Destination Dissertation: A Traveler's Guide to a Done Dissertation

by Sonja K. Foss, William Waters

488 pages, Hardcover

Published April 2, 2025

Reviews

[CraftyBirdies · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very helpful book to break down the steps in writing a dissertation. I took a lot of notes, and I found a lot of helpful content. I read it before I started my dissertation, which I think is one of the most valuable times to read this. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be helpful to others who have already started their dissertation process, but it helped shape a lot of my planning before I started any dissertation work.

I’d say the biggest drawback to this book is that it sometimes presents only one way to complete a part of the dissertation, like the literature review. It’s possible someone reading this book will not want to do the literature review that way and then find the book less useful.

I still think the processes in this book, even if it’s only one way to do something, give students a great place to start. Then they can tweak a process if they desire. I’ve always found editing an existing idea is easier than creating one from scratch on my own.

I would definitely recommend this book to any PhD student. I would also recommend they read more than just this dissertation book to get a well-rounded perspective of the process and see additional ways to tackle the beast!