how i wrote my phd in 3 months

How I wrote a PhD thesis in just 3 months

• by James Hayton, PhD
• February 28th, 2012

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Dealing with phd research stress, the invincible mindset.

In the summer of 2006, almost 3 years after starting my PhD, I was ready to quit. I had nowhere near enough results, the equipment I was using didn’t work most of the time, and I could barely summon the motivation to get up in the morning.

Just over a year later I’d managed to;

• turn things around and get the data for a few publications
• write my entire PhD thesis from scratch in just 3 months.
• pass my thesis defence with zero corrections

And, on top of all that, I actually started to enjoy the process.

So how did I do all this? The tips below are not easy and many go against common thesis-writing advice, but they worked.

1. Dealing with stress

After a near-breakdown, I started taking walks around the campus when I faced a problem or found myself getting stressed. I took the time to think about what I needed to do and get myself in the right frame of mind to go back.

Previously, I would have found myself killing time on the internet just to get through to the end of the day. This was one of the key habits that probably saved my PhD .

2. Slowing down

This may seem counter intuitive, but slowing down helped me to go faster. By taking more time over my experiments and doing thingscarefully, I eliminated a lot of time-consuming mistakes.

3. Limiting the time available

Though my productivity increased once I figured out how to deal with stress, I was still doing experiments well into my fourth year.

I had a final submission date (at the end of my 4th year), but my research was still a bit chaotic. It wasn’t focused on finishing.

My supervisor (the brilliant Professor Moriarty ) then told me that I would no longer be allowed into the lab after the end of March 2007, and that I would have to write whatever I had.

4. Adapting and acting decisively

Because of the limited time, I had to make some tough decisions. Anything I did, I would either have to finish or let go . There would be some loose ends, but that was OK as long as I tied up others.

I had to decide not to do certain things, and focus with energy and determination on others.

Still, though, the thesis would be a little thin. So I took on a side project based on another student’s research, which could produce some results quickly.

This side project produced the most interesting result of my scientific career .

5. Finishing research before writing

By the time I stopped doing experiments, I knew I had enough for a PhD. Not the best PhD ever, and not world-changing, but with two publications and enough data for another, I felt it was good enough.

Because I wasn’t allowed back in the lab, I just had to focus on writing. The hard part was behind me. The results weren’t going to change, so it was just a matter of making sure I was productive when writing.

It is much, much easier to write when you know the raw material isn’t going to change.

Tip: If there’s research or analysis still to do, prioritize this over writing

6. Preparation

I decided to work at home, not at the office, because there would be fewer distractions.

I got rid of the TV, and had no internet connection on my computer. The lack of internet meant I had to gather all the papers I would need beforehand, forcing me to think about what I would need.

I also set up a dedicated space (2 large desks joined together and a very comfortable chair, next to a large window for plenty of natural light), just for thesis writing.

7. Targets and consistency

I set myself a target of 3 months, broken down into targets for each chapter. This would give me about 3 months in reserve before the final absolute deadline.

I had a daily minimum target of 500 words , which I knew I could meet even on the least productive days.

This meant that because I smashed the target most days, I finished every day feeling good about my progress, which in turn meant I started the next day feeling confident.

Tip: Set your target as something you know you can achieve daily, then beat it. Don’t set it as high as you can possibly imagine.

The two most important parts of the day are the beginning and end. It’s important to build momentum early, and have a routine for ending the day too.

At the end of each day I always left myself something easy to do to get started with the next day, so I woke up knowing what I was going to do.

I also tidied the desk at the end of every day, which also helped close the day mentally and stopped my brain going over and over the thesis at night.

9. Applying ruthless standards to what I included

Whether it was the lit review, or my own work, I cut anything sub-standard.

I focused only on the very best literature, saving myself a huge amount of time. It also had the result of associating my work with the very best in the field.

I only wrote about what I knew about, which made the thesis shorter, faster and easier to write, and of higher quality than if I had included everything whether I understood it or not.

Tip: You choose the syllabus, not the examiner . Only include what you can comfortably defend.

10. Taking time over details that matter

I took painstaking care over the clarity of the writing, the diagrams and the overall look of the thesis.

If a diagram took 2 hours, so be it. If I couldn’t find a high-quality image in a paper to paste in, I would re-draw it myself. Why? Because it adds so much to the feel of quality running through the thesis.

By applying obsessive focus to one detail at a time , I could make sure that I wouldn’t have to do it again. This brings me to the final point…

11. One draft

I always edit as I write, with one goal only: to make sure I’ve expressed the idea in my head clearly on the page. I don’t move on until I feel the sentence makes sense, with no ambiguity of meaning.

Clarity of thought is always the number one aim. But it is very difficult to come back to a piece of writing days or weeks later and sort out a mess of thought if you don’t clarify your writing while the thought is still fresh in your head.

This means I was constantly re-reading and revising what I’ve just written, but also means that when I submitted something to my supervisor it needed very few revisions and saved months, simply by getting as close to submittable as I could the first time round.

 Another key factor

Throughout the course of my PhD, event though a lot went wrong, I built up a lot of experience and skill in the techniques I’d been using and in the data analysis. This is one of the reasons why, when I slowed down and did experiments more carefully, I was able to analyse the results quickly.

Too often, I meet students who have left analysis to the very final months, having done virtually none throughout the course of their PhD. This is a difficult situation to be in, as you have to learn analytical skills very fast under immense pressure. Practice analysis early and don’t neglect your data!

Please Note

I’ve had some comments on this post reacting as if I completed my entire PhD in 3 months. No, I did three and a half years of research first, then wrote the thesis. I also do not claim that anyone can write that fast, as it depends on a lot of different factors. This is why the title is “How I wrote…”, not “How to write…”

What to do if you only have 3 months to finish your PhD

Your final PhD year: Moving towards completion

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PhD: An uncommon guide to research, writing & PhD life

By james hayton (2015).

PhD: an uncommon guide to research, writing & PhD life is your essential guide to the basic principles every PhD student needs to know.

Applicable to virtually any field of study, it covers everything from finding a research topic, getting to grips with the literature, planning and executing research and coping with the inevitable problems that arise, through to writing, submitting and successfully defending your thesis.

Useful links

About james hayton, phd, latest phd tips, phd coaching.

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All the text on this site (and every word of every video script) is written by me, personally, because I enjoy writing. I enjoy the challenges of thinking deeply and finding the right words to express my ideas. I do not advocate for the use of AI in academic research and writing, except for very limited use cases.

