Abstract
Abstract Writer’s block seriously hinders doctoral completion in many Western universities. Yet scholars rarely examine its causes, patterns, and remedies in contexts where English functions as an additional language, resources stay scarce, and collectivist cultural norms influence everyday life. This study explores the main triggers of writer’s block, the dissertation stages where it strikes hardest, and the coping strategies Ethiopian PhD candidates employ while drafting theses in English. The researchers used a qualitative exploratory design and conducted semi-structured interviews with 45 purposively selected doctoral students (30 men and 15 women) from four disciplines: Teaching English as a Foreign Language, Mathematics, Physics, and Educational Policy and Management. All participants attended a major public university in Ethiopia. The team analyzed the data through reflexive thematic analysis, following Braun and Clarke’s six-phase process (2019). Participants frequently cited perfectionism, fear of supervisory criticism, inconsistent advisor feedback, and intense family/community expectations as key triggers. Blockage hit hardest during the literature review and discussion/conclusion sections. Science students often struggled to transform concise technical results into extended academic arguments. The most effective strategies involved reframing unhelpful thoughts about writing, committing to brief scheduled sessions, drawing on peer support groups, and using simple low-tech aids such as handwriting and outlines. In Ethiopia’s setting, writer’s block stems from heavy cognitive demands, reduced confidence in academic English, and limited access to culturally fitting guidance. This work extends cognitive load theory by showing how extraneous burdens from language barriers, infrastructure gaps, and collectivist pressures create distinct blockage patterns in resource-constrained environments. The findings call for targeted, multi-level interventions, including peer groups, supervisor training, and low-resource writing supports, to raise thesis completion rates in similar academic systems.