Writing teacher: ‘PhD, do not wait till the last minute to write your thesis’

Do PhD candidates underestimate writing up their theses?
“They concentrate more on the content of their research than on writing it up. The writing is pushed right to the end. And then they get stuck as it turns out to be harder than they thought. Thinking about its structure, difficulty in focusing, procrastination … This could have serious consequences, for example if their contract comes to an end and they have to return to their home country. They then lose their salary. This can cause a lot of stress.”

Should the Writing a Dissertation course be mandatory?

“I do not think this is necessary. It is good that PhD candidates can choose themselves what is relevant for them. What I do think is positive is that several faculties have included our courses in a timeline. PhD candidates can then see when is a useful time along their path. Not all faculties have done this, while it could be very helpful for PhDs from smaller research groups that cannot rely on the verbal information transfers of other PhDs or supervisors with plenty of experience.”

What can the PhD supervisors do?

“First of all, most of them are already doing it well. Supervisors have a lot of experience and introduce their PhD candidates well in the field. But I do see a few things. As you mention in your Profkip article, there are too many PhD candidates and too little time to mentor people. I speak to a lot of PhD candidates that have to wait endlessly for feedback or only get feedback to a text once. This makes the writing process unnecessarily long. They feel blocked and often think that it is their fault – I’m taking too much time or I shouldn’t put off my writing. It is of course hard to write an article if you are not sure about the conventions in your field or simply what your supervisor expects.”

‘I speak to a lot of PhD candidates that have to wait endlessly for feedback’

How can you help PhD supervisors in this?

“PhD supervisors naturally come up against all sorts of things when supervising their PhD candidates. For the writing part, I think it would be good for them if they can share the responsibility or can hand over part of it to us. They should not try to solve all the writing issues themselves, but send the PhD candidates to the Writing Centre or to a writing course. This frees up the supervisors who can then spend their time on the subject matter. They are the first to see if a PhD candidate is struggling with writing or if they can refer them to someone else. We can thus also make things easier for supervisors who are already busy.”

How can you do this if you are also so understaffed?

“I would like to see a few things. More capacity for Graduate School courses that PhD candidates will see as important. Funding is available for coaching sessions for bachelor and master students, which are run by student assistants. However, there is no funding for the PhD sessions. We at the ITAV (Institute for Languages and Academic Skills) provide these as an additional service alongside our regular teaching. I hope this will change in the future. I believe that writing support should be a set part of the services offered to PhD candidates, just like the student counsellors and student psychologists are. This will also save money. We relieve the – more expensive – supervisors and facilitate the process so that the dissertations are done faster. On top of this, it will of course lead to PhDs with better skills for now and for later.”

‘We need to get enough teachers for this’

There is a waiting list. Is the solution then not to simply create more supply?

“For the Writing a Dissertation there is indeed a group of PhD candidates that cannot join a course. If the Graduate School informs us that PhD candidates need to earn a certain number of doctoral education points, there needs to be enough supply. I would like it if we, just as the bachelor’s and master’s education do, get a sort of education responsibility for PhDs making it obligatory for us to supply the education needed. We need to get enough teachers for this.”

When will the campaign start?
“Next academic year. I have now approached all the PhD councils in all eight faculties. In the summer we will try to write to all the faculties to reach the supervisors. We will also do this on NetPresenter slides. Hopefully we will manage to make supervisors more aware of the help that we can offer.”