See: Why you shouldn't rely on AI for PhD research and writing

How I wrote my PhD thesis in three months

But writing my PhD thesis had to be different, I told myself when I could finally see the finish line. I couldn’t afford to procrastinate . My PhD scholarship was about to expire, I didn’t have the money for a prolonged stay in the UK, and I didn’t want to be on the island anymore. So, I decided I would leave Cardiff in three months, bought a one-way ticket back home, and then opened the folder “PhD stuff” on my laptop. It was thesis o’clock.

Was I mad? Writing a PhD thesis in three months? Others have done it, so it wasn’t impossible. But sure, X is a great writer, Y had a job waiting for him, and was there anything Z couldn’t do? I wasn’t X, Y, or Z, but I couldn’t waste a second on doubting myself. I had all the materials for my dissertation, so it was only a matter of putting everything together.

Here’s how I wrote my PhD thesis in three months (the distilled version, without the doubts, tears, desperation, frustration, panic, revision fatigue, proofreading mania, and so on). I hope you can use some of these tips to speed up your thesis writing process.

Gathered and organized all the materials

I had the literature review, two papers accepted for publication, some reports, and most of the figures , tables, and appendices that would go into my thesis. I started by organizing all the materials I had and completing the missing bits.

Created an outline

Creating an outline for my doctoral dissertation was easy, as I had had three years to think about what it would include. Once I got the outline approved by my thesis advisor, I was ready to start writing.

I could not emphasize more how important it is to create a detailed outline of a PhD thesis. Once you have it, you cannot feel lost on your thesis writing journey. So, all the time you use for creating an outline, revising it, and getting it approved by your thesis advisor will be well worth it.

Wrote the core chapters

My two peer-reviewed papers became the core of my thesis. Writing these two chapters based on my publications was relatively easy, and it gave me momentum.

The third core chapter was harder to write than the previous two. I needed to turn my research into a coherent whole, instead of simply turning a paper into a chapter.

I started by creating a detailed chapter outline. Then, I copied and pasted under each bullet point all the material I wanted to use—figures, tables, maps. Next, I summarized my ideas and then turned each one into a paragraph. Finally, I tied all the paragraphs together using transition sentences. I didn’t stop to worry about repetitions, awkward language, and typos at this point.

Wrote the two easy chapters

Completing the “Geological Setting” and “Data and Methodology” chapters was easy, as I had used this information for presentations and posters throughout my doctoral program. Writing these chapters gave me a confidence boost—the bulk of my thesis was done, or so I thought at the time.

Wrote the introduction

Based on the literature review I already had, I started drafting my introduction, perhaps the most difficult chapter of my thesis. I had too much information and it was poorly structured. But after a lot of rewriting and revising, I managed to create a chapter draft.

Wrote the discussion

No doubt, this was the hardest part of writing my PhD thesis . The discussion had to be the common thread of my three core chapters, which were pretty disconnected to begin with.

I started doing a lot of brainstorming and struggling to draw connections between otherwise disparate ideas. I had to read many papers and books again and look up new information.

At this point my stress levels soared and no place seemed quiet enough to allow me to concentrate. Working from home was out of question, as there were too many distractions (read “snacks and comfortable places to sleep on”). So, instead, I decided to arrive at the office very early and write as much as I could during the quiet hours of the morning. By noon I had usually made good progress, so I would go for a brisk walk to clear my mind. In the afternoon I focused on tasks that demanded little brain power, such as reference formatting.

One more thing I did while I wrote my discussion chapter was not checking my email till after lunch. It’s incredible how much progress I made when I didn’t allow myself to be distracted by new-email notifications.

Wrote the conclusion and abstract

Completing these two parts of my thesis was easy once I had everything else ready.

Revised and edited my PhD thesis

Revising was far more painstaking than I had imagined. I don’t remember how many revision rounds I did, but they were quite a few.

At this point I started having doubts; I could almost picture myself failing my PhD examination. But after the editing stage, my confidence was back. It was a decent thesis, I thought, though it was far from perfect. But it had to be good enough—I was running out of time.

Proofread my PhD thesis

This stage was quite enjoyable, though not as enjoyable as writing thesis acknowledgments . I had fixed the most blatant errors during the editing stage, so proofreading was relatively easy. But as self-proofreading is not foolproof, some errors will remain in my thesis forever.

Formatted the document

I had used MS Word and had many figures and tables, so putting the document together was a hassle. My laptop kept crashing because of the size of the file, and working with styles in Word was a nightmare. Completing this stage was more time-consuming than I had expected, but when it was done it was time to celebrate.

That’s how I wrote my PhD thesis in three months, but it would have been easier if…

I used a reference manager, chose a word processor other than Word, had my thesis professionally proofread, and socialized during these three months instead of living in automaton mode. And it would have been good to know writing always takes longer than you think. Trivial tasks in particular (such as formatting tables) can become time sinks if you don’t put a cap on the number of hours you are willing to dedicate to a task. Also, knowing the law of diminishing returns helps you limit the number of revision rounds you do.

If you find none of the tips above useful, maybe you can use this one: To avoid procrastination when writing your PhD thesis, focus only on the task at hand. Worrying about how people will judge your PhD thesis slows down your progress and adds unnecessary stress to your life.

Does your PhD thesis need editing or proofreading? Send me a message at [email protected].

Related posts:

• The best academic writing books: My list
• PhD dissertation to book: Roadmap and advice for authors
• The art of writing PhD thesis acknowledgments: A guide for economics students

Last revised on 7 September 2022

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• Write Your PhD Thesis In One Month Or Less

Thesis/dissertation writing need not be a multi-month ordeal that makes you pull your hair out and roll up into a fetal position. The trick is to get a head start , set goals and deadlines, and work steadily—not feverishly—toward that ultimate satisfaction of handing your magnum opus to the graduate school. The first three sections of this article are devoted to ways that you can get way ahead of the curve from the very beginning of your graduate program—BEFORE push comes to shove.

1.) GET STARTED RIGHT AWAY— YES, REALLY .

NEWS FLASH: you can start working on your thesis or dissertation almost from the moment you decide on a lab/advisor .

In the beginning, there were papers …

The starting point for any newbie graduate student is to read boatloads of relevant papers so that you can learn your advisor’s repertoire of experimental techniques or areas of interest, what has been done so far in the field, what questions remain to be answered, and where your research will contribute.

