Hi, I need serious help for my PhD in philosophy. Basically, I have exactly one year left, out of four, and I haven’t written anything yet. At least not something that is of use. I have submitted a draft of my first chapter to my professor, and he just said that it needs a lot of revising, he gave me some hint to start off the chapter differently, drop a lot of things, etc., so that I have to completely rewrite this chapter from the ground now. I have been pressuring myself to actually finally have something written for the past year. They say that having a baisse at around mid-PhD period is normal. But I have only one year left now. I really hate myself, and realize that I am just not smart enough to actually write a dissertation.
Out of anxiety and frustration, I have amassed an absolutely crazy zotero library, everything nicely filled in with PDFs. Of course, I have long started using GPT and Gemini in an attempt to scrawl through the seemingly endless material I have amassed. Then I remember that I should just start writing, get on paper what I actually want to say. But I cant. I don’t know what my argument is really.
You might wonder, how did I get funding in the first place? Basically, I just knew I wanted to do a PhD in philosophy, because, back then, I really loved it, and I was also pretty good at (I was the best in my master’s class). So after an arduous hassle with various fundings, I found one and simply pulled something out of my sleeve: I wrote some ‘research plan’ that sounded professional. I’m very good at bullshitting. But in the past three years of my PhD, I’ve had to accept the painful realization that I’m just not good at writing and thinking and philosophizing. I rarely speak up in meetings and colloquiums. I haven’t published any article. I tried repurposing a bit some of my papers from my master’s, sent them in, and received the peer-review of ‘major revisions’ necessary. I put this on hold, wanting finally to get along with my dissertation. But I have nothing, until this day…
I am very desperate and scared of simply not handing anything in in the end, or handing in some collage of GPT, just a really shitty dissertation that cannot be called that, that will get rejected… I need serious help. I even looked into ghostwriters, but figured that most of them are of no use, they’re no better than gpt at this point…
The topic of my dissertation is psychological typologies, history of psychology. I employ Foucault and Wittgenstein, as they both have interesting and I think complementary but compatible perspectives on the science of psychology in relation to everyday psychology. I don’t know why I specify all that, I guess I hope to find that one person who happens to be expert in all this and willing to help me. I’d be willing to pay a lot of money at this point. I will provide more concrete ideas, sources, etc. upon request.
Comments
You keep saying you only have a year left, but that’s not true unless you start writing. It’s going to be a lot longer than that if you don’t get it together.
What happens if you don’t finish?
I inherited a few PhD students who had ground to a halt, especially my first one, who was clinically depressed. We resolved some structural issues and got going and then she said she was four months pregnant. It was finished and she’s been lecturing ever since.
You can do it, or you wouldn’t have got this far.
Find a way to write it.
The usual magic is to make a big essay plan and then break it down into chunks of say 500 words and write those one at a time. Remember the biggest issue is usually running out of words, not not having enough.
I’d strongly suggest writing the easy bits first. Not the introduction as that’s last.
Make sure you know exactly what’s going where and do not ever read anything you won’t need that won’t fit, even if it’s quite interesting. If you go off the point, stick the digression in a footnote. It will be deletable lately.
Best advice I had on mine – just get on with it as you’ll never look at it again.
Remember to compile your bibliography as you go along.
Good luck.
>Then I remember that I should just start writing, get on paper what I actually want to say. But I cant. I don’t know what my argument is really.
This is the main issue. Without ideas, even the most eloquent writing won’t sound convincing. Sit down with your advisor bring them an outline, no matter how crude. They may be able to help you clarify the main questions to tackle in the thesis.
Hey fellow PhD student in philosophy here! Also in my third year in a similar situation.
YMMV but here’s some advice I got from my supervisor and other mentors:
Write whichever chapter you feel like every day. You don’t have to focus on one chapter at a time, you don’t have to go from start to finish. If something doesn’t click or you start to struggle with a particular section, just move on to something else. It allows you to also keep the broader picture in mind. Not only does this help you write a cohesive thesis it also allows you to stay productive by working on things that flow easier for you. You can always go back to the chapter or the section you struggled with later.
Write first, cite second. This is my favorite advice but it’s not easy to do. Just put down your thoughts on paper first. Assumingly you’ve read the literature on your topic and as you said you’ve got a massive Zotero database. Focus on putting your story together first, having a narrative frame for your argument (and your whole thesis), then you’ll go back and add references, nitty-gritty stuff and work out the specific details later. It’s much easier to do that rather than write a sentence, find the reference, then move on to the next sentence, and so on. Eventually you lose track of what the argument is supposed to be like and it’s also exhausting. If you know what’s going on with your primary sources and the general secondary literature, try to riff off of what you know.
What matters is that you start somewhere. It’s easier to write when it’s about editing. My method is to just write whatever first (with no rigor in terms of using references) and later, usually a couple days later, the writing becomes much easier because it’s more about editing and adding things to something that’s already on paper. Editing is easier.
Because editing is easier it doesn’t matter if your writing sucks. Write like you speak. Just put down your ideas on Word.
You don’t have to work insane hours. Start giving yourself a goal of writing for a couple of hours each day. I was told by some mentors that sometimes if you can just manage to work at least for four hours then that’s good enough.
>or handing in some collage of GPT
Yeah don’t do that. Just fucking write it dude. The hardest part is having self-discipline to work every day, it’s not the writing part. Be proud of what you’ve done so far and look forward to being proud of having it done all by yourself. Consider your current stress and anxiety as a wake up call right now and channel all that energy into sitting your ass down and doing it, step by step, sentence by sentence.
