Evolving from Dissertation to Book

Some Notes on My Process

Photo by Green Chameleon on Unsplash

Greetings, dear readers! I’m rewinding a post from the archives for everyone working on transforming a dissertation to a book. Happy reading!

---

Something that writing a dissertation and writing a book have in common is that we start out not really knowing how to do either and spend a lot of time trying to figure out how the hell to do both.

It's a rare unicorn that we get to take a required dissertation writing class in graduate school, and when we start new academic jobs, our employers hardly ever provide us with formal training for writing books. Instead, we spend the majority of our time stumbling around in the dark and pondering what a strong dissertation or book would look like for us.

You've probably heard me lament before about the need for more formalized professional training for graduate students and early-career scholars on how to write a major long-form manuscript. I'll keep singing that tune, but today I'd like to share some thoughts on my own experience turning a dissertation into a book.