Keep in mind that these seminal papers will be heavily integrated into your thesis or dissertation:

a) The introduction, in which you give all the pertinent background to set the stage for your research and make everyone on your committee (and beyond!) understand why it’s important

b) Data chapters, where previously published data lend validity to your findings, or are at least taken into consideration as you interpret your data

Let’s back up. How do you find these papers? Hopefully, your advisor will provide you with a few of the original papers that got the ball rolling. Find out what papers cite them . You can perform Boolean searches in Pubmed and Google Scholar (great tips explaining how to do this can be found at Boolean.pdf ).

Note that in Pubmed, you will need to go to “Advanced Search,” where the builder constructs the Boolean search for you (Figure 1). Pubmed offers another great strategy: you can set up citation alerts that notify you via e-mail every time one of these pivotal articles is cited. Pubmed has a tutorial on how to do this here: myncbi.html . You can control how often you receive these alerts, or adjust later based on how inundated your inbox becomes.

FIGURE 1.  PubMed’s Boolean Search builder.

Google scholar offers a similar citation alert service. Go to Google Scholar, http://scholar.google.com/ , and click on “Alerts” (see Figure 2). From the next screen, click “Create Alert” (Figure 3). You can set up alerts based on Boolean searches (Figure 4), or by author . Also, since many principal authors have varied interests, you can customize by using a combination Boolean/search-by-author approach (Figure 5). Enter your e-mail address, and you’re good to go.

FIGURE 2.  Setting up alerts in Google Scholar. First, click “Alerts.”

FIGURE 3.  Setting up alerts in Google Scholar, part 2. Next, click “Create Alert.”

FIGURE 4.  Setting up alerts in Google Scholar, part 3. Setting up your search criteria using Boolean operators.

FIGURE 5.  Setting up alerts in Google Scholar, part 4. The combined Author/Boolean operator search in Google Scholar.

ORGANIZING your boatloads of papers…

Let’s back up again. Realize that unless you are a genius, you will probably have to revisit these nuggets of wisdom several times during your graduate career, particularly when you have a better grasp on the research. Also, unless you are a genius, you will find yourself wondering, “What was that paper that explained________?” This is where being organized will save you TONS of time.

I am a big fan of saving paper and not printing out reams of articles to be read and then stuffed into filing cabinets . I highly recommend a citation management program, such as Endnote . Find out which program your advisor uses (see if he or she will let you install the program on your computer). Some departments even offer this software free of charge. Not only are all of the citations in your library searchable, but you can also file them into folders based on the subject matter (Figure 6).

FIGURE 6.  Filing papers in EndNote–beats a filing cabinet!

As you do your literature search, you download the citations into your citation manager. Most e-journals have a “download to citation manager” link. Google Scholar also recently added a very nice “Cite” function that lets you import citations directly into your citation manager (Figure 7).

FIGURE 7.  Google Scholar’s Cite function.

You can also search PubMed from within Endnote, which saves you several steps (Figure 8). In addition, the program has a lovely feature called Cite-While-You-Write that links with Microsoft Word. No more the parenthetical “ need citation !” statements in your text. With the CWYW feature, you can pull up all of the papers in your Endnote library that pertain to your text, and with the click of one button in Word—voilà! Citations inserted (Figure 9)! You can format the bibliography later, when your behemoth is completely written—yet another convenient, automatic feature.

FIGURE 8.  Searching for papers from within EndNote.

FIGURE 8.  EndNote’s Cite While You Write function.

2) Intermediate documents: the thesis/dissertation proposal and grant applications

Think of your thesis or dissertation proposal and any grant applications as being a big first step toward the first chapter of your final document: the introduction. Preparation of these documents entails a thorough review of pertinent literature to set the stage and explain the rationale for the research you are proposing. So by this logic, you should have taken a very large bite out of the first chapter of your thesis or dissertation by the time you take your preliminary exams.

3) Methods: you do them every day, why not take the time to write them up?

In the STEM fields, theses and dissertations require a chapter devoted to methods. You have your own set of experimental and/or statistical techniques that you presumably learn from your advisor, then troubleshoot and tweak based on your specific needs. You know how you write detailed notes on the conditions of each experiment every time you do them in your lab notebook? (RIGHT?!) This is all information that you can take even an hour per week to write up in your thesis document. Check out the previous papers from your advisor to get ideas on wording, and then re-work it so it’s your own (citing relevant papers, of course). By the time you actually for-real start writing your thesis or dissertation, your methods chapter can be practically done already!

4) After the greenlight…careful planning and sticking to a schedule!

You’ve received the greenlight to “start” writing your thesis or dissertation from your committee. Now what? Well, you have a good chunk of the intro done already, right? Your chapter 2 is practically done as well! Be sure to check out the deadlines not only for getting your document to your committee, but also for depositing it with the graduate school. Wouldn’t it stink to defend your thesis in April, but not graduate until December because you missed the deadline?

Now, I will tell you a huge time-saving tip . Before you start (well, continue) writing, find a colleague who has recently turned in their thesis or dissertation and still has their final word document kicking around . Ask your colleague for permission to use their document in the following way: you are not going to copy anything in that document… EXCEPT THE FORMATTING.

You know the part where the clerk at the grad school pulls out the ruler and measures your margins, page number position and other random stuff while you hold your breath? All of that will already be in your colleague’s word document. Why re-invent the wheel? Just use the document as a template—delete ALL of the text and leave the margins and other formatting alone. (Of course, check over everything carefully before you deposit your document!) Anything you’ve written up to this point can easily be pasted into the template.

Next, agree upon deadlines : “I’ll have chapter 1 to you by________.” If you have been working ahead on your document and your reference library as described above, it should take you about a week to finish up chapter 1 (your introduction) and chapter 2 (methods). Can you do a chapter per week for each of the remaining chapters? Put the deadline in your calendar, and stick to it. Then, based on how much time you are still expected to spend in the lab, decide a set number of hours per day that you will spend on nothing but writing.

I would suggest asking your advisor for blocks of time to hole up at the library, or wherever it is that you do your best work . Then do it. You will be working weekends, no doubt, but try to work steadily and avoid all-nighters. Adjust as necessary—you may need to have an additional meeting with your advisor to request more time away from lab.

Do have a colleague read your document installments before you give them to your advisor . Run spell check and do all the basics before you offer up your baby to the red pen of death. If you really struggle with writing, or if you are not a native English speaker, there are services out there that will clean up your document on a by-the-hour basis. Spare your advisor the frustration of correcting simple errors.

Now, a caveat.

Just because you have a deadline that you are sticking to like an embedded tick does not mean that your advisor will adhere to similar deadlines in getting you edits and feedback . Many advisors, bless their hearts, are procrastinators (erm…busy with grant deadlines, writing their own papers, editing, and other important stuff that advisors do). Don’t sweat it… the ball is now in your advisor’s court, and you will now move steadily on to the next installment.

