For the last four or so months, the number of clients receiving feedback from professors pasted directly from AI like Claude, ChatGPT, etc. has grown. The number of professors using AI for more and more rounds of feedback, instead of thoroughly reading the content with their own damned eyes has increased. These professors are abdicating their intellectual capacity as they send students an unusually large, overwhelming set of feedback. While this feedback appears more content oriented, professors appear not to monitor what the AI produces. It appears that professors who lack confidence as supposed experts or lack an ability to provide cogent comments that are not inflammatory to their dissertants (i.e., they write comments that feel like academic hazing) acquiesce to AI, given the theoretical intelligence of LLM. Today, I will give you some ways to pre-empt the professors’ AI feedback.

For this entry’s purpose, I am naming the collective AI toolbox Chat Bot or CB because the “kids” refer to chatting with AI and the CB label feels less inflammatory to my sense of existential threat to human intellect.

I’ve been studying the likely CB prompts professors use when they choose not to spend quality time with your document. (If you’ve read my book Demystifying the Doctorate, you know why they choose not to spend their time on you.)

I went to sureprompts.com. I typed: “Evaluate the three chapters of a dissertation proposal.” I pasted the prompt you see below in CB Claude along with three chapters of a 10-year-old dissertation proposal that was approved and that written according to what the professors’ expected at that time at that university. (Scroll through the prompt content quickly to get to the over the top feedback.)

SurePrompts’s Result for Use With Any Chat Bot

You are an expert academic reviewer with deep experience in dissertation proposal evaluation. You will be given three chapters of a dissertation proposal draft (Chapter 1, Chapter 2, and Chapter 3). Your job is to evaluate each chapter for academic rigor, alignment, clarity, feasibility, and overall readiness for supervisory review.

Context / Background
- The dissertation proposal is intended to be persuasive, methodologically sound, and internally consistent.
- Typical chapters include:
  - Chapter 1: Introduction, problem statement, research questions/objectives, significance, scope, and overview.
  - Chapter 2: Literature review and conceptual/theoretical framework, identifying gaps and positioning the study.
  - Chapter 3: Methodology—research design, participants/data sources, sampling, instruments, procedures, analysis plan, ethics, limitations, and timeline (as applicable).
- Your evaluation should reflect common expectations in graduate-level research and proposal review processes.

User Input (what you will receive)
- Chapter 1 text
- Chapter 2 text
- Chapter 3 text
- (Optional) Program/department guidelines, required formatting, and any constraints the user provides.

Task
1. First, briefly restate what you are evaluating and note any missing required information based on the text provided.
2. Evaluate each chapter separately using the criteria below.
3. Identify cross-chapter consistency issues (e.g., whether the research questions match the literature review and methodology).
4. Provide a prioritized revision plan: what to fix first, second, and third, including concrete suggestions.
5. Conclude with an overall assessment (e.g., “Strong / Adequate / Needs major revision”) and a recommended next step.

Evaluation Criteria (apply to each chapter)
Use these dimensions in your review:
A. Clarity & academic writing quality
- Are claims clear, concise, and properly grounded in the text?
- Is terminology consistent?

B. Research alignment and coherence
- Does the chapter logically support the research problem, questions, objectives, and overall study aims?

C. Conceptual and theoretical rigor (especially Chapter 2)
- Are key concepts defined and consistently used?
- Is there a clear synthesis (not just summary)?
- Are gaps explicitly identified and justified?

D. Methodological soundness (especially Chapter 3)
- Is the research design appropriate to the questions/objectives?
- Are sampling/data sources appropriate and feasible?
- Are instruments/procedures described clearly and ethically?
- Is the analysis plan sufficiently specific (what method, how, and why)?

E. Feasibility & risk
- Does the plan seem executable within typical time/resources?
- Are potential limitations, biases, or challenges acknowledged?

