THE DISSERTATION: Writing, Advisement and Getting Started

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THE DISSERTATION Writing, Advisement and
Getting Started

• Directed Research
• Walker Collins

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Why Do We Have ABD Inertia?

• The newness of the experience
• The process is an independent one
• Transition from a practitioner to a scholar

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What are the advantages?

• Build writing skills
• Develop analytical skills
• Develop the ability to synthesize complicated
  information
• Acquire invaluable research skills

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What are the advantages?

• Produce information that can improve schools
• Create a body of work that others can draw on

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What are some sources of frustration?

• Managing your topic
• Your topic is not carved in stone
• Using the literature and other dissertations to
  help shape your dissertation
• Keeping your mentor informed

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Mentors- Managing Your Mentor and Committee

• Assignment of Mentors
• Role of the Mentor
• Formulating a Dissertation Committee
• Working with your Mentor and Committee Members

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Things to work on

• Time Management (block out at least 30 mins. each
  day to work on the dissertation )
• Choose a scheduling strategy that works for you-
  example hours or minutes worked, problem solved,
  pages written etc.
• Keep a dissertation planner
• Stick to your schedule

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Planning to work when, where and how

• Work during the times that you are most
  productive
• Work in a space where you can be productive
• Figure out how you work best, and try to work
  that way

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Internal Stresses

• Competition with other Cohort Members
• Procrastination-
• Competing demands on your time
• Unexpected events

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Tips for Writing Consistently

• What to do when you dont feel like writing
• Make a list of small things to do for a given
  section- eg photocopying an article
• Work on references
• Free write
• Work on your acknowledgements

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How Do I Encourage Myself?

• Be reasonable- dont expect that your first draft
  will be the greatest.
• Talk to cohort members who are productive- get
  tips from them
• Keep a binder- as you work on your chapters print
  the pages and put them in a notebook with
  dividers
• Keep the notebook with you

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The Process

• Getting Started
• The Dissertation Proposal
• The Dissertation Proposal Defense
• The Institutional Review Board and the Pre/IRB
  Review Process
• The Elements of the Dissertation
• The Oral Defense