If you can’t get extensions or a leave of absence from your program and you really actually have a hard deadline, then you just gotta dive into it and do it. That’s the beauty of life and of philosophy especially when you have to plunge into the situation and face it.
I’m more climate/glaciers but I feel that starting from scratch feels like an impossible task to me, nothing will get written that way. I use a combination of Obsidian + Zotero.
Zotero is where I store my pdfs and can export citations easily. I do highlighting but it’s mostly for interesting findings or quotes. There’s no system there.
Obsidian is where the work gets done. Its a free markdown software that allows you to link. I mostly have Source Papers and Topics.
Source papers are notes on each individual paper. Titled by author and year (Crawford, 2021) and stored in a folder in Obsidian. Some metadata with Title, citation, tags, etc. Some info on what they did, what they found, some quotes, etc. I also think it’s really important to include a summary in your own words of what the paper contributes and why it’s important — this is then used later to write about it.
Topics are notes on major topics — Tidewater Glaciers, Landsat – etc. I link all the papers that involve the topic to it. Then I include a bunch of information on it – what it is, how it’s being used, important things about it, etc.
What you’re building is a Wiki of your research. So when it’s time to write, you have a all the papers and information pertaining to that topics you’re writing about and summaries in your own words what’s going on. It starts a framework and makes the writing process a lot less daunting in my opinion. So in your case, you need to make Topic notes of psychological typologies, history of psychology, etc. Break it down and then start building up.
I also have notes from classes, meetings, and Workflows – what I did (with dates), examples of code, why it did or did not work, next steps, pictures, website links, etc. I write everything as if I’m explaining to a 5 year old. Because in 6 months or more when I come back, I’m the 5 year old and have no idea what’s going on. Be kind to your future self who is tired and dumb haha.
Stop using GPT, gemini, etc. You are shooting yourself in the foot by generating (someone else’s words) without having (your own) ideas/analysis.
Get this book: https://books.google.ca/books/about/Writing_Your_Dissertation_in_Fifteen_Min.html?id=q5bGvErV1lgC&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y, make a plan of attack, and start a practice of writing every day.
Have a serious talk w your supervisor (or if that prof isn’t helpful, with another you know/like) about your writers block and get any advice you can. You aren’t the first phd student to be in this situation, and there’s still time to turn things around, but you need to get expert advice from within your field.
Start a thesis writing accountability group with other students. Meet at least weekly and report to each other on your progress, set goals, and then write together. Cheer each other on & help each other problem-solve. I know philosophy can be solitary but it doesn’t have to be alone.
Stop listening to your self talk that you’re “not smart enough”. Nonsense. You are likely very smart, but that’s besides the point. It’s the hard work you’re avoiding, because you think it won’t be smart enough.
The ironic truth is that unless you start writing, it won’t be good enough. You have to just force yourself to start under whatever crazy ass means necessary. If nothing else, sit down & set a one hour timer & you’re not allowed to do anything besides write & write until the timer is up. If that makes you start writing unhinged stream of consciousness nonsense as you think about what to say, so be it but you have to start somewhere to rebuild a daily writing discipline.
And soon you will find you use your writing time more wisely because you need even a crappy first draft to then build upon & revise.
I reward my writing block time with a good workout, but whatever reward you enjoy, you can tie a reward to each completed writing block.
Sometimes writers block and procrastination are rooted in anxiety. If this is what you’re struggling with you need to find a therapist and work on improving your mental health.
Second, academic writing is always iterative. Almost all of the chapters of my dissertation were rewritten, sometimes more than once. I’m not a bad writer. It’s just the process. My advisor told me he edits/revises a paper at least 6 times over before letting anyone see. Then he gets feedback from others and revises again. This is how you get something from sounding colloquial and casual to academic, tight, jargony, and well argued.
One thing that helped with my anxiety was breaking everything in much smaller pieces. So maybe first day is just “make outline for intro” then I turn that into a todo list and sort it into days such as “write the paragraph about x” or “write the paragraph that links x to x.” Only one paragraph a day then u can do something else! Some days that’s all I could do and others you just keep writing! But sitting down to “write your dissertation” is not the way if that overwhelms you.
Lastly, I’m not super knowledgeable about how philosophy PhDs work – so maybe someone else can weigh in – but it seems like you should have been writing and getting feedback from your advisor in writing all along. Not to mention the fact that you don’t have your idea sorted out – that’s something you do with an advisor in my field. If you don’t feel like you have a good advisor maybe try reaching out to other committee members to see if they are willing to help.
Whenever I’ve had writer’s block, I just started writing “freely”, without adding any actual citations or anything, just writing whatever. Eventually that turns into an outline you can run by your advisors, and if they are any good at their job, they’ll rebound your ideas off of you in a constructive way, and that will get the ball rolling.
Step one: boil down your central thesis to a sentence or two. Then launch into writing.
To help with your thesis, what are you hoping the audience gains from reading your dissertation? That is, how do psychological typologies and psychological history go hand in hand? And, what are the contrasting points? Start by drawing out a Venn diagram and listing the differences and similarities. Think about your kairos, “an opportune time.”— Why is your argument important now? As a reader, what would I gain by learning about psychological typologies, and why is psychological history essential for understanding these concepts?