F. Citation and evidence quality (if citations are present)
- Are sources relevant and current (as applicable)?
- Are claims supported? (If no citations are provided, flag this.)

Step-by-Step Instructions (follow in order)
1. Extract and list (bullet form) the following from the provided chapters:
   - Research problem (if stated)
   - Research questions/objectives (or likely equivalents)
   - Key variables/themes/concepts
   - Proposed methodology type (qualitative/quantitative/mixed; design)
2. Chapter-by-chapter evaluation:
   - For Chapter 1: score and critique against criteria A–F.
   - For Chapter 2: score and critique against criteria A–F, with extra emphasis on synthesis and gap justification.
   - For Chapter 3: score and critique against criteria A–F, with extra emphasis on research design, data/instruments, procedure, validity/trustworthiness, analysis, and ethics.
3. Cross-chapter consistency check:
   - Verify that: Chapter 1 research questions → Chapter 2 gap/theory → Chapter 3 methods/analysis.
   - Flag mismatches or missing links.
4. Prioritized revision plan:
   - Provide “Top 10 fixes” ranked by impact and urgency.
   - For each fix, include: (i) what’s wrong, (ii) why it matters, and (iii) what to change (suggested wording/structure when helpful).
5. Provide a “Supervisor-ready summary” at the end.

Scoring & Output Requirements
- Use a 1–5 scale for each chapter (1 = poor, 5 = excellent) with a short justification per score.
- Keep your tone professional, constructive, and specific (avoid vague statements like “improve clarity” without concrete guidance).
- If information is missing, explicitly say what is missing and propose what should be included.

Output Format (use exactly this structure)
1) Quick Snapshot  
- Dissertation type/approach (as inferred):  
- Research problem (as stated/inferred):  
- Research questions/objectives (as stated/inferred):  
- Key concepts/themes:  

2) Chapter 1 Evaluation  
- Score (1–5):  
- Strengths (3–5 bullets):  
- Issues / Gaps (3–7 bullets):  
- Concrete revision suggestions (3–7 bullets):  

3) Chapter 2 Evaluation  
- Score (1–5):  
- Strengths (3–5 bullets):  
- Issues / Gaps (4–8 bullets):  
- Concrete revision suggestions (4–8 bullets):  

4) Chapter 3 Evaluation  
- Score (1–5):  
- Strengths (3–5 bullets):  
- Issues / Gaps (5–10 bullets):  
- Concrete revision suggestions (5–10 bullets):  

5) Cross-Chapter Consistency Check  
- Match/mismatch items (bullet list):  
- Highest-risk alignment problems (top 3):  
- Recommended linkages to add (3–6 bullets):  

6) Prioritized Revision Plan (Top 10)  
1. … (what’s wrong / why / what to change)  
2. …  
3. …  
(continue to 10)

7) Overall Verdict & Next Steps  
- Overall assessment (Strong / Adequate / Needs major revision):  
- What to do next (3–6 bullets):  

Constraints & Quality Requirements
- Do not invent citations or claims not present in the provided text.
- Do not assume details (e.g., sample size, population, instruments) unless the draft states them; if missing, recommend what to specify.
- Keep the review focused on proposal-quality improvements, not full dissertation writing.
- If the user’s program has specific requirements and they are provided, follow them; otherwise, use standard dissertation proposal expectations.

Concrete Example (use as a style reference for your suggestions)
- Example of a strong “issue → fix” item:  
  “Your research question is too broad (‘How does X affect Y?’). This makes the methodology and analysis unclear. Revise it into a measurable, time-bounded form and align Chapter 3 accordingly (e.g., specify indicators for Y, define X dimensions, and state which analysis method tests the relationship).”

Now begin.  
First ask the user for the missing inputs if not provided:  
- Paste Chapter 1 text  
- Paste Chapter 2 text  
- Paste Chapter 3 text  
- (Optional) Any program guidelines or rubric  
Then produce the evaluation using the exact format above.

