It's spring time and lots of grad students are trying to finish up their thesis for graduation. Please post your rituals/routines for maximum productivity. I remember when I was in grad school some people had some crazy/awkward strategies. Here are mine...anyone else have tips?

"eat pretzels, drink coffee, write for three hours, 15 minute nap...repeat" ...i swear this works

"write your thesis in this order: results & figures, methods & materials, discussion, introduction"

"bring food and drinks for your committee and audience to enjoy during your presentation…free food makes people happy"

"cite your sources as you go, trying to remember where you found that fact out of the 100+ papers you have read is not fun"

Oh God...if only I could go back and redo it all. I wrote my thesis in the most difficult ass-backwards way possible. First, do not write the introduction first...I figured it would be best to start at the beginning, right? WRONG! Cite your sources as you go...I can not emphasize this enough. It was hell trying to go back and find that one source where I found one little nugget of information. This will also help keep tabs on the number of citations you use. I just put in the last name and year of everything. When I went back and actually put in the references, I had over 600. Bad, very bad idea. Do bring some food to the defense. My boss didn't want me to do this but I brought a fruit tray and some cookies. My committee dug in and three of the people actually said they were starving and thanked me. The only other advice is have as detailed an outline as possible first. It really helps to know what is going to come next and where you are supposed to be going with the chapter. Otherwise, it's really easy to get carried away on tangents and wind up writing pages of information that doesn't relate to your work and you just have to delete anyway. It's very disheartening to delete full days worth of work.

@rkay447

That is hilarious...but true. I remember when I wrote my thesis I asked each committee member their strategy for writing and each one preferred a different method or way to start. Some actually recommended the introduction first. Wrong approach!..as you mentioned.

I say start with the results/figures...get them ducks lined up and the rest will flow.

rkay447 on Apr 9 2010, 08:50 PM said:

I usually suggest people to start with material and methods when writing a thesis. For most of our students its the first time they are writing a scientific text in English, and this is the easiest part to start.
Then write an outline of your work in your own words. What was the hypothesis, which were the questions behind your work. Quickly answer the questions in keywords (ie how did your results answer the questions) and go to your supervisor if he is happy with this. This is of utter importance to avoid frusturation! Sometimes students get carried away with (too many) results or the feeling that their ovious results are not enough, ending up with pages of useless material which will be simply deleted by the instructor.
Next are the results, you will get used to scientific writing during this chapter, students feel much more comfortable about their English. Again visit your supervisor before starting the discussion when you have finished the results section. Have a short list of discussion points prepared for this discussion ranked from most important to important, maybe your supervisor sees another topic to discuss or can help you to priortise the topics.
Then the discussion, and last the introduction, summary and outlook.

What I find very useful is to have a "trash" file; sometimes it is difficult to decide whether something is discussion or introduction or you are getting into too much detail. With this file you have these text parts are saved and can be copied into the text when you need them.

that was a very good advice, geb'z. I don't have much experience but we start with figures and tables. We summarize all our findings into tables and figures and make the methods and results accordingly.

having a 'trash' folder is very useful. I save each major update as a new 'version' of the file. For example, I start with Result 1.0 then after minor modification I will save as Result 1.1 and after major modification I will have Result 2.0 with all the previous files in the Trash folder. I delete the trash only after my manuscript is accepted. Till then, I keep them safe.

Hey
Thanks a lot.. looks like im going to be very hard pressed for time... does it work if i writ while im doing some bench work?

how long did u guys take to write ur stuff?????

good luck

@arc1 I don't remember exactly, but it took me 2-3 months to write my master's thesis. It's very easy to underestimate how long it takes to write your thesis. It also depend on how much research you have done. Plus, you always have seminar sessions, lab meeting and maybe some extra commitments going on at the same time.