Which is due by __________in your calendar.

3) BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP!

And this time I do mean “backup”—as in your document. There is NO excuse for losing your thesis or dissertation . You should have MULTIPLE copies saved: on your computer, in Dropbox, on an external hard drive, etc. These copies should be clearly marked with dates in case you have to revert back to a prior version. They should also be marked after being edited by your advisor or others.

4) The final weeks

This will be a stressful time unless you are extremely lucky. It usually goes something like this: “Move this section to page 89.” Then two days later: “Put it back where it was.” Your advisor is stressed too—so try to take everything in stride.

If at all possible, try to get your thesis printed off for your committee a day or two in advance . This allows a cushion for the inevitable printer meltdown or copier jam. In my case, I got my final edits at 11 pm the night before my dissertation was due. Luckily, there weren’t a lot of changes to make, and there were no printer fiascos. I finished the edits by midnight and had the whole thing printed off by about 2 in the morning. Although I won’t say that I wasn’t completely stressed out and about to melt down myself…

You want your dissertation to look nice for your committee and to be easy for them to handle and write in . I’m a fan of bindings—I used three ring binders with pockets so that I could also include a CD with a copy of the document. But that’s not for everybody. Spiral bindings are just as good, but again, require planning because you’ll have to take your stack of documents somewhere like FedEx Kinkos. Even though it can be like herding cats to track down all the members of your committee, try to personally deliver your documents to them—not only for security’s sake, but to remind them of who you are.

I kid. Sort of.

5) After the defense

You may have loads of changes to make to your thesis or dissertation based on your committee members’ comments . You feel elated and relieved to have your defense over with. After the effects of the all-night post-defense bender have worn off, try to work diligently on the edits so that you don’t run up against the grad school’s deposit deadline. Make an appointment for a pre-check of your document to catch any formatting errors well in advance of the deadline.

Once you have deposited your thesis or dissertation with the graduate school (congratulations!), investigate how many bound copies you need. Most departments require a bound copy, as will your advisor. Then you need one, of course, and then there’s your parents…

University towns usually have at least one book bindery in addition to services on campus. There are online services as well—but be careful to check their ratings. You generally have to figure up the number of color-copy and high-resolution pages you have versus regular black and white. You send this estimate along with a digital copy of your dissertation and your selections for binding color, lettering, etc. There is something deeply satisfying about finally holding that beautifully bound book—that YOU wrote—in your hands at last.

In summary, it is possible to write your thesis or dissertation in under a month with good preparation, organization, and planning . The end result makes it all worthwhile. Keep in mind that if you move on to a postdoc or any other position that requires writing papers and grants, these same strategies apply.

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How to Write a PhD Thesis in Three Months

How much time does it take to complete writing a thesis? A year or two? Right, it might take your entire last year to complete one. From deciding the topic, conducting the research and asking for PhD Thesis Statistics Help from your seniors or professors to writing down your thesis, takes a lot of time, energy and hardwork. 

What if we say that you can write your thesis in just three months? You might get shocked and many questions must have started running in your mind, isn’t it? But, yes you can definitely complete writing your PhD thesis in three months. There are two ways to achieve this goal. First, reaching out to PhD Thesis Writing Services and ask for assistance and the second way is just you need to follow the steps listed in this article.

The goal might look easy after reading the entire article, but it all depends on how dedicated and how you can take help of your colleagues in topic deciding or Phd Thesis Statistics Help. 

Do not try to steer through a jungle of challenges.

Restrict yourself, frame a boundary and be determined. Determine the steps you will take to gather data and prepare a draft of the thesis within 5-6weeks. For this, deadlines should be set up, sticking to those deadlines will be beneficial. And the most important thing, you need to take care of is avoiding stuff which might set you back from achieving your deadlines such as social media. 

Here’s what you need to do, to achieve your goal

Follow this steps to complete your Thesis Writing in Three Months

• Step #1: Don't doubt your abilities, tell yourself you can do this. Your perception and opinion might not match with your near ones. Therefore, it is recommended not to share with your near ones,because you might get a feeling of peer pressure. You don't need any approval or feedback from anyone, just focus on your goal. 

Step #2: Prepare a short to do list of a paper. Jot down tasks you are going to do in the entire day. Work for an hour and take a 15mins break. If you are working 6hours in a day, plan your tasks accordingly in that to-do list. And stick to that strictly, there should be no exceptions.

• Step #3: Hang a bit note on your calendar of the writing task beginning date. Be excited and determined for the date to arrive and focus on your goal accomplishment.

Step #4: Give sufficient time to topic selection. The accomplishment of your three months writing task depends majorly on this. To find out a topic quickly, sit and have a brainstorming session with yourself or people into research for a week, you might also connect to a few PhD Thesis Writing Services who will help you get a topic of your interest. If you fail in choosing your topic in the alloted time, the result may be delayed as well.

• Step #5: Given below are some points which should be present in your outline that you’ll prepare. If you have something more to add, add it.
• You must be having some ideas and points related to your thesis, note it down.

Create a frame of your supporting paragraphs and arguments.

• Take snaps of your bibliography and sources, let digital applications do some work (wasting time in writing them down is not acceptable at this moment).

There must be few areas of your research that you definitely don’t want to miss out, list down those ‘must’ cover areas of your research.

• Analytical findings and final conclusions should also be written down, it is always advisable to go for a PhD Thesis Statistics Help rather than taking time to conduct the analytics part.

And lastly, while doing all this list down various other ideas that cross your mind.

Once you are done preparing the outline, you are almost there. Hardly 15-20 days away from your writing down thesis task. This step might help you cover up your speed and help you give time to things which might have taken more time than the deadline. But you still can’t rest. Writing part should occupy half of your day until completed.

Step #6: The best way to complete your thesis writing work in three months is to have your data in digital form. It makes referring and using the data quite simple and easy. You can jump on the piece of data you require at that moment. You don't have to search for it. For this purpose research needs to be carried out well in advance, once you have the data in hand your writing work becomes much easier.

Step #7: At some point of time, being a human you might feel like having a walk along a beachside, grab some coffee and chill out with friends and family. You can surely do that, provided you have been loyal to your work till date, and have completed every task as per your outline and deadlines. If you are strictly following your outline you are 50% done with your task. Feel free to reward yourself.

Step #8: Time alloted to writing your thesis must be followed. Dedicate the last 12-15 days to writing your thesis and you are almost through.

Step #9: Appoint an eminent Phd Thesis Statistics Help Professional, to have a thorough check of your analytics.

