Skip Format Hassles and Enjoy Dumb Dissertations and Summer ABD Novels | Issue 227
In under seven minutes find out how to save dissertation formatting headaches, avoid tempting websites, get the resource you need most, and laugh. Summer bonus: ABD novels for light reading.
Need more? Apply for your own coach and finish faster with more fun.
STOP WASTING VALUABLE TIME FORMATTING YOUR DISSERTATION
Graduate students who grumble about the intricacies of APA or MLA formatting for their manuscripts haven't heard about formatting software for academic papers. For less than the price of a few edited pages, you can download PERRLA for Windows or MAC to take care of those pesky details. Highly recommended by our dissertation clients, it can be found at perrla.com.
Note: We invite you to share your favorite dissertation apps and software. Send to the Editor gayle@mcpcoach.com.
STAY FOCUSED: AUTO BLOCK WEB DISTRACTIONS
If social media, gaming, or other websites are sucking your work time, it's time to install Blocksite, a Google Chrome browser extension that will deny your device access to your designated list of distracting sites. The block can be 24:7, or you can set up your own schedule for each day of the week.
When you try to access one of your taboo sites, Blocksite immediately redirects you by default to the Google home page, but you can boost your productivity by changing it to your dissertation task page. What—no task page? Set one up using the highly rated GTask or similar list app.
WHAT ABDS MOST NEED TO FINISH MAY SURPRISE YOU
Why does progress on your dissertation elude you? Most of us invent intellectual, dramatic, or existential explanations. In contrast, the highly acclaimed London-based School of Life offers a memorable, fact-based answer in under three minutes in their video, Why You Need an Early Night.
To muster the resilience and courage for surmounting daily hurdles, you need more sleep, it explains. So turn off your devices and hit the hay. (Pssst: Don't miss their other entertaining, well-founded self-help video advice, e.g., How Not to Rant, The Importance of Flattery, Why Tiny Things about Our Partners Drive Us Mad, etc. Who knew wisdom could be distilled into such short takes?)
HOW DUMB IS YOUR DISSERTATION? CHECK THESE OUT
Energize yourself with some laughter by checking out tickld.com's twist on the dissertation elevator pitch. Can you top these?
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People sometimes think about animals as if they're people. People like those animals a little more than regular animals. Except when they don't. I can't believe they gave me a PhD. ~ too_many_mangos
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We can take random pieces of bacterial DNA from beaver poop and put them into other bacteria to discover new things, like how to break wood down into biofuels. Yes, I had to dissect dead beavers and handle their poop. ~ Geneius
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Sand washes away, don't build important stuff on it. ~ Zoidy
Read the rest here, then write your own—but we suggest you refrain from sharing with funding sources.
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GAYLE SCROGGS, Ph.D., P.C.C., Editor, ABDSG.
An accomplished coach, workshop leader, keynote speaker, and educator, Gayle earned her doctorate in social psychology from the University of New Hampshire. Her deep expertise in positive psychology allows her to help clients build their personal strengths, positive habits, and confidence to overcome procrastination, self-doubts and other blocks in order to reach vital academic and personal goals. In addition to editing the ABD Survival Guide, she contributed two chapters to the positive psychology anthology, Women's Paths to Happiness. Contact her at gayle@essencecoaching.com for coaching, presentations, and workshops on thriving in graduate school and beyond, and find free resource www.essencecoaching.com.
BEN DEAN, Publisher, ABDSG
Ben holds a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Texas at Austin. He began writing the ABDSG in 1997. Over the years, the ABDSG has published hundreds of articles and provided thousands of hours of pro bono coaching and teleworkshops to ABDs all over the world. Ben is also the founder of MentorCoach (www.MentorCoach.com), a virtual university focused on training accomplished professionals to become part-time or full-time coaches. You may wish to subscribe to the Coaching Toward Happiness eNewsletter! It's on applying the science of Positive Psychology to your work and life (131,000 readers). Ben lives in suburban Maryland with his wife, Janice, their two children, and Dusty, their Norwegian dwarf bunny.
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YOUR SUMMER READING: ABD ROMANCE AND MYSTERY
Relax in the hammock or beach chair with the adventures of two fictional doctoral students whose challenges just might outweigh yours.
ABD: An Academic Mystery by Shirley Kirilenko. When Jan McCann, a PhD student in German at Willwood, responds to her dissertation advisor's urgent call by rushing to his office, she finds him dead. The coroner blames strychnine in the Mozartkugel Jan had given him. Jan realizes she's been framed—but how will she prove her innocence and finish her degree before time runs out?
The Academic Bride: Billionaire Marriage Brokers, Book One by Lucy McConnell. When anthropology doctoral student Janel Fendrick loses the funding for her Mayan excavation, a marriage broker offers her a surprising proposal—and a groom with oodles of money. Will Janel get more than she bargained for? Find out for free here on Amazon Kindle.
