PhD Thesis: How to Make 80,000 Words Feel Manageable

Writing an 80,000-word thesis can feel completely overwhelming if you think about it as one enormous piece of writing. So don't. Break it down into sections, subsections and subheadings. Then instead of thinking, “I need to write a PhD thesis,” you can think, “I need to write 200 words under this subheading.” Start by creating the structure: introduction, methods, results, discussion, or whatever structure makes sense for your research. Then keep breaking each section down into smaller pieces. The structure doesn't have to be perfect either. Put the sections in place, get the words down, a