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My Chat Bot (Claude) Results for “Evaluate This Proposal”

Below you can see lengthy feedback CB Claude generated. I want to be clear that what the CB generated about the literature review is NOT generally what professors expect because professors usually use the literature review to become educated about the dissertant’s topic. I would love for a literature review to be a true synthesis because then it would be around the size of a 20 page manuscript suitable for journal publication. However, that expectation as seen below is not how dissertations appear generally speaking. In fact, I recently saw a literature review with that type of page count and content rejected for lack of sources and pages because the major professor expected a high (and potentially exhaustive) number of pages and sources. Meanwhile, the dissertant’s other reader used AI and generated feedback similar to what is seen below. (Scroll through the prompt content quickly to get to my ideas for overcoming CB generated feedback.)

Dissertation Proposal Review

1) Quick Snapshot

• Dissertation type/approach (as inferred): Qualitative phenomenological study
• Research problem (as stated/inferred): African American women are underrepresented in senior academic leadership positions in higher education relative to their male and non-Black female counterparts; the factors contributing to the success of those who do attain such positions are not well understood.
• Research questions/objectives (as stated/inferred):
  • Principal: What experiences contributed to the success of African American women in seeking academic leadership positions?
  • Sub-Q1: What experiences contributed to female African American academic leaders’ career advancement?
  • Sub-Q2: What circumstances stymied African American women in acceding to administrative positions?
  • Sub-Q3: What types of resources did African American women utilize in advancing to their current positions?
• Key concepts/themes: Glass ceiling, mentoring, networking/”good old boy” networks, race/gender double bind, Black Feminist Theory, family/church support systems, researcher-as-instrument, Maslow/Herzberg/path-goal theory (mentioned but not developed).
• Missing required information: No program-specific formatting guidelines were provided; timeline/Gantt chart not present in Chapter 3; no explicit conceptual framework diagram; Chapter 2 introduction and summary sections are missing; several in-text citations lack full reference-list correspondence (not verifiable from excerpt).

2) Chapter 1 Evaluation

Score (1–5): 3

Strengths:

• Clear articulation of a principal research question and three well-aligned supporting questions.
• Problem statement is grounded in statistics (e.g., faculty and presidency representation figures), giving the argument empirical footing.
• Significance section reasonably ties the study to practical outcomes (training, institutional policy).
• Researcher positionality (African American woman in law enforcement) is disclosed early, which is appropriate for qualitative/phenomenological work.

Issues / Gaps:

• The “Definition of Terms” section is little more than a list of headers (“Woman or female.” / “Leader.” / “Administrator in higher education.”) without actual definitions in most cases — this is not usable as written.
• Statistics are presented with inconsistent or unclear attribution (e.g., “Women populate 51% of the nation and 46% of the U.S. workforce” — dated sources from 2009–2015 for a proposal that should reflect more current data).
• The Delimitation section restricts the study to “the Midwest,” but no rationale is given for this geographic choice.
• The Summary subsection under Chapter 1 is a placeholder with no content (“Summary” appears with nothing beneath it).
• The purpose statement and significance section largely repeat each other verbatim in places, adding length without adding substance.
• Researcher bias/positionality is mentioned but not yet connected to a bracketing or reflexivity procedure (that appears later in Ch. 3, but should be foreshadowed here).
• No explicit theoretical or conceptual framework is named in Chapter 1, though one appears (briefly) in Chapter 2 — readers should be oriented to the framework from the outset.

Concrete revision suggestions:

• Write out full definitions for each term (e.g., “Leader: For purposes of this study, a leader is defined as…”), each with a citation.
• Update statistical citations to more recent sources (post-2018) where available, and verify all are represented in the reference list.
• Add 2–3 sentences justifying the Midwest delimitation (e.g., access, researcher location, representativeness).
• Draft the missing Chapter 1 Summary paragraph (150–250 words) synthesizing the problem, purpose, and questions.
• Trim redundancy between the Purpose and Significance sections; make Significance forward-looking (who benefits, how) rather than restating the purpose.
• Add 2–3 sentences naming the guiding theoretical lens (e.g., Black Feminist Theory) so Chapter 1 previews Chapter 2.

