The PhD academic degree is the highest achievement one can get to in his or her academic aspirations; it is the pinnacle of your academic career if you have decided to pursue it so far and managed to be admitted there.
The writing you will do at this level will be one of the most complex things you are going to compose in your lifetime – the most complex, in fact, unless you are going to be a professional writer or academician afterwards. Both the requirements and circumstances of writing will be completely different in comparison to what you have encountered in your undergraduate years.
Here you may learn some things about what is expected from you and how you can make this task easier:
- By that time you are supposed to be a real specialist in your sphere of knowledge, so you should show complete and utter knowledge of methods, terminology and principles in its basis.
- Every piece of writing is supposed to have some pivotal idea in it, and this idea should be your own – not a compilation of other people’s thoughts and ideas. PhD is expected to be thinking on his or her own.
- Most often, you will be engaged in this kind of writing when a certain amount of time separates you from undergraduate years, and many suffer from extreme lack of practice during this time. The only way to avoid this problem is to write essays in your field as often as possible.
- Your essay must lead the reader to a certain conclusion. Not just any one – the one you have selected. PhD must be able to make his or her point seem the most reasonable solution to a problem.
It is very hard to give particular tips on how you should write at this level, for the way it is supposed to be done differs from discipline to discipline and a lot depends on the people who are going to read it. Keep in mind that an essay at this stage is supposed to be both a piece of unique writing and based on previous research of other people. There is no place for unconfirmed guesswork – only solid facts, empirical research and logical proofs.
Essay at PhD level is not given only to test your skills as a writer, but also to see your overall ability to work under pressure, to produce an independent piece of work composed only by your own creative mind. Study other people’s works of the same kind, learn their mistakes, practice in writing before you start working – and everything will be alright.
