Congratulations! You're an A.B.D. That is, you have completed all but your dissertation. The only other exam you'll ever have to take is the oral for your final defense. You have entered academic paradise. Or have you?

It depends. In place of written or oral exams, you will have another challenge, a test of self-motivation. It's a tough test, and grad students take a different version of it every day for about five years. Consider this: Could you have learned all your undergraduate work without any exams, quizzes, or graded assignments except one giant final exam before you graduated? Few people could have.

Most people need exams, detested though they are, to motivate them to study and make roughly constant progress toward their degrees. In college, chopping courses into smaller pieces was the professor's job, and every course had a syllabus to guide students. Anyone who could read knew what to study. In contrast, grad students must find their own way.

Your 5-Year Plan
Fortunately, the great directionless abyss can be filled, but grad students must fill it themselves. Taking a cue from college instructors, A.B.D. students can create a long-term syllabus for their research. It's a 5 -year plan for graduate school - give or a take a year or two.

The plan will need to be amended later, but having a written plan when starting research will jumpstart most students' progress. You can start creating a long-term research plan by breaking large projects into smaller ones. Set goals for each year and then for each month within each year. Make an agenda for each week of the first year, too. Fill in details as the weeks approach.

Do a mini version of this planning daily, too. Everyday, make a "Things To Do" list, and check off tasks as soon as you complete them. Your " Things To Do" list might include reading articles, obtaining library materials, setting up experiments, running experiments, computer work or even just thinking.

Five Tricks of the Trade
The path to a Ph.D. is rarely a straight one and patience and perseverance are always beneficial. Regardless of field, research tends to have false starts and to move in both forward and backward directions before making net progress. Eventually loose ends come together from which conclusions can be drawn.

While research is always challenging, there are tricks of the trade that experienced scholars employ to get more done in less time. Here are a few you can use too.

Record Ideas and Sources: Maintain a solid hardbound journal for all ideas, references, and notes relating to your thesis. Review your notebook frequently. Be sure to develop your own ideas since they will be the most important part of your thesis.

Stay Electronically Organized: Create your own system for saving emails, literature searches, online articles, figures, data, programs or any other important computer files. Back up (make an extra copy) of these files at least once a week.

Consult Experts: Learn the details of your university's resources from the staff members who know them best. Take advantage of any library or technology workshops that might help your research.

Know Your Own Work Habits: Work when and where you get the most done. The best places to study are where your favorite non-academic diversions, such as CDs, the TV, or computer games, aren't available. Think of your research as a 9 to 5 job.

Work Steadily: Working on a regular basis will pay off even if it seems like it won't. Graduating Ph.D.s often note tortoise and hare effects in their class. It's very common for some of the most promising first year students to never complete their Ph.D.s while other students who had a slower start but worked steadily do.

Here are some ways to strengthen your dissertation writing and defense presentation:

Learn from Example: Review a few other well-written dissertations in your field before writing your own. Attend some defenses in your department long before yours is scheduled. Employ the methods that work for others and avoid those that don't.

Divide and Conquer: Organize the dissertation in a way appropriate for the topic. This takes a lot of thought. Revise the structure of the thesis until it is logically divided into chapters that are independent of each other but unified by one coherent theme.

Arouse Reader Interest: Write a knock-out first sentence. Continue to intrigue the reader by presenting questions in the first chapter that will be answered in later chapters of the dissertation. Be sure to answer the question "Who cares?" by explaining why your research is important and what its place is within your discipline.

Create a Factual Tone: Regardless of topic, emotional writing is not appropriate for a dissertation.

Make Transitions Smooth: Create a continuous line of thought between chapters and between sections within each chapter. Use words such as "although", "however", and "in contrast" to bridge paragraphs and chapters. Use consistent style, tense, and tone throughout the thesis.

Format and Spell Correctly: Format your thesis properly and use the correct spelling of all names in your first draft. If you do, you may get down on your hands and knees and thank yourself when your thesis is due. Check to see if an electronic template of the approved thesis format for your department is available.

Teach at Your Defense: Despite the name, a defense isn't confrontational. It's a lecture in which you teach people in your field about your research and the conclusions you have reached. The final oral exam is also a misnomer. It is usually an exchange of ideas between scholars and not an exam at all.

Practice Your Presentation: Give several "mock" defenses to friends or family and solicit questions. If friends and family are unavailable, try giving the defense in an empty seminar room. This type of rehearsal can make or break a presentation. There is no substitute for it.

When It Rains, Work in the Barn
When the trials and tribulations of graduate school get you down, remember that perseverance is probably the most important characteristic of successful Ph.D. students. If you keep moving toward the Ph.D. finish line, you will eventually get there. The secret is to keep moving forward. Read over your 5-year plan and do some part of it that you can get done that day. Look up references, do some calculations, or read a few articles. As one grad student advisor put it, "Graduate students are like farmers; they always have work to do. When it rains, they work in the barn."

Crossing the Finish Line
When you have finished all this, you can write Ph.D. after your name for the rest of your life. You will be part of the educational elite. And you can expect your relatives to congratulate you with the phrase, "Now what are you going to do with it?"