“The one thing that unites all human beings,” the humor columnist Dave Barry is thought to have written, “is that deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.”[i] The same is true of writing, especially in the humanities. Based on my experience and my observations of others, many students begin their history master’s and PhD programs as confident writers. And justifiably so. We earned high grades in college history, philosophy, and English classes. We all own classic stylistic manuals like William Zinsser’s On Writing Well. We probably were told at one juncture or another that we were “born to write.” A New York Times survey found that 81 percent of Americans “feel they have a book in them.”[ii] Surely we aren’t the worst of these would-be Hemingways.

It begins after comprehensive exams—the height of our self-assurance. We have written a half-dozen seminar papers. We are better versed in the historiography than ever. We received excellent feedback on our dissertation proposals. For those of us in well-funded programs, a year of archival research beckons. We have the knowledge, inspiration, and time to do what we excel at: writing. And what could be more worthy of our talents than a book-length manuscript?

This mindset is misguided in two major ways:

First, it frames the dissertation as a logical next step in our journeys, a natural culmination of our academic training.

Second, it rests on the fallacious assumption that being a good writer is the key to a successful dissertation. Eloquence is an asset, and well-written work is undoubtedly more enjoyable to read. But writing isn’t vital to success because a dissertation isn’t fundamentally an extended essay. It’s a project. Although our projects build on existing knowledge and research skills, their scope necessitates a more systematic approach than seminar papers.

This distinction is critical to a successful dissertation. Defining essay and dissertation helps illuminate their key differences. In The Imaginative Argument, Frank L. Coffi identifies four types of essay: creative nonfiction, technical, informative, and argumentative. The argumentative essay, the closest analogue to historical work, is defined as an “organized attempt to persuade an audience through the use of logic and reason.” It has an argument, supports its claims with factual evidence, is logically structured, considers counterarguments, and expounds on its ideas in a conclusion.[iii] A dissertation has these features, but it’s more. The American Historical Association (AHA) defines a dissertation as “an intensive research project” that results in “a substantial treatise.”[iv] Most history students anticipate and enjoy the research component: perusing rare manuscripts in distant archives is a de facto rite of passage.

Far more formidable is the dissertation’s immense volume, which elevates it from an essay to a project. In 2013, Marcus Beck, then a doctoral student at the University of Minnesota, analyzed data in his institution’s online thesis database and found that history dissertations averaged almost 300 pages in length (the middle 50 percent were between 280 and 330 pages).[v] Inclusive of notes, visuals and references, that’s a ballpark of between 75,000 and 100,000 words.

These numbers should shock us. Remember that most seminar papers and journal articles are 25 to 40 pages (7,500–10,000 words). Though your advisor may be quick to remind you that a dissertation is not a book in terms of polish and scope, it resembles a book manuscript far more than a seminar paper, journal article, or blog post. And books are undoubtedly projects.

As a history PhD candidate at Boston College, my academic journey has been shaped by progressive and deliberate efforts to reframe my dissertation as a project. I began ABD-hood armed with an ambitious research proposal and a rare sense of renewal born from a yearlong hiatus from the Ivory Tower. In my first semester, I read classic studies on King Philip’s War, browsed massive antiquarian source repositories like William Baxter’s 24-volume Documentary History of the State of Maine, and visited archives in Boston, Portland, and Concord. I downloaded almost every article and dissertation on the Wabanaki Confederacy and organized them into file folders with pathways like Dissertation > Contextual Literature > Tribal Studies (Wabanaki) > Eastern Abenaki. I created detailed metadata for my primary sources and organized them into colorful timelines in Scrivener. In the new year, I was asked to present a dissertation chapter at the Graduate Student Forum held by the Colonial Society of Massachusetts. I was excited to share my work, but there was one small problem: I hadn’t written anything.

Over the next twelve weeks, I cobbled together a chapter. I wrote paragraphs on Wabanaki lifeways, material culture, and social organization. Then I added a section about Basque fishermen on the Maine coastline in late 1500s. My third section explored how regional economic and social changes wrought from Wabanaki contact with European fishermen sparked the Mi’kmaq–Abenaki War of 1605. Finally, I tacked on a brief introduction and conclusion.

