Table of Contents
Introduction
‘PhD’ and ‘dissertation’ are two most dreary words that make students feel out of breath. The most probable reason behind this is both of these words hint at the lengthiest and laborious phases of life. Doctorate degrees require more than three years of continuous effort, and PhD dissertation writing needs students to burn midnight candles. After catering for a problematic situation, most students come to know that they have entangled with another one, and the process continues.
Even after finishing the dissertation, many PhD scholars cannot succeed and have to spend years upgrading their dissertations per international research standards to pass the degree. According to a recent report, the PhD failure rate in the UK is around 19.5 % (DiscoverPhDs, 2022). If you are wondering why some scholars fail to write a PhD dissertation, read this article until the end. This article will primarily focus on the six most probable reasons for understanding failing trends in writing a PhD dissertation.
1. Choosing the wrong dissertation topic:
The PhD students must start their doctoral degree by deciding on a mentor. The lack of guidance may cause the failure by selecting a too broad topic of PhD dissertation. Broad topics demand extra effort and time for completion and seem less influential. The doctorate students are responsible enough to know their research responsibilities very well. They mostly select such topics to impress a supervisor. The fact that PhD research and dissertation writing standards are at the hike. But including all related stuff that is convincible in one or another way is not at all a good practice. The selection of the broad topic for PhD is nothing more than conceptual misunderstandings that must be paid attention to. If we want to decrease the ever-increasing rate of such failures.
2. Discrepancy between supervisors and scholars:
Clashes between PhD scholars and supervisors are the most common reason for increasing the ratio of doctoral students who fail each year. Lab mishandling, poor communication and social or behavioural issues are some of the reasons that create tension between the supervisors. Such disagreements cease students’ academic performance as students often start living in the zone of discomfort and fail to write a PhD dissertation. Thus, the best way to handle such issues is to move forward or to develop a habit of not crying over spilt milk.
3. Getting too much indulged in professional life:
Most PhD scholars are used to devoting a large part of their day to professional life, thus unable to focus on academic responsibilities. Here, if learned in earlier life, time management skills can be the saviour. Many students are used to attending universities once a week with preoccupied minds and never knowing what is going on in the university. Many never sit to think about how they should maximise their productivity. A lack of interest in academic activities due to a remarkable increase in professional responsibilities is another prominent reason for the students failing to write a PhD dissertation.
4. Becoming a slave of procrastination:
Procrastination is delaying and postponing an academic task without any valid reason. Most scholars do not procrastinate writing a PhD dissertation due to a lack of understanding; rather, they set too high standards for writing that becomes difficult to attain, resulting in delayed writing practices and ultimate failure. It is fine to set beau ideal for getting a doctorate, especially when a dissertation defines your success. Still, there are many points during doctoral programs when a scholar cannot reach the marked point of success. Still, getting things on nerves is not a solution; scholars must take an alternative approach. The best way to avoid procrastination due to high standards is to complete an initial draft of a dissertation (no matter how rough it is) and then struggle to take it to the next level.
5. Seeking shortcuts to pass the dissertation easily:
Playing tricks on academic writing tasks often ends up ruining all your efforts. Students often feel tired from writing extensive word count and selecting shortcuts. This is the reality that shortcuts are indeed relaxing but not in the long term. In writing a PhD dissertation, the most common tricks and shortcuts that students choose are presenting someone else works by changing the central theme and using hacks to remove plagiarism from a passage. All these things can shortly help students feel good that they have done with their PhD dissertation, but at the end of the day, such practices can create trouble and may lead to dissertation rejection or failure.
6. Selecting the wrong dissertation writing services:
The trend of submission of the dissertation not written by the scholar himself is surging these days. Approximately half of the students who place their PhD dissertation writing order to a legit website get passed in a single go. However, scholars who fail to reach the best PhD Dissertation Writing Service in UK suffer a lot. Seeking help from the wrong hands never pull you out of the well; rather, it creates several hardships that may lead to failure. The same happens when a PhD scholar completes his dissertation by hiring a less qualified unprofessional writer. Lack of critical evaluation, the use of less discipline-specific vocabulary, and improper analysis are reasons that make a dissertation ineligible to pass the international dissertation writing standards. The best way to avoid such circumstances is to check the quality of work by placing short orders instead of a complete dissertation on the selected website.
Final thoughts:
The number of scholars who fail to write a PhD dissertation is increasing daily, and several factors are responsible for this emerging trend. In the light of the above discussion, some of these factors include an increase in responsibilities of students with age, unavoidable clashes between supervisor and students, selection of broad topic for dissertation, procrastination, inability to maintain a balance between professional and academic life, and selection of wrong writing service. All in all, adopting ways to avoid these factors maximum can help students to prevent failure in writing a PhD dissertation.
References:
DiscoverPhDs. 2022. PhD Failure Rate – A Study of 26,076 PhD Candidates | DiscoverPhDs. [online] Available at: <https://www.discoverphds.com/advice/doing/phd-failure-rate> [Accessed 6 July 2022].
