Helping help grad students and professors unlock their writing potential since 2003

Download Your Free Dissertation Toolkit!

  • Become a more productive and creative writer
  • Avoid burnout, anxiety and depression
  • Finish your thesis or dissertation
  • Get organized
  • Work on mental blocks
  • Learn creativity techniques
  • Stop procrastinating; start writing!

Immediately download all of the following:

The “Get Unstuck and Get Started” Tools
  • Write Before You’re Ready: First Steps to Avoiding Writer’s Block
  • Academic Writer’s Block Wizard
The “Get Organized and Stay Motivated” Tools
  • Procrastinate Less, Write More
  • The “Unschedule”
  • 10 Ways of Thinking that Lead to Procrastination
  • Six Steps for Creating Your Own Mini-Deadlines
The “Writing and Revising your Dissertation” Tools
  • Mind Mapping (PDF)
  • Mind Map Example (PDF)
  • Dissertation Revision Techniques (PDF)
The “Be Kind to Yourself Even Though You’re in Grad School” Tools
  • Self-Assessment: “Do You Deserve a Ph.D.?” Find out if you have Ph.D. Impostor Syndrome!
  • Positive Affirmations for Academic Writers
  • A Chart for Living a Balanced Life (Even if You’re a Graduate Student)
  • Balanced Life Reward Chart pdf (supply your own gold stars)
  • Balanced Life Reward Chart Word document
  • Balanced Life Reward Chart Example
The “Get a Job” Tool
  • 123 Frequently-Asked Academic Job Interview Questions (From a list compiled by faculty development experts — this is gold!)

“I really like your site and the advice you give. I am not a graduate student, but the Graduate Coordinator in the Department of Chemistry at [major university]. I ran across your site on Google and checked it out.”

“If you have no objection, I thought I would refer our graduate students to your site. I wish I had had access to such a site back in the 90′s. I think it has a lot of good information and would have helped me a lot back then.”

“I was looking for comparisons of the various organizational tools for collecting data for dissertation writing and research. It seems to me that I was ‘led’ to your site. You are addressing so many of the issues that I hear expressed by those with whom I travel on this journey toward the doctorate. Thank you for approaching this process with such insight, compassion, and support.”

Questions? Email us at info@academicladder.com