Step #10: Finally hire an esteemed PhD Thesis Writing Services and go for an editing, and then submit it after the changes made. Sit back, relax and pat yourself on the back. You have completed your thesis in just three months.

For any PhD Thesis Writing Services help:  Contact us.

x == (s || z). You say it kwontized

Rule of Three: advice on writing a PhD thesis

PhD students sometimes get the same bad advice on writing their thesis. I call this advice the Rule of Three . Typically, they get told that their thesis:

• Will take 3 months to write
• Should have 3 results chapters
• Should be 300 pages

These bits of advice have one thing in common: they are all wrong.

• If you have been organised (see below), it should not take 3 months to write a PhD thesis. It certainly shouldn’t involve leaving the lab 3 months before your hand-in date to write up.
• Theses can have one results chapter or they can have more. How many chapters depends on your project, and your results. Trying to make three results chapters out of one chapter ends up in a weak or overlong thesis.
• A thesis is like a piece of string and it will be as long as it needs to be. Aim for brevity and not producing a magnus opus (see below).

Disclaimer: what follows is some different advice. As with all “advice”, your mileage will vary. It is written for the people in my lab but likely applies to UK PhD students doing biomedical research.

Rule 1: aim for a thesis that is good enough

Who will read your thesis? Two people. Your examiners. OK, some parts – such as the Methods section – will be useful to future lab members (although with electronic lab notebooks this function is becoming redundant). Maybe your thesis will be downloaded by someone from the repository, but essentially, it will only be read by your examiners.

How long does an examiner spend reading your thesis? A few hours. One day maximum. They simply have no more time. Do you really want to spend three months of your life writing something that will be read for just a few hours by two people?

It’s for these reasons that spending too much effort writing a perfect thesis is a waste of time. It just needs to be good enough.

As well as being just good enough, it only needs to be long enough . A big mistake students make is to produce a really long thesis because they think that that is what theses should be (rule of 3). What happens is the examiner will receive the thesis, look at how many pages there are, subtract the bibliography, and their heart will sink if it is too long.

You might now be wondering: is writing a thesis a waste of time?

No, because you have to do it to get your PhD.

No, because you learn important writing skills. You also learn how to assemble a large document (it’s often how students learn to use Word properly or up their LaTeX game). It’s good training for writing papers and other technical documents down the line. Employers know this when they hire you.

But that is about it. So you just need to write something that is good enough to pass.

Rule 2: prioritise papers and the thesis will follow

Papers are the priority. They are more useful to you and to your PI. But this advice isn’t motivated by self-interest. If you go into the viva and the work in your thesis is already peer reviewed and published, it’s harder for the examiners to criticise it. At least, they will not approach your thesis with the question: is this work publishable? This is one criteria for passing your PhD, so demonstrating that it is publishable means you are (almost) there.

This was the one bit of advice I received when doing my PhD and it is still true today. OK, it is harder these days to get a first author paper published before you submit your thesis. However a preprint on bioRxiv before you begin writing will help you to prepare your thesis and will still tick the publishable box.

How long should it take to write your thesis?

There is tension here because you are at your most useful in the lab as you near the end of your PhD. One week of labwork now is worth one month (or more) earlier in your PhD. You are most valuable to your lab/PI/science/career at this point and keeping working in the lab will yield more rewards. But it won’t get your thesis written.

The first bit of writing is busywork and can be done around lab work. “Deep writing” and reading does need time away for most students.

If you have only collected data in the lab and not analysed it, if you’ve not presented your work very often, if you are disorganised… yes, it will take you a full three months to write your thesis.

All the folks in my lab are encouraged to get figures ready, analyse as they go and they also give regular talks. It should not take anyone in this position three months away from the lab to write their thesis.

Agreeing a timeline with your PI for when you begin writing is really important. Regular deadlines and a commitment to timely feedback from your supervisor make thesis writing easier. The discussion needs to be based on facts though. Often students want to budget a lot of time to writing, because of the rule of 3 or because they believe they are “bad at writing”. It helps to see some evidence. Writing draft chapters earlier in the PhD – which is a requirement at some universities – can reveal difficulties and weaknesses.

Reality check

If you hear the rule of 3 from everyone and your supervisor is giving you different advice. It might be time for a reality check. Have a look at past theses from the lab. How long were they? How many chapters? Information is good.

You can see that all theses are fewer than 300 pages in length, many substantially so. Four have three chapters and two have two. Although looking closer, two of the theses with three chapters use a results chapter as an expanded methods chapter.

Ultimately, the thesis is your work but you will get input from your supervisor. Regardless of what is written here or how many people tell you about the rule of 3, your supervisor will have their own ideas about how your thesis should be. Agreeing a sensible plan with them is the way to get started productively.

Getting started

This is not a comprehensive guide but in order to write a good enough thesis, you first need a plan.

• Make a figure list. This should be every single figure you can think of. You can cross off ones you don’t need later if they don’t fit or are insignificant.
• Plan the narrative. There is usually more than one way to put together the figures to make a thesis. Be prepared for this to change after you start writing! Sometimes the writing process reveals ways in which the narrative should be rearranged.
• How many results chapters? Start with the idea that you will have one. Does it need dividing? If yes, then what are the titles of the two chapters? If you have difficulty titling them you may need to split to a 3rd.

Now you have a plan. It’s time to get going.

Set some goals – but make them small. Having a goal of “I am going to complete my thesis” is too demoralising. You need to feel like you are making progress constantly to stay motivated. Break it down into smaller chunks. “I will finish this chapter by next Friday”. “I will write the cloning section this morning and then go for a walk”.

Write the materials and methods first . It’s the easiest bit to write because it is all technical writing with little wordcraft required. You can fit it around labwork. In fact, it is easier to write whilst in the lab because you can look up all the stuff you need. Importantly, it gets over the “blank page syndrome”.

Next get your figures together . This should already be done if you have been organised.

Then write the figure legends . You already have the title for each figure from your plan. All you need to do is describe each panel. Again, quite low energy writing required for this task.

Now write the results sections ! This is the same way that we put papers together. The results parts of the thesis are more extended but in principle you will guide the reader though the figures that you’ve made. Remember, you already have the legends written. So you are already partly on your way.

Time to regroup . At this point you can refine your plan for the introduction and check the rest of your plan still makes sense. Now is the time for some deep writing and reading.

The post title comes from “Rule of Three” by The Lemonheads.

