✈ Templates live now — coaching opens soon

Now
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Your dissertation isn't stuck.
It's undirected .

theResearchPilot is a new project from a working writing coach — four free templates are ready right now, Pro workbooks are available for the next stage, and 1:1 coaching for Master's and PhD candidates is opening in stages.

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↖this is the sentence that's been open in your draft for six weeks

↙ a template exists for exactly this problem

↖ download it free, right now

What's here

Two ways to get unstuck — plus a place to think out loud

The four templates below are free and ready to download right now. Coaching isn't bookable yet — this is what's live, and what's still being built.

Self-guided

Templates

Structured worksheets and frameworks for the parts of a dissertation that stall people most — chapter outlines, lit review tracking, methodology justification, and defense prep.

1:1 + email

Coaching

Direct support for candidates who need a second read on their work — diagnosing where an argument breaks down and working chapter by chapter toward a full draft.

Ongoing

The Journal

Short, specific essays on the parts of the dissertation process nobody puts in the handbook — free, and growing every week.

Sound familiar?

Comprehensive exam, but for why you're stalled

These are the patterns that come up again and again for graduate writers. If one of these is you, the templates and coaching above are being built with exactly this in mind.

Q.01

You have 40 pages of literature review and no argument.
You've read everything. What's missing is a position — a lit review without one reads like a bibliography with commentary.
Q.02

Your advisor gives feedback you can't turn into action.
"Needs more depth" isn't a task. Translating vague committee notes into a concrete edit list is a big part of what this is built to solve.
Q.03

You rewrite the introduction every time you open the document.
A classic avoidance loop — usually a sign the real work is waiting in a chapter you're circling instead of starting.
Q.04

Methodology is done, but you can't defend it under questioning.
Knowing your methods and being able to justify them out loud, under pressure, are two different skills.

Free, right now

Templates built around the stuck points

Each one is built for a specific point where dissertations stall. Free — enter your email below and all 4 land in your inbox.

Free

Chapter & Outline Map

A structural template for planning every chapter before you draft it, so you're writing toward a shape instead of discovering it as you go.

Free

Literature Review Tracker

A simple tracker for organizing sources by theme and method — the starting point before you build your argument.

Free

Methodology Justification Worksheet

Prompts that push you from describing your methods to defending why they were the right choice.

Free

Defense Prep Question Bank

A working list of the questions committees tend to ask, organized so you can rehearse answers before the room does it for you.

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How coaching will work

Three chapters, in order

The process is designed to follow the shape of the problem, not a fixed curriculum.

Chapter I

Diagnose

A manuscript review to find exactly where the argument breaks down.

Full draft & committee-notes read
Structural map of every chapter
Written diagnostic + priority list

Chapter II

Rebuild

Working sessions to restructure, draft, and revise — chapter by chapter.

Scheduled 1:1 sessions
Margin-note edits on drafts
Email support between sessions

Chapter III

Defend

Preparation for the oral defense, including likely committee questions.

Mock defense practice
Slide & talk-track review
Final manuscript pass

Pro, when you're ready

Workbooks for the next stage of the same problem

Each one picks up where the free template leaves off — from structure to argument, from description to defense. $17 each.

Pro

Literature Review Tracker

Source Matrix, Gap Finder, Thesis Builder, and Outline Handoff — sources to argument, in four steps.

Pro

Methodology Justification

Turning "here's what I did" into "here's why it was the right choice."

Soon

Defense Prep

Deeper committee-question rehearsal for the oral defense.

Soon

Chapter Outline Map (Pro)

A deeper version of the free map, with committee-alignment checkpoints.

Explore Pro →

A note before you sign up

Why theResearchPilot exists

Rizwan Alam, founder of theResearchPilot

From the founder

theResearchPilot is built on ten years of direct, one-to-one dissertation coaching — more than 1,200 students guided, one draft at a time, from bachelor's through PhD level. This site is where that experience gets a name, a framework, and a set of tools to match.

The work has always been the same: sit with someone's actual draft, find precisely where the argument breaks down, and work through it with them until it holds up under real scrutiny. That's not a service I'm designing in theory — it's the practice that's already shaped over 1,200 dissertations, now built into templates, frameworks, and direct coaching available here.

If you're stuck, the goal isn't encouragement. It's a clear diagnosis of what's actually not working, and a specific plan to fix it.

— Rizwan Alam, founder

The journal