One of the greatest challenges in writing theses and dissertations is not really about the writing process itself, but about the psychological struggles behind the writing. The most difficult psychological obstacle involved in writing a thesis is that you must claim that you are an expert.

When you write a thesis, you need to see yourself differently. Instead of seeing yourself as a student, you need to position yourself as an expert ready to take your place among the other experts and authorities in your field.

To make this claim, you have to make a psychological adjustment that your previous educational experience has not prepared you to take. If you think about your life as a student, when were you ever considered an expert on anything?

In reality, for many of us, the entire education process throughout our lifetimes can be summarized by the phrase: "Learn the right answers." The right answers were defined by the "experts" who taught us, the "experts" who wrote the books we read, and the "experts" who judged our exams, essays, and papers to determine if we had learned the "right" answers.

It is entirely possible that you can reach the point of writing a dissertation without ever writing an original word about anything in your field of study. Teachers tend not to shower good grades upon original thinkers. Good grades are most often given to those who supply the predetermined "right" answers.

Throughout this whole typical educational process, based on learning the right answers, we learned to write essays and term papers. Most of us were never taught how to write a thesis. If your education was typical, you learned how to demonstrate that you had learned your lessons. You learned how to write essays and term papers. You didn't learn to how to declare an original thesis.

The typical term paper, in secondary schools and universities, is not based on your own original research in some topic. Instead, you gather information about your topic published by various experts in the field. Your objective is to summarize the material you gathered on your topic in a coherent way.

What about essays? You can express your opinions on a topic in an essay, but an opinion is not the same as a thesis.

You can go through high school and college and never be required to make an original contribution to your field. Yet, this is what you must do when you write a thesis. This is one of the primary reasons the transition from essays and term papers to theses and dissertations is so difficult.

What happens when you come to the point of writing a dissertation? You must now take your place among the experts in your field. Now it is your turn to ask new questions and provide new answers. After a lifetime of learning the right answers, this is a dramatically new stage of your educational process.

This is the real secret of success behind a successful dissertation. Your success is no longer measured by your ability to learn the right answers. Your success comes from your ability to ask new questions and provide new answers as an expert.

If you don't make your claim that you are an expert in your field, by offering a new perspective, you are not writing a thesis. It doesn't matter if your thesis is simply a tiny step or a giant leap forward in your field. To write a thesis, you must offer an original perspective and new answers, as an expert.

A dissertation is a claim to the world that you are now an expert in your field. You are no longer simply a student. This is the expert's secret behind a successful dissertation.

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Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Ph.D Http://www.WriteToPersuade.com. If you need clarity about your thesis, here's a writing a dissertation resource for you. My ebook, What's Your Point? gives simple steps to get to your point.