3) Chapter 2 Evaluation

Score (1–5): 2

Strengths:

• Broad range of relevant sources touching directly on African American women’s leadership experiences, mentoring, glass ceiling, and Black Feminist Theory.
• Some useful historical and statistical grounding (doctoral degree attainment trends by race and gender).
• Several sources are annotated with the author’s intended research angle, showing early efforts to connect literature to the study’s aims.

Issues / Gaps:

• The author explicitly states this chapter is currently “more of an annotated bibliography” than a literature review — this is accurate and is the central weakness. Most entries summarize a single source (“This article explores…”) rather than synthesizing multiple sources around a theme.
• No literature review introduction or summary/conclusion section exists; the chapter simply ends after the last annotation.
• The theoretical framework is named only in passing (“based on Huang, 2012, I will use Maslow, Herzberg, and path-goal theory”) but never explained, defined, or connected to Black Feminist Theory (also mentioned later) — two frameworks are named without reconciliation.
• The literature is organized as a list of separate articles rather than thematically (e.g., “Barriers,” “Mentoring,” “Structural/Institutional Factors”) despite an outline suggesting thematic organization (a–k) that is not actually followed in the prose.
• No explicit statement of the gap in the literature — each annotation states what “my research will explore,” but the chapter never pulls these together into a clear, unified gap statement.
• Several citations lack full detail (e.g., “Davis, D.R. (2012)” cited multiple times without page numbers or clear reference entries; “Toossi, M (2002)” and “Almquist, 1987” appear as bare in-text mentions with no elaboration).
• A long block quotation (Cooper, 1969) is used—reliance on direct quotation here should be minimized in favor of paraphrase and synthesis, per academic writing conventions.
• Some data appears to be used without full sourcing clarity (e.g., NCES doctoral degree statistics are cited multiple times but the exact document/table is marked as “cite” rather than fully referenced, suggesting the citation is still pending).

Concrete revision suggestions:

• Rewrite chapter around 3–5 thematic subheadings (e.g., Historical Context, Structural/Institutional Barriers, Mentoring and Support Networks, Theoretical Framework, Gap in the Literature) rather than one-article-per-paragraph.
• For each theme, synthesize 3–5 sources together, explicitly comparing/contrasting findings rather than listing them sequentially.
• Resolve the framework conflict: decide whether Black Feminist Theory, Maslow/Herzberg/path-goal theory, or a combination will anchor the study, and justify the choice explicitly.
• Add an introduction paragraph previewing the chapter’s structure and a closing summary paragraph stating the specific gap this study fills.
• Complete all “cite” placeholders with full source information before the next draft.
• Replace the extended Cooper (1969) quotation with a paraphrase, reserving direct quotation only for a short (under 15-word) distinctive phrase if truly necessary.
• Ensure every source mentioned appears in the reference list with consistent formatting (APA, presumably).
• Remove first-person promissory statements repeated after every annotation (“My research will explore…”) and instead consolidate this content into a single synthesized “Gap and Contribution” section near the end.

4) Chapter 3 Evaluation

Score (1–5): 3

Strengths:

• Clear articulation of qualitative phenomenological design with reasonable justification (Creswell citations) for why quantitative methods are inappropriate.
• Sampling strategy (purposeful + snowball) is appropriately matched to a hard-to-reach population.
• Ethical procedures (confidentiality, pseudonyms, data storage/destruction timeline, IRB approval, distress protocol) are unusually thorough for a proposal draft.
• Interview protocol includes pre-qualification screening questions and warm-up questions, showing methodological care.

