Evolution of Dissertation Writing Methods

Most people understand the point of a dissertation. It’s a piece of writing that signifies your mastery or knowledge of a subject in which you are trying to get an advanced degree. If you get it accepted by a group of your peers, normally made up of professors in that particular subject, and you can also defend it convincingly, then you can become a PhD.

There have been different methods of crafting this sort of deliverable that have risen and waned in popularity over the years. Now, there are options available that did not exist in the past.

For instance, you can hire someone online to write your dissertation or academic paper; having a partner to lend you some assistance can be a real lifesaver. There are also a plethora of helpful apps for college students that might be of interest if you are tasked with creating an essay that is going to be so crucial in determining your academic future.

In this article, we’ll talk about how the process of crafting a dissertation has changed over the years. This evolution is worth thinking about if you’re getting ready to embark on this mission in the immediate future.

The Old Days

Let’s start with an examination of what one might refer to as the “Old Days” of research. That term is a little tongue in cheek, but it’s also apt. When someone in academia needed to write a paper of any length, they used to:

Focus on Libraries as a Source of Material: Researchers usually spent a lot of time in a physical library rather than in the digital space.
Use the Sole Author Model: Collaboration when writing a paper didn’t happen very much. Instead, an individual researcher found the relevant information and composed their essay in private, a process that took many hours and days.
Use a Lot of Quantitative Resources: Many papers were written using resources like statistical analyses and surveys to back up the main point or assertion.

This system worked, though you could say that it was slow and meticulous. However, about a quarter of a century ago, how people fundamentally went through the process of writing a dissertation began to change.

The Rise of the Computer Generation

The advent of the personal computer changed everything. Once they became affordable and seemingly everyone started to buy them, someone trying to conduct research as part of their quest for a PhD could:

Use Software for Analysis: We started to see the appearance of statistical software programs and platforms. More sophisticated data analysis was the result.
Take Advantage of Digital Databases: Electronic journals and enormous online data sets changed the landscape as well. The scope of material that could be readily found and cited changed dramatically.
Start Using More Qualitative Methods: Qualitative methods like interviews came to be more in vogue. More complex phenomena could be observed and chronicled.

The process of writing a dissertation has always involved working closely with a faculty advisor, agreeing on a research question, developing outlines, and conducting thorough research. This fundamental structure has remained consistent over time.

Thirty years ago, the process was revolutionized by the introduction of computers, which allowed for easy editing, efficient note-taking, and better organization of sources through specialized software. While online databases and resources were sometimes available, they were not as universally relied upon as they are today. The rise of the “computer generation” transformed academic work, making it more streamlined and accessible.
Now, we are entering a new era with artificial intelligence, where AI tools can assist with writing, research, and even analysis. This shift raises new questions about how technology will reshape the dissertation-writing process, blending traditional academic rigor with advanced technological support.

To put it as simply as possible, when personal, at-home computers arrived, students trying to get advanced degrees had access to more resources than ever before. The way they could utilize all of this data without having to visit a physical library meant an immediate change in the way a student would structure and prepare a dissertation.

The Contemporary Era

That led into what we can call The Contemporary Era. In it, we can observe:

More Collaboration Than Ever Before: The piece of writing you turn in to get your advanced degree should be a solo effort. However, it’s now common for students to interact with each other a lot more while they’re in the midst of the writing process.
Ethical Considerations Come into Play: While you can hire someone to handle this whole project for you, some students prefer to just get their paper looked over by a professional to make sure it’s as strong as possible before turning it in.
More Internet-Based Data Collection Than Ever Before: The internet is a virtually unlimited resource. However, all data that you collect from it must be verified before you can use it.
Mixed-Method Research: There’s something called mixed-method analysis that has become more popular. Essentially, it refers to combining quantitative and qualitative data collection and analytic methods to achieve a more complete understanding of a subject than ever before.

In this new period, there are more resources than existed previously. In theory, that should lead to better written, more in-depth papers. That’s not always the case, though.

Is the New or Old Method Better?

This leads us to the question of whether the old way of doing things, like visiting libraries and slowly compiling notes, was better than the current version that involves an ocean of data appearing at your fingertips with a few keystrokes.

There’s no way to get a definitive answer as to what’s “better.” Some people will prefer the olden times, and some will favor the new ones.

There are some factors about the new system that are potentially problematic, though. For one thing, there are now highly advanced AI models that can write with aplomb about anything you tell them to. This means that if you want to, you don’t need to do a whole lot of research at all.

Instead, you can feed a prompt into an artificial intelligence-infused language learning model, and it will crank out the results you’re looking for in a few minutes. Professors need to be on the lookout for this. Checking someone’s dissertation in the old days to see whether a machine wrote it would have seemed laughable, but that’s where we are now.

Each individual trying to get their advanced degree needs to consider the options they have available and which ones they feel they can ethically utilize. Those include:

AI models that will write your paper for you
Professional writers who you can hire to handle the task in your stead

Probably your best option is to use the internet as the vast, seemingly endless collection of resources that it is. At a minimum, you can also run your paper through a checker that looks at things like grammar and syntax before you turn it in.

It’s far from certain what the next wave of dissertations will look like or the methods that their writers will use. This is clearly a time of flux, as new technology continues to make its presence known.