Sarah

I am sorry you are having such a hard time with your thesis. Rather than craig's list, I would look for a professional editing company. You can search in google for "professional editing" and many different companies come up. Google the name of the company you choose to make sure there are not any complaints online about the company.

Good luck and let me know how it works out.

Eileen

I have a fairly good understanding of what you're going through with a master thesis becasue I have trouble writting large papers as well.  I always gather too much information then have no idea how to bring it together.  Too bad your school doesn't have a decent editing lab.  I would suggest a few different things:

Like mentioned before, you could seek a professional writting service.  Localy or online.

Find a strong writter and ask them to help you with your paper.  This could be a friend, family member or even a class mate.

Depending on your area, you could go to another college/university and ask if you could use their editing lab.  Not all schools will do this but there are some out there that will.

Hi Sarah,

Although I don't have a disability myself, I do have a son with a disability, so I can imagine how frustrating this must be for you.  I finished my master's thesis a few years ago through an online program and it was quite a gruling process.  Because of the distance, the instructors expected us to operate quite independently.  My assuption is that when it comes to graduate level courses this is a typical expectation. 

You didn't give a lot of information about your thesis.  What are you researching?  I would suggest looking at some reference books to guide you.  Whether you are doing qualitative or quantitative research, there are books that you could obtain for more guidance.  Depending on the nature of your research, you may want to invest in some statistical analysis books as well.  

In my case, I had a hard time trying to see the "big picture" of exactly how to put all my information together.  Therefore, I perused many previous thesis of former university students where I attended.  (Specifcally, I focused on those thesis that were in the same realm of qualitative research that I was conducting).  These were available to me online.  I don't know if that option is available to you, but my university required us to pay for a hard copy of our thesis to be left to the university for future students.  Therefore you may want to investigate if that is an option for you.  I am a very visual learner, so having these examples really helped pull my thoughts together to present a logically sequenced document.  In other words, these methods helped with the flow of my thesis.  By viewing other student's thesis (sorry, I'm unsure of the plural form of the word 'thesis'), it helped me figure out a typical outline and then the flow sort of evolved.  

Hope my suggestions bring you some peace.

I have the same difficulties writing and am also in grad school working on a master's.  Fortunately, my school had tutoring support available to grad students and I practically live in the tutoring center.  I find it helpful to "talk out" my papers with my tutors.  Very often I have to explain where I am or where I'm stuck to them and in the process, figure things out.  It's just helpful to have another person there to bounce ideas off of and keep me focused.

You might try using software called Inspiration.  It's mind mapping software that lets you outline in a creative way.  You can make all these bubbles with ideas and move them all around and then hit a button and it turns into an outline automatically.  It can be helpful for figuring out a structure for a section or even the whole paper.

Also, try finding a Life Coach.  It can be expensive, but you get to work one-on-one with someone to organize things...in this case your writing. 

Good luck.  I can definitely understand your pain.  I failed out of a grad program once before because I couldn't get through the writing...I got help at Landmark College for a year and now I'm back in grad school (different school) and made sure I have the supports I need to be successful. 

You'll make it eventually...you just have to find your way.  I can tell you're bright and I know eventually, you'll work it out.  Just don't give up.