Rick, structure is most definitely crucial to achieving a pass, but a 'thin' PhD is likely to be frowned upon by examiners in humanities and soc. science subjects. At the least, I've been told to produce 80,000 - anything less, and I've not produced enough research.

Coming to the end of my 3rd year and have about 4000 words. dissapointed although, I aim for a summer write up phase with less distractions from uni work. Mine is social sciences and the max is 80,000, a long way, but growing in confidence that I will make it by next June

Dear Olivia,

Fair point, agree that everyone got their own style, and knowing what suits you best is crucial.

Sorry for asking but how do you assure there is coherence in your writing? How do do you connect your chapters?

Silly string is a great connector and doesn't even come out in the wash!!!

Seriously, connecting chapters is just simply part of the writing phases I go through. The Flowers Paradigm which works for me is a four phased process, and the chapter connection would start to build in the final steps of the process. The early stage is the best, its the madman stage where you can be wholly creative and just write away ( like a madman!). This of course does not work for everyone.

People who want more structure in the early stages or are linear thinkers might not like this process. It works for me, and the end result is what counts, after all, otherwise the processes used have not met their goals.

Once I freed myself up from having to do linear thinking in the early stages of writing, my writing took off. I am not a natural linear thinker, and my strength is finding connections in ideas and concepts that might be missed in a straight linear analysis. Constructivist are us.

This brings some interesting results in when I write, and think, esp. because I am in an academic field ( law) that is known for its linear analytical processes.

@ Sheena... I could have written that myself!!! I am also coming to the end of my third year with VERY little written - I haven't even been brave enough to put it all together and do a word count but I reckon it's between 5 and 10 k... I hope to be done by next June too... We can do it!!! I am aiming for between 70 and 80 k eventually.

Hi Olivia,

that interesting, the flower paradigm, just to let things grow!

I use drawings before I write, I draw clouds with key words in it, then try and connect them. Based on that I find related issues etc.
I do not write very specific in the early stages, just brain storm to have ideas what need to go in a chapter / under a header.
Once I have that I fill things in. You can compare this with the "Painting by numbers" idea. Eventually I will have (I hope) the full picture!

THANK YOU Olivia, for sharing with us about the flowers technique.

i googled it, and it's fantastic! it's really helped to unblock me

thank you!

i too, have difficulty thinking methodically and linear way and my way is usually haphazard way. i can't think linear either.

thanks so much for mentioning the flowers technique, I really appreciate it