The phrase 'writer's block' covers a variety of situations. In our experience, absolute writer's block - that is, where someone literally can't write anything at all, not even a note to a friend or a shopping list, for example - is very rare. If this is the case, then possibly you need to work individually with someone like a counsellor or learning adviser. In such cases, committing yourself to write for only fifteen minutes a day is often a starting point. This must be faithfully observed and then extended only slowly.

However, 'writer's block' usually means something less extreme. The way to overcome it, is to look at what is causing it. It could be that:

• considering the whole finished 300 page product paralyses you. Not only do you not write a thesis at one go, you seldom do that even with a chapter. Theses are written small section by small section. It is paradoxical in a way; you do need to keep in mind the whole thread of the argument, but at the same time you need to break down the whole thesis into smaller parts and know how they fit together. You then work on these smaller, identified parts. Often when you come across complex ideas and need to make them clear and linked to your argument, you should be working seriously just on a single paragraph.
  
  
• working on specific small parts has fragmented the whole and, in a sense, you've lost the plot. This can manifest itself in trying to rearrange the pieces in several ways, cutting and pasting, and, although being very busy, never feeling satisfied with the result. It is important to stop being busy and spend time to recover the plot or story for your thesis and rebuild the logical framework. You could write down the main points in your argument--for example the aims, what you did, what you found, what it means--and then fill in from this, as it were, adding the detail to each part, feeding your content more and more into a structure without losing the bigger picture.
  
  
• you've been trying to write your thesis in the order in which it will eventually be published. It is often not fruitful to start with the Introduction, which is perhaps what you were attempting. Certainly you do need to have your aims and the general thread in a working form that you relate the rest to. However, depending on the nature of your research, you could find the methods section the easiest to write first because it is descriptive rather than analytical. By writing this first, you gain confidence and then you write yourself into writing again.
  
  
• you are searching for the 'right way', the formula, and are overawed by writing rules. There is no right way or formula and grammar, punctuation and style can take their turn much later. Don't try to juggle worrying about what it is you are going to say, what the reader's needs might be, what is the best word to choose, whether you have the tense right, and when to use the semi-colon all in the first draft. Accept the fact that you will be writing several drafts and take the pressure off the first one by concentrating only on your ideas. Even then, you might snatch at bits here and there to get the ideas down on paper and leave the search for the really apt word or the connecting sentence for later. Rewriting is a major part of writing. Allow the time for this.
  
  
• you are having trouble with a particular section. If you are aware that, in some way, you're failing to capture in words a particular idea or concept, and, whatever you do, it still eludes you or seems to sound superficial or ordinary, it may help to try to write about why you think it is that you are having difficulty with this. In this way you may actually sort out what is the stumbling block. For example, you may have compressed some aspect which needs to be unpacked or you may be actually missing some crucial element of the idea which you need to discover before you can continue. Sometimes, the linear nature of writing masks a non-linear network of ideas. If this is the case, you could attempt to present this to yourself visually in a concept map or diagram and then write from this. One last thought is that talking it out with a friend can help you identify where the difficulty lies.

Writing is a complex and slow process. Expecting it to flow effortlessly because you are writing about something you know and understand well and for which you have done the work is a mistake. This kind of mistaken belief can rob you of your confidence which, in turn, further turns you off from writing and compounds the cycle. However, it is also true that you can be a brilliant researcher but, if you don't communicate what you have done to other people, then you may as well have been doing it for nothing.

If you are moving from the stage of doing mainly research to concentrating on writing, you may need to develop a new routine. Some professional writers set up definite daily routines to achieve their writing aims. In the same way you could plan to write at a particular time of the day for a particular length or time or word limit. On some days, nothing seems to help and this may be a time to take an afternoon off and enjoy yourself without feeling too much guilt. A break like this could help you to refocus and start afresh the next day.