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