There are a lot of things that go into producing a great dissertation. Showing up to read, plan and write, day after day, for months (or years) is certainly a significant part of it. However, you shouldn’t underestimate the value of a brief, informal and passionate reflection on your topic. This blog post explores how writing a research blog can help you find your voice and ace your dissertation.
A blog is a conversational piece of writing, often between 500-750 words although some may be as long as 2000 words. They provide insight on a specific topic, in a way that is accessible to a diverse range of readers.
During the first year of my PhD, I put together several blog posts on the thesis I planned to write. You can read two of them here [https://chart.swansea.ac.uk/blog/researching-the-history-and-heritage-of-waless-small-scale-fishing-industry/] and here [https://deindustrialization.org/sea-sunburn-and-fish-chips-reflections-on-may-day-in-britain/]. For me, these were great opportunities to reflect on why I was conducting this research, what about it might resonate with people, and how it relates to wider topics within and beyond academia. A research blog could also focus on specific aspects of your research, a key theme, method, or your interaction with a given field of literature. However, I’d advocate for writing a summary of what you plan to do and why it matters to you. If there’s a relevant website which you could submit your blog to for publication, that’s great. But you needn’t share your blog post to benefit.
In a blog, you can develop your passion and purpose without the rigidity of academic writing or the need to back up every thought with a reference. It is exactly these kinds of thoughts that will form the foundations of the argument that will be developed in depth throughout the thesis. And yet it is easy to lose sight of that idea, the simple thread that should weave each chapter together, once you get bogged down in your literature review or field/lab work. These aspects are imperative but by referring back to the short, plainly worded, and personal reflection that blog writing demands you can ensure you don’t lose your core aims and values.
There’s a good chance that at some point during writing that you will experience a crisis of confidence. Perhaps prompted by the inevitable realisation that you will never be able to read everything, or the discovery that an understanding you held at the beginning turns out to be entirely false. Such experiences may prompt you to re-evaluate your aims, refine or redirect your focus, or feel like giving up altogether. In these moments, a blog post can remind you of your original thoughts about pursing this topic. Those thoughts may feel irrelevant if you have shifted your focus since. However, the feelings behind them hold significance. Whether it was a frustration for an area of research that has been misunderstood, an excitement to apply a new approach, or a curiosity of what might emerge, these emotions drove you to act in the first place and will likely hold true today even through doubts.
Summarising your research in a brief, informal and interesting way also serves you well should you ever describe your thesis in conversation, whether that be with family and friends or in the context of an oral examination as is the case for PhD and some master’s programmes.
And finally, while sharing a blog post online may provide less immediate outcomes for your dissertation, I’d recommend it if there’s an avenue for doing so. I’ve had people contact me having read my blog posts with helpful suggestions and expressions of interest in my work. If you are considering staying in academia, for another degree or a career, any writing you share will establish your identity as a researcher in a particular field and be a valuable addition to an academic CV. Even if you have no interest in undertaking research after your dissertation, you never know who else outside academia might value your expertise and share your interests.
