK’s leading tuition platforms. He is passionate about raising awareness of mental health issues amongst students and helping people find the support and advice they need.
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