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Dissertating Like a Distance Runner: Ten Tips for Finishing Your PhD

The above photo is of Sir Mo Farah running past Buckingham Palace into the home stretch of the London Marathon. I took the photo two days after my viva, in which I defended my PhD dissertation. Farah become a British hero when he and his training partner, Galen Rupp, won the gold and silver medals in the 10k at the London Olympic Games.

I had the honor of racing against Rupp at Nike’s Boarder Clash meet between the fastest high school distance runners in my home state of Washington and Rupp’s home state of Oregon. I’m happy to provide a link to the results and photos of our teenage selves since I beat Galen and Washington won the meet. (Note: In the results, ‘Owen’ is misspelled with the commonly added s , which I, as a fan of Jesse Owens, feel is an honor.) By the time we were running in college—Rupp for the University of Oregon and myself for the University of Washington—he was on an entirely different level. I never achieved anything close to the kind of running success Rupp has had. Yet, for most of us mortals, the real value in athletics is the character traits and principles that sports instill in us, and how those principles carry over to other aspects of life. Here I want to share ten principles that the sport of distance running teaches, which I found to be quite transferrable to writing my doctoral dissertation.

To provide some personal context, I began as a doctoral researcher at the University of Birmingham in 2014. At that time my grandparents, who helped my single father raise my sister and me, continued their ongoing struggle with my Grandfather’s Alzheimer’s. It was becoming increasingly apparent that they would benefit from having my wife and I nearby. So, in 2015 we moved to my hometown of Yakima, Washington. That fall I began a 2/2 teaching load at a small university on the Yakama Nation Reservation as I continued to write my dissertation. Since finishing my PhD four years ago, in 2018, I have published one book , five research articles , and two edited volume chapters related in various ways to my dissertation. As someone living in rural Eastern Washington, who is a first-gen college grad, I had to find ways to stay self-motivated and to keep chipping away at my academic work. I found the following principles that I learned through distance running very helpful.

(1) Establish community . There are various explanations, some of which border on superstitious, for why Kenyan distance runners have been so dominant. Yet one factor is certainly the running community great Kenyan distance runners benefit from at their elite training camps, as discussed in Train Hard, Win Easy: The Kenyan Way . Having a community that values distance running can compel each member of the community to pursue athletic excellence over a long period of time. The same can be said for academic work. Many doctoral researchers have built-in community in their university departments, but for various reasons this is not true for everyone. Thankfully, alternative ways to establish community have never been easier, predominantly due to technology.

Since my dissertation applied Aristotelian causation and neo-Thomistic hylomorphism to mental causation and neural correlates of consciousness, I found it immensely helpful to meet consistently with neuroscientist, Christof Koch, and philosopher of mind, Mihretu Guta. Mihretu does work on the philosophy of consciousness and Christof propelled the dawn of the neurobiology of consciousness with Francis Crick . Though Mihretu lives in Southern California, we met monthly through Skype, and I would drive over the Cascade Mountains once a month to meet with Christof in Seattle. As my dissertation examiner, Anna Marmodoro, once reminded me: the world is small—it’s easier than ever before to connect with other researchers.

It can also be helpful to keep in mind that your community can be large or small. As some athletes train in large camps consisting of many runners, others have small training groups, such as the three Ingebrigtsen brothers . Likewise, your community could be a whole philosophy department or several close friends. You can also mix it up. As an introvert, I enjoyed my relatively small consistent community, but I also benefitted from attending annual regional philosophy conferences where I could see the same folks each year. And I especially enjoyed developing relationships with other international researchers interested in Aristotelian philosophy of mind at a summer school hosted by the University of Oxford in Naples, which Marmodoro directed. For a brief period, we all stayed in a small villa and talked about hylomorphism all day, each day, while enjoying delicious Italian food.

Whatever your community looks like, whatever shape it takes, what matters is that you’re encouraged toward accomplishing your academic goal.

(2) Know your goal. Like writing a dissertation, becoming a good distance runner requires a lot of tedious and monotonous work. If you don’t have a clear goal of what you want to achieve, you won’t get up early, lace up your running shoes, and enter the frosty morning air as you take the first of many steps in your morning run. There are, after all, more enticing and perhaps even more pressing things to do. Similarly, if you don’t have a clear goal of when you want to finish your dissertation, it is easy to put off your daily writing for another day, which can easily become more distant into the future.

(3) Be realistic about your goal . While it is important to have a clear goal as a distance runner and as a doctoral researcher, it is important for your goal to be realistic. This means your goal should take into account the fact that you are human and therefore have both particular strengths and limitations. Everyone enters the sport of distance running with different strengths and weaknesses. When Diddy ran the city it would have been unrealistic for him to try to break the two-hour barrier in the marathon, as Eliud Kipchoge did . If Diddy made that his goal, he probably would have lost all hope in the first mile of the marathon and never finished. Because he set a more realistic goal of breaking four hours, not two hours, he paced himself accordingly and actually finished.

The parent of two young children who is teaching part-time can certainly finish a dissertation. But the parent will have a greater likelihood of doing so with a reasonable goal that fits that individual’s strengths and limitations. If the parent expects to finish on the same timescale as someone who is single with no children nor teaching responsibilities, this will likely lead to disappointment and less motivation in the middle of the process. Motivation will remain higher, and correspondingly so will productivity that is fueled by motivation, if one’s goal is realistic and achievable.

Another element of having a realistic goal is being willing to adapt the goal as your circumstances change. Sometimes a runner might enter a race expecting to place in the top five and midway through the race realize that she has a great chance of winning (consider, for example, Des Linden’s victory at the Boston Marathon ). At that point, it would be wise to revise one’s goal to be ‘win the race’ rather than simply placing in the top five. At other times, a runner might expect to win the race or be on the podium and midway realize that is no longer possible. Yet, if she is nevertheless within striking distance of placing in the top five, then she can make that her new goal, which is realistic given her current situation and will therefore sustain her motivation to the finish line. Sara Hall, who could have and wanted to crack the top three, held on for fifth at the World Championships marathon because she adjusted her goal midrace.

The PhD candidate who initially plans to finish her dissertation in three years but then finds herself in the midst of a pandemic or dealing with a medical issue or a family crisis may not need to give up on her goal of finishing her dissertation. Perhaps, she only needs to revise her goal so that it allows more time, so she finishes in five years rather than three. A PhD finished in five years is certainly more valuable than no PhD.