Issues / Gaps:

• Sample size target is inconsistent: text states “6 to 10” participants in one place, “acquire about eight participants,” and later “at least eight study participants,” then in the contingency plan reduces the quota to “at least six.” This needs to be reconciled into one clear number/range with justification (e.g., saturation-based reasoning).
• The analysis plan uses the term “open coding” but also invokes “constant comparative analysis,” which is a distinct methodological tradition (grounded theory) not otherwise claimed for this phenomenological study — this is a methodological inconsistency that needs resolution (phenomenological studies typically use methods like Moustakas’ or Colaizzi’s approach, not strictly grounded theory coding).
• No discussion of trustworthiness/rigor criteria specific to qualitative research (e.g., credibility, transferability, dependability, confirmability, or Lincoln & Guba’s framework) beyond member checking, which is mentioned only once.
• No explicit bracketing/epoché procedure described, despite this being a hallmark requirement of phenomenological method and despite the researcher disclosing personal identity/bias.
• No timeline or projected schedule for recruitment, data collection, transcription, and analysis — feasibility cannot be assessed without this.
• Interview protocol is very long (multiple multi-part questions) for a semi-structured interview; feasibility/interview length is not addressed (e.g., estimated interview duration).
• Data storage plan differs between paragraphs (“private residence” locked drawer, 3 years) — physical storage of digital recordings is not addressed (are recordings encrypted, stored on a password-protected device, or only summarized?).
• Redundant paragraphs: the “Procedures and Ethical Conduct” and “Data Analysis” content on risk mitigation is repeated almost verbatim twice in immediate succession (“As with most research projects…” followed by “The researcher has taken steps to minimize risk…”).
• No discussion of researcher’s role in reconciling interview data with field notes (are field notes triangulated with transcripts? How are discrepancies handled?).
• Instrumentation section states the interview guide is in “Appendix C,” but appendices are not included/described in the chapter body — a summary of the appendix contents would strengthen feasibility assessment.

Concrete revision suggestions:

• Settle on one target sample size (e.g., “8–10 participants, with recruitment continuing until data saturation is reached”) and remove conflicting numbers.
• Choose and cite one coherent phenomenological analysis method (e.g., Moustakas, 1994, or Colaizzi, 1978) instead of grounded-theory-style “open coding” and “constant comparative analysis,” or explicitly justify a hybrid approach if intentional.
• Add a subsection on trustworthiness using Lincoln & Guba’s (1985) criteria (credibility, transferability, dependability, confirmability), including specific procedures for each.
• Add a bracketing/epoché statement describing how the researcher will document and set aside personal assumptions before and during analysis.
• Insert a timeline table (e.g., IRB approval → recruitment → interviews → transcription → coding → member checking → write-up) with estimated durations.
• State the anticipated interview length (e.g., 60–90 minutes) and justify given the number of questions.
• Clarify data security procedures for digital recordings (encryption, password protection) in addition to physical storage.
• Remove duplicated risk-mitigation paragraphs and consolidate into a single, well-organized “Risks and Mitigation” subsection.
• Add a sentence on how field notes and transcripts will be triangulated or reconciled during analysis.
• Briefly describe appendix contents (A: introductory email, B: consent/preliminary questions, C: interview protocol) within the chapter narrative for clarity.

5) Cross-Chapter Consistency Check

Match/mismatch items:

