The Dissertation Warrior: The Ultimate Guide to Being the Kind of Person Who Finishes a Doctoral Dissertation or Thesis

by Guy E. White

Don’t read this book if you want a quick and dirty way to finish your dissertation or thesis, write it in a weekend, or pay someone else to write it for you. This book is for the doctoral student who wants to become the best version of himself or herself; whose doctoral journey is a quest of epic personal, professional, and spiritual transformation; and who wants to finish his or her dissertation as well. Inside this book, you’ll learn, among many other -The secrets of time travel; -That 99% of that which gets your focus is not worth your time; -That “writing” your dissertation is the last thing that you should do; and -How to conquer your introduction, create alignment, build the best darned literature review you possibly can, find and collect your data, and connect all the clues better than a hat-wearing movie archeologist …all while becoming a better spouse, sibling, child of your parents, and man (or woman) of all seasons. This book is written by me, Dr. Guy. I teach, at the time of writing this book, the world’s most comprehensive online step-by-step dissertation writing course. Through my online training videos, The Dissertation Mentor® Accelerator Program, The Dissertation Mentor® Home Study Course, and The Dissertation Mentor® One-To-One Mentorship, I have helped thousands of doctoral students make progress in their dissertations. I can probably help you too! This book is my manifesto about all things “doctoral.” Part of The Dissertation Warrior™ Book Series

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Grad School

304 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 5, 2017

Reviews

[Anthony Locke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Helpful orientation to the dissertation process. White helps readers understand the emotional roller-coaster of doing a thesis/dissertation and gives helpful (though fairly generic advice if you're familiar with self-help literature) advice on how to press through tough times to complete the thesis. The most helpful idea for me was his weekly outline on how to accomplish progress on the literature review which I hope to implement at least weekly to get the ball rolling on research.

[Kelli Boling · Rating 3 out of 5]

The chapters are short and a bit repetitive, but highly motivational. He has some good tips and tricks, but his goal appears to be just getting your butt in gear and writing. He's also very self-promoting. It was good motivation for me to set a regular writing schedule and get the thing done but not what I would call a clear "how-to" manual.

[JK · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t think this book is worth your time. While there’s some good tidbits advice in here, it’s packaged with a ton of anecdotal fluff. Info is presented in short chapters that could have easily been edited down to a paragraph - the book simply doesn’t respect your time.

[Erin Mee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a required read for my dissertation proposal and residency course. I finished it way faster than the required read timeline and it’s because the author provided concrete and tangible steps to support your dissertation process. The practical tips felt appropriate, supportive, and essential to helping me finish my Ed. D program.

My only reservation to giving him 5 stars is the ongoing reminder of printing research out and annotating it. As someone who is a big believer in annotations and active engagement with scholarly work for my research, it just doesn’t sound cost effective (or practical when research articles are upward to 50-100 pages) to use this method that he brings up constantly throughout the book. Meanwhile his concept of making a matrix in excel for your sources is ingenious and takes my current method to the next level.

The book made me feel less alone in the process, helped me realize the roller coaster of emotions is normal, and that I can overcome the hurdles of writing my dissertation.

[Clay B. Dickinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent Practical Guide

Guy’s book gets to the heart of, frankly, getting anything done. Action! Small, incremental steps that, if done each day, will get your dissertation done. Moreover, he provides the spiritual motivation, the sense of purpose, required to motivate one to take those small steps each day. I am grateful to my program chair Dr George Marakas , for suggesting we all read this book,

[Lori Hartness · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book has great advice for writing the literature review and working with a dissertation chair. There are a lot of anecdotes, while fun to read, don’t add much to helping with the process of writing a dissertation. And has been stated by other reviewers, he often points to his own Facebook page and mentoring program.

[Joli Hamilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you need the motivation to leave behind the ABD doldrums, get this book. For technical information, you'll still need several other resources though and I was expecting a bit more in this respect.

[Raven · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would say that this book is 20% concrete strategies (with an emphasis on lit. reviews) and 80% dissertation motivational talk. I really enjoyed it, perhaps because I really needed the motivational stuff. Not a complete or thorough how-to.

[Susan Yturraspe · Rating 5 out of 5]

read before starting your dissertation

This book was recommended to me by another PhD student, actually a new PhD…it is very easy to read and understand…wish I had picked it up before starting my lit review! It made things so much clearer!

[Jennifer RO10]

Terrible. Apparently, the kind of person who finishes their dissertation is the same kind of person who Adam Smith was- the kind of person who has someone else to cook their dinner, wash their clothes, and pay their bills. I was not impressed.

[Falk · Rating 4 out of 5]

a bit strange but very helpful if you are in need of encouragement (which i was).

[Aashna L.K. Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Worth reading as a dissertation guide

[Annique · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent reading for anyone needs motivation while doing their doctoral studies.

[MindOverMatter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Abandoned it. Did not find it helpful.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Guy White provides an extremely readable book about the process of writing a dissertation. He spends most of the book on the prewriting activities for a dissertation.