(4) Know why you want to achieve your goal . My high school cross-country coach, Mr. Steiner, once gave me a book about distance running entitled “Motivation is the Name of the Game.” It is one of those books you don’t really need to read because the main takeaway is in the title. Distance running requires much-delayed gratification—you must do many things that are not intrinsically enjoyable (such as running itself, ice baths, going to bed early, etc.) in order to achieve success. If you don’t have a solid reason for why you want to achieve your running goal, you won’t do the numerous things you do not want to do but must do to achieve your goal. The same is true for finishing a PhD. Therefore, it is important to know the reason(s) why you want to finish your dissertation and why you want a PhD.

As a side note, it can also be immensely helpful to choose a dissertation topic that you are personally very interested in, rather than a topic that will simply make you more employable. Of course, being employable is something many of us must consider. Yet, if you pick a topic that is so boring to you that you have significant difficulty finding the motivation to finish your dissertation, then picking an “employable dissertation topic” will be anything but employable.

(5) Prioritize your goal . “Be selfish” were the words of exhortation my college cross-country team heard from our coaches before we returned home for Christmas break. As someone who teaches ethics courses, I feel compelled to clarify that “be selfish” is not typically good advice. However, to be fair to my coaches, the realistic point they were trying to convey was that at home we would be surrounded by family and friends who may not fully understand our running goals and what it takes to accomplish them. For example, during my first Christmas break home from college, I was trying to run eighty miles per week. Because I was trying to fit these miles into my social schedule without much compromise, many of these miles were run in freezing temps, in the dark, on concrete sidewalks with streetlights, rather than dirt trails. After returning to campus following the holidays, I raced my first indoor track race with a terribly sore groin, which an MRI scan soon revealed was due to a stress fracture in my femur. I learned the hard way that I have limits to what I can do, which entails I must say “no thanks” to some invitations, even though that may appear selfish to some.

A PhD researcher writing a dissertation has a substantial goal before her. Yet, many people writing a dissertation have additional responsibilities, such as teaching, being a loving spouse, a faithful friend, or a present parent. As I was teaching while writing my dissertation, I often heard the mantra “put students first.” Yet, I knew if I prioritized my current students over and above finishing my dissertation, I would, like many, never finish my dissertation. However, I knew it would be best for my future students to be taught by an expert who has earned a PhD. So, I put my future students first by prioritizing finishing my PhD . This meant that I had to limit the teaching responsibilities I took on. Now, my current students are benefitting from my decision, as they are taught by an expert in my field.

While prioritizing your dissertation can mean putting it above some things in life, it also means putting it below other things. A friend once told me he would fail in a lot of areas in life before he fails as a father, which is often what it means to practically prioritize one goal above another. Prioritizing family and close friendships need not mean that you say ‘yes’ to every request, but that you intentionally build consistent time into your schedule to foster relationships with the people closest to you. For me, this practically meant not working past 6:00pm on weekdays and taking weekends off to hang out with family and friends. This relieved pressure, because I knew that if something went eschew with my plan to finish my PhD, I would still have the people in my life who I care most about. I could then work toward my goal without undue anxiety about the possibility of failing and the loss that would entail. I was positively motivated by the likely prospect that I would, in time, finish my PhD, and be able to celebrate it with others who supported me along the way.

(6) Just start writing . Yesterday morning, it was five degrees below freezing when I did my morning run. I wanted to skip my run and go straight to my heated office. So, I employed a veteran distance running trick to successfully finish my run. I went out the door and just started running. That is the hardest part, and once I do it, 99.9% of the time I finish my run.

You may not know what exactly you think about a specific topic in the chapter you need to write, nor what you are going to write each day. But perhaps the most simple and helpful dissertation advice I ever received was from David Horner, who earned his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Oxford. He told me: “just start writing.” Sometimes PhD researchers think they must have all their ideas solidified in their mind before they start writing their dissertation. In fact, writing your dissertation can actually help clarify what you think. So “just start writing” is not only simple but also sage advice.

(7) Never write a dissertation . No great marathoner focuses on running 26.2 miles. Great distance runners are masters of breaking up major goals into smaller goals and then focusing on accomplishing one small goal at a time, until they have achieved the major goal. Philosophers can understand this easily, as we take small, calculated steps through minor premises that support major premises to arrive at an overall conclusion in an argument.

Contained within each chapter of a dissertation is a premise(s) in an overall argument and individual sections can contain sub-premises supporting the major premise of each chapter. When you first start out as a doctoral researcher working on your dissertation, you have to construct an outline of your dissertation that maps out the various chapters and how they will relate to your overall conclusion. Once you have that outline in place, keep it in the back of your mind. But do not focus on writing the whole, which would be overwhelming and discouraging. Rather, focus on writing whichever chapter you are working on. The fastest American marathoner, Ryan Hall, wrote a book that sums up the only way to run long distances in the title Run the Mile You’re In . And Galen Rupp discusses in this interview how he mentally breaks up a marathon into segments and focuses on just finishing one segment at a time. Whatever chapter you’re writing, make it your goal to write that chapter. Once you’ve accomplished that goal, set a new goal: write the next chapter. Repeat that process several times and you will be halfway through your dissertation. Repeat the process a few more times, and you will be done.

By the time you have finished a master’s degree, you have written many chapter-length papers. To finish a dissertation, you essentially write about eight interconnected papers, one at a time, just as you have done many times before. If you just write the chapter (which you could call a “paper” if that feels like a lighter load) you’re writing, before you know it, you will have written a dissertation.

(8) Harness the power of habits . Becoming a great distance runner requires running an inordinate number of miles, which no one has the willpower to do. The best marathoners in the world regularly run well over one hundred miles a week, in addition to stretching, lifting weights, taking ice baths, and eating healthy. Not even the most tough-minded distance runner has the gumption to make all the individual decisions that would be required in order to get out the door for every run and climb into every ice bath apart from the development of habits. The most reliable way around each distance runner’s weakness of will, or akrasia , is developing and employing habits. The same can be true for writing.

If you simply try to write a little bit each weekday around the same time, you will develop a habit of writing at that time each day. Once you have that habit, the decision to write each weekday at that time will require less and less willpower over time. Eventually, it will take some willpower to not write at that time. I have found it helpful to develop the routine of freewriting for a few minutes just before starting my daily writing session of thirty minutes during which I write new content, before working on editing or revising existing content for about thirty minutes. My routine helped me develop the daily habit of writing, which removes the daily decision to write, as I “just do it” (to use Nike’s famous line) each day.

I have also found it helpful to divide my days up according to routines. As a morning person, I do well writing and researching in the morning, doing teaching prep and teaching during the middle of the day, and then doing mundane tasks such as email at the end of the day.

