The qualifying exam, the specialty or specialization paper, or the comprehensive presentation of the literature on a topic of interest to you as assigned by the professors are all labels I have heard associated with the last hurdle to becoming dissertation/treatise eligible. This paper has also been referred to as SQE, SQR, CPP, CQE, and …
How would you recommend organizing work during a Ph.D. thesis writing period? I am not sure what you mean by “writing period.” When starting out with new students who are confused by their professors’ preferences for bogging them down in the literature review phase, I follow a different organizational structure. I tell my students that …
Whoever possesses the dissertation draft controls the dissertation’s progress. Follow this rule always. If the professor has the draft, your progress has come to the proverbial red light–they are on offense, and you are on the sidelines. You are well advised NOT to touch the version of the document you sent the professor, even if …
Getting a doctorate depends on wise choices before, during, and after enrollment in your program. I have worked with clients at Ivy League level institutions and at for-profit private online programs as well as everything in between those two extremes. I have worked as an interdisciplinary coach with topics covering public health, natural sciences, social …
As of this month, January 2020, schools are starting to tell students to follow the 7th edition of the APA manual that was released in October of 2019 with a 2020 copyright (what is up with that?!) Here are some websites to help you make the transition: https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/new-edition-here https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-and-learning/apa-style-updates/ https://www.mybib.com/blog/apa-style-7th-edition-changes https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines A couple of things …
I constantly hear from dissertants how their professors have had personality changes at the beginning stages of writing their dissertation proposals. In fact, some professors abdicate their helpfulness verbally, even though the declaration seems counterproductive, counter-intuitive, and logically fallacious. At least the professor is being honest. Dissertants believe in the myth that was told to …
I received this message at the midnight hour, the witching hour, the proverbial last minute about a fundamental shift in the design or draft that “it’ll only take 20 minutes,” and I have seen several dissertants undergo the fallout of a professor sending this same message. The professor purposefully overwhelms the dissertant with this message, …
Let’s talk for a minute about the excuses, excuses you get from professors DURING THE TERM FOR WHICH YOU PAID TUITION. Let’s start with a list of this litany of excuses that I have seen in the emails and other forms of communications that occur between dissertants and professors over a nearly 20 year period, …
Dear Dissertant, Over the years, I have come to know the novice dissertation advisor as one who chooses to write “this is all wrong” rather than try to figure out how to tell you what the nature of the “wrong” is so that you can efficiently overcome it and make it “right.” The reality is …
Dear Dissertant, Do you really want to finish? Here are the first three or so things I can think of that you ought to be doing and are not. Having trouble getting replies from your chair/mentor/advisor? Send your email, and expect a reply in a timely fashion: 24 to 48 hours. Then surreptitiously resend the …
To Finish Your Dissertation... 