I finished my miserable draft a week before the forum. As I wrote, I hardly opened my elaborate folders or checked my detailed metadata. Instead, I made each paragraph as a task that to be “solved,” written side-by-side with the most relevant sources (a second monitor was my best purchase of 2023). I finished a disjointed chapter with compelling individual paragraphs, but minimal direction or cohesion. It also took too long to write. By conceptualizing every paragraph as a task and applying the most relevant material available to finish it, I had taken an important step toward reframing my dissertation as a project. Still, I knew there was more ahead.

The author’s best purchase of 2023: a second monitor. Image courtesy of the author.

Unless you’re a restless teenager or star in Taxi Driver, you probably never “go for a drive.” We drive to places like work, school, and the supermarket. Without a destination, you’ll eventually tire, run out of gas, and crash. While it may seem obvious to emphasize the advantages of working with direction and purpose, these skills are not institutionalized in academic history, which rewards meticulousness over timeliness. In my experience, the best way to balance these competing ideals is to alternate between inductive and deductive approaches to my project.

As a refresher, inductive research is a “bottom-up” process in which the researcher begins with individual observations, finds patterns in the sources (our data), forms a tentative hypothesis, and ultimately makes an argument. Conversely, deductive research is “top down.” It begins with a working hypothesis and tests sources and observations against it.[vi] I took an entirely inductive approach to writing my first chapter, which resulted in a well-sourced but unfocused draft that took too long to complete. In my current chapter on King Philip’s War in Maine, I began with a developed argument, created a detailed outline, and set daily writing targets. Most critically, I envisioned a complete chapter rather than “seeing where my writing took me” and thus took another step towards projecthood.

Project likely comes from the classical Latin prōiectum—a “projecting structure.” By the fifteenth century, the term could mean a “plan, draft, scheme, or table of something,” and its meaning would further evolve to a “mental conception, idea, or notion.”[vii] Modern definitions of project encompass both antecedents. Citing the Project Management Institute (PMI), management professor Adam Farag defines a project as “a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.” All projects are constrained in time and scope, have specific objectives, involve multiple stakeholders (yourself, your advisor, your dissertation committee), face a degree of uncertainty, and can be evaluated with defined metrics of success (completion, peer reception, eventual publication).[viii] It also holds that while project ideas may emerge organically, planning and execution are deliberate deductive processes. Reconceptualizing your dissertation as a project may feel intimidating, but it’s a bulwark against unbounded and directionless work.

A faculty mentor once remarked that there are almost no “right answers” in history, but a narrow range of plausible interpretations and a host of distortions. Similarly, there are a few proven mindsets and approaches that will drive you toward a finished dissertation and many more ways to fail.

As Zach Schrag astutely notes, “every historian must design their own research tools, since what works for one may fail for the other.”[ix] Reconceptualizing my dissertation as a project with demands distinct from shorter essays has helped me to meet deadlines, envision completion, and avoid the sense of unboundedness that can derail any project. Ten months out from my defense, my dissertation project is uneven and incomplete, but I’m confident it has a destination.

Endnotes

[i] This quote (and Barry’s entire list) may be apocryphal, and nobody is certain where it originally appeared. For one version, see David Mikkelson, “Dave Barry’s 16 Things,” Snopes, Feb. 27, 2007, accessed Nov. 1, 2025.

[ii] Joseph Epstein, “Think You Have a Book in You? Think Again,” New York Times, Sept. 28, 2002, accessed Oct. 30, 2025.

[iii] Frank L. Cioffi, The Imaginative Argument: A Practical Manifesto for Writers (Princeton, NJ, 2005), 1–11, quoted on 6.

[iv] American Historical Association, “Chapter 7. Doctoral Study in History,” in The Education of Historians in the United States, online ed., ed. Dexter Perkins, John L. Snell, Jacques Barzun, Fred Harvey Harrington, Edward C. Kirkland, Leonard Krieger, and Boyd C. Shafer (New York, 1962).

[v] Marcus Beck, “How long is the average dissertation?,” R is my friend, Apr. 13, 2012, accessed Nov. 1, 2025.

[vi] Karen O’Reilly, “Inductive and Deductive,” in Key Concepts in Ethnography (London, 2009), 104–109.

[vii] Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “project” (n), accessed Jan. 10, 2026.

[viii] Adam Farag, The Essentials of Project Management (London, ON:, 2021), Section 1.2.

[ix] Zachary M. Shrag, The Princeton Guide to Historical Research (Princeton, NJ, 2021), 225.