(9) Write for today and for tomorrow . Successful distance runners train for two reasons. One reason—to win upcoming races—is obvious. However, in addition to training for upcoming races, the successful distance runner trains today for the training that they want to be capable of months and years ahead. You cannot simply jump into running eighty, ninety, or one-hundred-mile weeks. It takes time to condition your body to sustain the stress of running high mileage weeks. A runner must have a long-term perspective and plan ahead as she works toward her immediate goals on the way to achieving her long-term goals. Similarly, for the PhD researcher, writing a dissertation lays the groundwork for future success.

For one, if the PhD candidate develops healthy, sustainable, productive habits while writing a dissertation, these habits can be continued once they land an academic job. It is no secret that the initial years on the job market, or in a new academic position, can be just as (or more) challenging than finishing a PhD. Effective habits developed while writing a dissertation can be invaluable during such seasons, allowing one to continue researching and writing even with more responsibilities and less time.

It is also worth noting that there is a sense in which research writing becomes easier, as one becomes accustomed to the work. A distance runner who has been running for decades, logging thousands of miles throughout their career, can run relatively fast without much effort. For example, my college roommate, Travis Boyd, decided to set the world record for running a half marathon pushing a baby stroller nearly a decade after we ran for the University of Washington. His training was no longer what it once was during our collegiate days. Nevertheless, his past training made it much easier for him to set the record, even though his focus had shifted to his full-time business career and being a present husband and father of two. I once asked my doctoral supervisors, Nikk Effingham and Jussi Suikkanen, how they were able to publish so much. They basically said it gets easier, as the work you have done in the past contributes to your future publications. Granted, not everyone is going to finish their PhD and then become a research super human like Liz Jackson , who finished her PhD in 2019, and published four articles that same year, three the next, and six the following year. Nevertheless, writing and publishing does become easier as you gain years of experience.

(10) Go running . As Cal Newport discusses in Deep Work , having solid boundaries around the time we work is conducive for highly effective academic work. And there is nothing more refreshing while dissertating than an athletic hobby with cognitive benefits . So, perhaps the best way to dissertate like a distance runner is to stop writing and go for a run.

Acknowledgments : Thanks are due to Aryn Owen and Jaden Anderson for their constructive feedback on a prior draft of this post.

• Matthew Owen

Matthew Owen (PhD, University of Birmingham) is a faculty member in the philosophy department at Yakima Valley College in Washington State. He is also an affiliate faculty member at the Center for Consciousness Science, University of Michigan. Matthew’s latest book is Measuring the Immeasurable Mind: Where Contemporary Neuroscience Meets the Aristotelian Tradition .

• Dissertating
• Finishing your PhD
• graduate students
• Sabrina D. MisirHiralall

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Taylor Swift Breaks Silence on Vienna Terror Plot as She Says She Feared Statement Might 'Provoke' Danger

Three of Swift's shows were canceled earlier this month in Vienna, Austria after authorities foiled an alleged terror plot

Gareth Cattermole/TAS24/Getty

Taylor Swift is speaking out for the first time after a terror plot prompted the cancellation of three of her Eras Tour dates — and explaining why she initially chose to stay silent.

In a lengthy Instagram post shared following the conclusion of her European leg of the tour, Swift said that playing her final few dates in London was a “rollercoaster of emotions” after three shows in Vienna were canceled amid a foiled terror plot.

“Having our Vienna shows canceled was devastating. The reason for the cancellations filled me with a new sense of fear, and a tremendous amount of guilt because so many people had planned on coming to those shows,” she wrote in a post on Wednesday, Aug. 21. “But I was also so grateful to the authorities because thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives.”

The “Fortnight” singer, 34, said she was “heartened by the love and unity” she saw among fans in the aftermath, as many fans in Vienna flooded the streets to sing Swift’s songs together and exchange friendship bracelets, which has become a tradition at her shows.

Swift wrote that after Vienna, she and her team worked closely with British authorities to ensure that her five nights at London’s Wembley Stadium — which wrapped on Tuesday, Aug. 20 — would go off without a hitch.

Kevin Winter/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management

Swift’s post came two weeks after the shows were canceled, and the Grammy winner had caught flak from some for not addressing the cancellations directly. But in her post, she explained why she’d stayed silent.

“Let me be very clear: I am not going to speak about something publicly if I think doing so might provoke those who would want to harm the fans who come to my shows,” she wrote. “In cases like this one, ‘silence’ is actually showing restraint, and waiting to express yourself at a time when it’s right to. My priority was finishing our European tour safely, and it is with great relief that I can say we did that.”

Swift praised her London shows as feeling like a “beautiful dream sequence,” and said the performances restored in her a sense of “carefree calm” onstage.

In a comment on the post, she thanked the many guests that joined her onstage during her London shows , including Ed Sheeran , Florence Welch and Jack Antonoff , and called it a “dizzying honor” to become the first solo artist to play Wembley eight times in one tour.

“To the fans who have seen us this summer, you’ll always have the most sparkling place in my memories,” she concluded. “You were a dream to perform for, dance with, and share those magical moments with. We’ll see you all again when we resume The Eras Tour in October, but for now we get to take a much needed rest. Thank you for the adventure of a lifetime. May it continue…”

Thomas Kronsteiner/Getty Images

On Aug. 7, authorities announced that two Austrian men — a 19-year-old and a 17-year-old — had been arrested in connection with a planned attack on Swift’s shows, which were scheduled to take place at the Ernst Happel Stadium in Vienna from Aug. 8 to 10. The AP reported that the older of the two wanted to “kill as many people as possible” in an attack using explosives and knives .

Two days later, Austrian authorities announced a third arrest in connection with the foiled plot, an 18-year-old they believe has links to ISIS.

The arrests came just days after three young girls were killed in a stabbing at a Swift-themed yoga class in Southport, England. 

The pop star later invited two survivors from the tragic event to meet her amid her Eras Tour stop in London.

"You drew stars around my scars 💫🥹 ….," mom Sami Foster wrote in the heartfelt caption of a viral TikTok that features a montage of photos of Swift with the family. The lyrics are from the singer’s song "Cardigan" on her 2020 album Folklore . 

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Is it possible to write my thesis in less than 3 months?

So over all I'm a pretty good student, made good grades, collected all my data, and (mostly) analyzed it all. Now I'm approaching the end of my masters program. (supposed to be done by sometime in May 2020) and I have barely anything written. I hate writing. I'm horrifically depressed and have been for some time. I'm not insanely interested in what I'm even studying. I just feel so overwhelmed and stressed and mad at myself for not having written more by now. Any advice? Anyone gone through this same issue? Please don't be mean I really can't handle it right now :(

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