• ✅ Chapter 1’s three supporting research questions map directly onto Chapter 3’s three question clusters (career advancement, circumstances that stymied ascension, resources utilized) — this alignment is a genuine strength.
• ✅ Chapter 1’s mention of researcher positionality (African American woman in law enforcement) is consistently repeated in Chapter 2 (briefly) and Chapter 3 (Researcher Bias section) — good continuity.
• ⚠️ Chapter 2’s stated theoretical framework (Maslow, Herzberg, path-goal theory, per Huang 2012) is never referenced again in Chapter 3’s methodology or analysis plan; Black Feminist Theory is introduced later in Chapter 2 but also not carried into Chapter 3’s analytic approach.
• ⚠️ Chapter 1 defines “leadership” narrowly in the Delimitation section (only senior-level administrators with authority over a school’s direction/mission), but Chapter 3’s Research Design section broadens eligibility to include “deans, division heads, academic department chairs, and directors” with only supervisory responsibility — these two definitions of the eligible population do not match and need to be reconciled.
• ⚠️ Chapter 2’s annotations repeatedly promise specific future analyses (e.g., examining compensation inequity, examining Board of Directors’ role, examining religion/sexual orientation/socioeconomic status differences) that do not appear anywhere in Chapter 3’s interview questions or analysis plan — the literature review over-promises relative to what the methodology will actually investigate.
• ⚠️ Chapter 3’s analysis plan (open coding + constant comparative analysis) does not clearly connect back to a phenomenological framework named in Chapter 2 or Chapter 3’s design section, creating a design–analysis mismatch.

Highest-risk alignment problems (top 3):

1. Theoretical framework is named but never operationalized — it appears in Chapter 2 (twice, in conflicting forms) but has no visible role in Chapter 3’s interview protocol or analysis plan.
2. Scope/eligibility mismatch between Chapter 1’s narrow definition of “senior academic leadership” and Chapter 3’s much broader inclusion criteria.
3. Over-promising in Chapter 2 — many annotations describe research angles (pay equity, Board governance, religion/orientation/SES) that are not reflected in the actual interview questions in Chapter 3, creating a credibility gap between literature review scope and methodological scope.

Recommended linkages to add:

• Add a sentence in Chapter 3’s Research Design section explicitly stating which theoretical framework guides data interpretation and how (e.g., “Data will be interpreted through the lens of Black Feminist Theory, attending especially to participants’ descriptions of race-gender intersectionality…”).
• Align the Chapter 1 Delimitation language with Chapter 3’s Research Design eligibility criteria (use one consistent definition of “leadership position” throughout).
• Trim Chapter 2’s forward-looking promises to only those themes actually reflected in the Chapter 3 interview guide, or expand the interview guide to address themes promised in Chapter 2 (pay equity, Board role, etc.) if the author wants to retain them.
• Add a short paragraph at the end of Chapter 2 explicitly stating “the gap this study addresses” in language that mirrors Chapter 1’s problem statement.
• Cross-reference Chapter 2’s key sources (e.g., Huang, 2012; Livingston et al., 2012) within Chapter 3’s discussion of coding categories, showing how prior literature will inform initial coding categories.

6) Prioritized Revision Plan (Top 10)

