A dissertation writing process works best when each draft has a different purpose. Instead of trying to write, edit, format and reference your dissertation at the same time, separate these tasks into distinct stages so you can focus on one type of work at a time.

What Is The Five-Draft Dissertation Writing Process?

The five-draft process is designed for long academic documents such as Masters dissertations and PhD theses. Each draft has one job rather than being a slightly improved version of the previous draft.

The process begins with draft zero, followed by drafts one through five. Draft zero is for planning, draft one is for writing, draft two is for interrogating the completed document, draft three is for the main edit, draft four is for formatting, and draft five is for supervisor feedback.

The purpose is to separate different types of mental work. Writing, editing, formatting and referencing require different kinds of attention. When you constantly switch between them, you lose time returning to the mindset needed for each task.

What Should You Do In Draft Zero?

Draft zero happens before you write a single sentence. It is about the architecture of your dissertation: roughly deciding where each piece of information will appear and beginning to consider how your word count will be distributed.

Do not spend too much time trying to make this plan perfect. Draft zero represents early decisions, and you are allowed to change them as you write. Its purpose is to give you guidance and help you write faster.

Skipping this stage can mean restructuring entire chapters later, which costs more time than planning would have. If you are writing a systematic review or scoping review, the PRISMA statement checklist can also be used to help with planning.

How Should You Approach Draft One?

Draft one has exactly one rule: just write.

Write every section, cover to cover, without stopping to fix sentences, paragraphs or formatting. There is no word limit and no self-editing at this stage. If something is clumsy, leave it. If a paragraph does not flow yet, leave it. You can add comments to remind yourself what needs attention later.

The purpose is to get your ideas onto the page. Writing and editing are different mental tasks, so combining them can make the process much slower.

By the end of draft one, you should have a complete document. It does not need to be good yet. It needs to exist.

What Happens In Draft Two?

Draft two is an interrogation of the complete document, and this is where much of the cutting happens.

Go through the document and leave comments for yourself. Flag weak sections, question whether paragraphs need to exist, and ask whether particular points are fully developed or whether you are only gesturing towards them.

Once you can see the document as a whole, bloated and underdeveloped sections become easier to identify. This is also why word count should not be your only measure of progress. A section below its target is not automatically underdeveloped, while a section above its target is not automatically bloated. Word count is a guide.

What Should You Do In Draft Three?

Draft three is where you respond to every comment from draft two and consolidate the document into a finished piece of writing.

Rewrite sections that need paraphrasing and refine sections that remain vague. Add citations properly and build your reference list as you work. This stage is usually iterative: you may read, edit and read again several times before a section feels right.

By the end of draft three, your figures, tables and appendices should also be collated and placed. The result should be a fully completed draft, with every section present and no placeholders remaining.

Why Should Formatting Wait Until Draft Four?

Draft four is deliberately the formatting stage. Formatting earlier creates unnecessary work because substantial editing, citation management and the addition of figures and tables can repeatedly disrupt your formatting.

Before starting, create a style guide covering fonts, font sizes, heading styles, spacing, paragraphing and margins. If your institution provides its own style guide, check and follow it.

Then copy the text from draft three into the new template using “paste text only”. This strips away formatting that has accumulated during editing and leaves the formatting controlled by your new template.

By the end of draft four, any further edits should generally be small enough that they do not disrupt the document significantly.

When Should Your Supervisor See Your Dissertation?

Draft five is where your supervisor becomes involved, deliberately later in the process.

By this point, you may have become too familiar with your own writing to see its problems clearly. A supervisor can provide a fresh perspective and assess how information is ordered across the document as a whole.

Sending a poorly formatted draft can also distract from the arguments and ideas you need feedback on. Completing the formatting first helps your supervisor focus on the academic content.

While your supervisor is reading, take a break from the document. Distance from your own writing can make it easier to see things you previously missed and to understand feedback more clearly.

How Does The Process Change For An 80,000-Word PhD Thesis?

For an 80,000-word PhD thesis, writing the entire document as one draft before receiving feedback is not realistic. Instead, treat each chapter as its own writing project and apply the same process to each chapter individually.

You should still create draft zero for the thesis as a whole, followed by a more detailed draft zero for each chapter. Then work through drafts one to five chapter by chapter.

Supervisor feedback also happens earlier. Rather than waiting until every chapter is finished, seek feedback on each chapter once its main edit, draft three, is ready. Once all chapters have been through the process, collate them into one document and complete the final formatting and editing of the thesis as a whole.

If you're applying this process to your own dissertation or thesis and want a second pair of eyes on your planning, structure or writing, you can work with me through a 1-to-1 consultation.