Rating: 
Summary: Great Advice for Tackling a Major Writing Project
Review: First, Bolker must be commended for the catchy title. Which graduate student wouldn't stop to examine a book with the heading Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day? Yet, the subtitle is really what this book is about - "starting, revising, and finishing" the writing of your dissertation or thesis.
Although not a systematic book about this process, this text offers some very useful information about not only the practice of writing, but also other pertinent issues faced by graduate students such as topic, advisor, and committee selection. Bolker goes a step beyond most other books on the subject of the dissertation process by devoting a full chapter to a discussion of dealing with interruptions. This is valuable information that all graduate students can use.
This is one of the few books that I read while working on my dissertation that I didn't feel was a waste of my time or money. I used many of the techniques that Bolker describes and suggest them to my graduate student clients who are in the process of writing their theses and dissertations. I highly recommend that this book be used in conjunction with one that presents a more methodical approach to the dissertation.
Rating: 
Summary: A must have for doctoral/masters candidates
Review: I am about 70% of the way through my PhD thesis, and this book has helped me tremendously. After less than two years of part-time study (working full-time as well), I have not only written around 200 000 words of draft and edited text, but I have published three papers and have a fourth currently sumbitted. I credit most of this from the advice in Bolker's book. Sure, I adopted my own partiucular way, but I have followed much of what is in the book.As Bolker suggests, if you write as you go, all the bits and pieces begin to thread themselves together. Simply passively reading or collecting data won't do it. The biggest problem with this approach is that I will almost certainly finish well ahead of the minimum four years required for part-time PhD candidates at my university (the English PhD system is more arduous and longer than the American system). I highly recommend this book for all PhD and masters students, and I only wish I'd known about it when I was an undergraduate, as it would have helped me tremendously then, also.
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Summary: Gets you thinking in the right direction
Review: I bought this book just before I began to write my dissertation for a doctorate in counseling psychology. The main strength of this book is it helps you plan and break down the dissertation process in small steps that can be easily managed. It is easy to get overwhelmed or discouraged with the dissertation and many do. The advice in this book will help you finish. I did complete my dissertation in about two years while working full time.
Rating: 
Summary: Dissertation Cheerleading
Review: I was hoping this book would offer insight into a mysterious, terrifying process. It has some helpful information, but is mostly fluff. I read the book in a couple of hours. I walked away with some hints (write every day, met regularly with your advisor)but nothing earth-shattering. I wouldn't buy it again or recommend the purchase. I threw it away after reading it.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Resource
Review: Joan Bolker is a clinical psychologist who specializes in helping writers get over their problems. Also she has worked in the Harvard Writing Lab, so she has a great deal of experience with writers of dissertations. This experience really shines in this book. She approached the problem of writing from a psychological angle. She covers some common problems faced by graduate students and gives practical advice for overcoming these obstacles. The key to writing is to write while you are thinking, or even before. If you attempt to write after thinking, you will block out a lot of ideas before they have a chance to mature. The important thing is to get your thoughts out onto paper, then after you collect lots of ideas, go back over what you wrote and pick out the pearls. If you edit yourself while you're writing, you tend to be overly critical and the negativity blocks the flow of the writing process. Actually, I think this book would be great not only for dissertation writers, but for writers of any kind. If you're facing a wall in your writing, this book could help you out a lot.
Rating:
Summary: Good advice - we'll see just how good
Review: Most of this book is what you'd expect in any writing guide: tips on personal discipline, creating the writing habit, breaking "writer's block", and finding useful support.
Bolker goes an additional step, though, and talks about the very unusual features of writing when a dissertation is the required result. A dissertation is basically a book, of a sort. It's lots more, too - more personal investment, usually, subject to more complex constraints, and carried out in a very unusual social setting. The presence of an advisor and dissertation committee is another unusual feature. Bolker spends a good deal of time on the support to expect from each, and how to address unsupportive situations.
She states at the outset that dissertations in math and the sciences are outside her main field of expertise, and it shows. Engineering disciplines have another nuance of difference that she didn't even address, a more ambiguous balance between practice and theory. That's a secondary issue, though. Her advice is generally sound for any topic, and no advice will cover all possibilities.
I've read it through, and am in a position to see how well her advice holds. I have high hopes.
//wiredweird
Rating:
Summary: A Good Start
Review: The various steps outlined in the middle chapters gave me a good idea of how to think about my dissertation as I started planning it, and I found much reassurance that I wasn't alone in the problems I encountered while writing.
However, some of the advice is terribly vague or trite. The worst part is the halfhearted attempt to address the use of computers in writing. She seems to think that people might still complete dissertations without one. Sample advice on using a computer to write your dissertation: the best way to avoid viruses is to not share software.
Rating:
Summary: This book helped me finish my dissertation quickly
Review: This book was extremely helpful. I bought this book about 9 months ago when I had only 2 chapters of my doctoral dissertation done. Now I am done with my dissertation (500 pages!) and about to graduate with a Ph.D. in anthropology. The tips and suggestions in this book were fantastic, and the tone of the book is very positive, unlike other dissertation-writing books I've read. Whenever I didn't feel like writing, I would go to Joan Bolker's book, and usually within a few minutes of reading, I would find something that would inspire me to write again. I would recommend this book to anyone trying to complete a writing project of any kind.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting but not too helpful
Review: This is a nice book to read. However, I expected it to be a "How to ..." book about the structure of my dissertation, the methodology section, the presentation of the research findings, and the writing of conclusions and it wasn't. I used "Surviving Your Dissertation" instead and it helped me a lot.
Rating:
Summary: An essential book for grad students in the humanities
Review: This is one of the most helpful guides to writing a dissertation ever published. Bolker suggests that students write early and often as they shape their dissertations. Her hints, especially the concept of a "zero draft", help students avoid or overcome procrastination. I'm a clinical psychologist who coaches grad students, post-docs and faculty, and this is one of the first books I recommend. It is especially useful for students in the humanities and for those still searching for a dissertation topic.
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