1. Rewrite Chapter 2 as a synthesized literature review, not an annotated bibliography. Why: the author self-identifies this as the chapter’s core weakness, and it will be flagged immediately by any committee. What to change: reorganize by theme (Historical Context, Barriers, Mentoring/Support, Theoretical Framework, Gap Statement) and synthesize 3–5 sources per theme rather than one paragraph per article.
2. Resolve the theoretical framework conflict. Why: two different frameworks (Maslow/Herzberg/path-goal vs. Black Feminist Theory) are named without reconciliation, undermining conceptual rigor. What to change: select one primary framework (or explicitly justify combining them), and carry it through Chapter 3’s analysis plan.
3. Fix the sample size inconsistency in Chapter 3. Why: “6 to 10,” “about eight,” “at least eight,” and “at least six” appear across the chapter, undermining methodological clarity. What to change: settle on a single target range with a saturation-based justification.
4. Reconcile the analysis method with the stated design. Why: “constant comparative analysis” belongs to grounded theory, not phenomenology, creating a design–method mismatch. What to change: adopt an established phenomenological analysis method (e.g., Moustakas or Colaizzi) or justify a hybrid explicitly.
5. Add missing Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 summary/conclusion sections. Why: both chapters currently end abruptly or contain placeholder headers with no content. What to change: draft 150–250 word closing summaries that reiterate key points and transition to the next chapter.
6. Reconcile the eligibility/scope definitions between Chapter 1 and Chapter 3. Why: Chapter 1 restricts to senior leaders with authority over institutional direction; Chapter 3 broadens to any supervisory role. What to change: pick one definition and apply consistently.
7. Complete the Definition of Terms section in Chapter 1. Why: currently only headers exist without content, which is not usable as a reference section for readers. What to change: write full, cited definitions for each term.
8. Add a trustworthiness/rigor section to Chapter 3. Why: qualitative proposals are typically expected to address credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability; only member checking is mentioned. What to change: add a dedicated subsection citing an established framework (e.g., Lincoln & Guba, 1985).
9. Add a timeline to Chapter 3. Why: feasibility cannot be assessed without projected durations for recruitment, interviews, transcription, and analysis. What to change: insert a simple timeline/table with estimated milestones.
10. Trim Chapter 2’s unfulfilled promissory statements or expand Chapter 3 to match them. Why: multiple annotations promise analyses (pay equity, Board governance, religion/SES) not reflected in the interview protocol, creating a literature-methods mismatch. What to change: either remove these promises from Chapter 2 or add corresponding interview questions/analysis categories in Chapter 3.

7) Overall Verdict & Next Steps

Overall assessment: Needs major revision

While Chapter 1 and Chapter 3 show reasonably strong bones — a coherent set of research questions, an appropriate qualitative phenomenological design, thorough ethical procedures, and a feasible sampling strategy — Chapter 2 is, by the author’s own admission, not yet a literature review in the conventional sense, and several cross-chapter inconsistencies (theoretical framework, eligibility criteria, sample size, analysis method) need to be resolved before this proposal would be ready for committee review.

What to do next:

• Prioritize a full rewrite of Chapter 2 around thematic synthesis before addressing smaller issues elsewhere; this is the single most consequential gap.
• Resolve the theoretical framework question early, since it affects both Chapter 2’s structure and Chapter 3’s analysis plan.
• Conduct a full internal consistency pass across all three chapters specifically checking terminology (definitions of “leadership,” sample size, theoretical framework) so the same terms mean the same thing everywhere.
• Add the missing structural elements (Chapter 1 summary, Chapter 2 introduction/summary, Chapter 3 timeline and trustworthiness section).
• Once these structural and consistency issues are resolved, consider a second-pass review focused specifically on APA citation completeness and currency of sources (several are pre-2015 for topics where more recent data likely exists).
• Share the revised draft with a methodologist or committee chair specifically to confirm the phenomenological analysis approach before finalizing Chapter 3.

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Overcoming the Overwhelm of the Chat Bot’s Proposal Feedback

What do you when you see CB providing the feedback on behalf of the “expert academic reviewer with deep experience in dissertation proposal evaluation” whose actual human job is “to evaluate each chapter for academic rigor, alignment, clarity, feasibility, and overall readiness for supervisory review”?

I am providing a series of options below, and while these answers are not CB generated, they are bulleted for easy visualization:

• Immediately request a face-to-face with the professor AND record and transcribe the meeting as you go through each item in the CB output versus content of the proposal.
• Try to pre-CB what the professor could generate by putting your content through Chat Bot on your own.
  • However, I recommend that you do not do this without someone like a writing buddy or dissertation support group around to help you figure out what you want to fix and what you want to preemptively prepare to argue with the humans about. Then, you can make revisions and show the professor what you did with step-by-step, including with CB’s feedback, in an effort to please them.
  • I say the caveat after seeing what CB had to say about the ancient proposal whose feedback I just shared with you; I’m livid, honestly.
• Find a few proposals or examples of defended chapters by your professors’ done dissertants and put them into a prompt that asks for an evaluation of similarities between documents so you can anticipate your professor’s expectations and meet them.
  • This way, when your professor uses CB on your document, you can show them how you made every effort to match their past expectations so you can understand how their expectations are now dictated by CB.
• You can wait for your professor to send you feedback from CB and immediately reply that you MUST have a meeting to go over each bullet point in turn.
  • If they gripe about being overwhelmed in turn, argue that you need to understand what they see in the CB feedback so you can revise your product to their satisfaction.
• If your professor sends you two rounds of CB feedback and you notice that you made revisions and CB did not reduce the amount of feedback, demand more document-specific feedback, such as comments and tracked changes.
• If you attend an online institution operating on 8-week terms, give the major professor (a.k.a., mentor, chair) one CB feeback in a single term.
  • When you return the revised document, make it clear that you need their feedback ON the document with specific comments and tracked changes.
  • If they do not appear to read the document inside it, then simultaneously complain to them, your academic advisor, AND your department chair, and even graduate school dean.
  • I suspect that CB will be the new for-profit online program way to prevent you from a timely proposal defense or movement toward their overseer reviewer who will also generate CB feedback. Be ready to fight for your right to party at graduation by showing you can meet them at their level of play.
• Keep a record in one place of all the CB and human feedback in some single document that journals the process iteratively. Dissertants have used spreadsheets for this purpose and some have used Word. I am willing to bet, some are now putting multiple iterations of CB feedback through CB!
• With CB feedback, I recommend creating a change matrix to send along with your revised draft. It’s a classic game of “show your work.” Dissertants have used tables in word or spreadsheet cells to show column by column (a) what CB/feedback said, (b) what page feedback applied to, (c) what you did to address the feedback or why you did not address the feedback, (d) sometimes there’s a column of content pasted in the matrix, (e) relavant source or other information that supports your action relative to the feedback.

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What’s next?

In the pre-CB days, still happening around March 2026 give or take a month by institution, professors read the Google or Word documents and inserted comments, tracked changes, typed concerns right into the paragraph text.

By May 2026, I started seeing more professors use feedback from inserting dissertant’s documents into a CB without demonstrating any evidence of reading the document itself. The game changed overnight!

I am deeply and existentially concerned for dissertants who are stuck in the transition and angry that they went from getting feedback in documents to getting seemingly “thorough” feedback in emails causing them to feel confused about where the problems CB identified exist within chapters.

I am seeing professors put multiple revision iterations of a document or chapter through the same prompts and having the audacity to be irritated that students cannot figure out how to make all the corrections! The audacity belongs to the professors who are unable to do their jobs. These professors lack respect for their dissertants as viable potential doctoral degree holders or are so enmeshed in a sense of cognitive economy that they cannot bring themselves to work a 40 hour week! Yes, I am calling them out.

Additionally, we are now in an era when dissertants use CB to help them generate their content without fully writing it from their internal intellect while professors are using CB to evaluate said content. However, it would seem no human brains are involved in generating proposals for research. The LLMs are going to cause the my CB, your CB, and all CB use process to become ouroboros, especially since there several agents to use between any one or two people!

The point of the dissertation is to engage in the highest form of learning according to Bloom’s (2001) taxonomy of learning: creation of knowledge!

You cannot create if you are leaning on old news collected from LLMs, and I stand by my argument. I am relieved to know I am not alone: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/387954284_AI_Meets_Bloom_The_Role_of_Bloom’s_Taxonomy_in_an_AI-Enabled_World

Be aware: Universities and professors are already being sued over using CB to do their jobs by students who are angry that they are not allowed to use CB for assignments or are paying for experts to teach them only to have the Chat Bots doing the professors’ jobs. Soon, dissertants who are feeling held back by overwhelming iterations of CB feedback will do the same thing.

I hope you can use this entry’s information to your advantage in a world where CB is threatening learning even as professors’ purport to use it to make their evaluations better while they simply use their preferred Chat Bot to save time in the new cognitive economy.