Meeting Minutes: Tips for Writing YOUR Dissertation/Thesis (featuring Dr. Courtney Wright)
Have you started stressing out about your dissertation or thesis yet? According to Dr. Courtney Wright, Associate Professor in the College of Communication and Information, it's all in how you look at the task. For instance, complete the phrase:
The dissertation/thesis is like...
Whether you said that it is like a journey, trudging through a desert, a marriage, etc., your answer reflects your perspective. First things first: keep tabs on that perspective. Don't allow it to defeat you. Keep scrolling to read Dr. Wright's "Nuts and Bolts."
"Nuts and Bolts"
Identify a topic
This task requires you to be an expert on your specialty and the variables that are important to the larger scholarship that your speciality fits within
Analyze the utility then the feasibility (can you get this done within a reasonable time frame)
Read persistently. Don't rely merely on your coursework. Take initiative in independent learning to familiarize yourself with work necessary for your speciality.
Faculty
Know the faculty in your department, especially your advisor. Be able to decipher what is useful to you from the faculty to engage. (Scholarship, insight, connections, research practices, etc. ) You are responsible for managing your graduate career.
"Don't seek the path of least resistance to your own detriment."
Management (of self and of your committee)
"Your management in managing yourself is directly related to your ability to manage your committee."
The Self
You have to organize yourself, key dates, paperwork, and their required stuff, check points (productivity schedule, goal mapping)
Develop a weekly schedule, account for your hours per day, per week
Be available
Manage your ego and your pride
View this as a job. You should be touching your work every single day. You have to be actively engaging your work regularly.
Managing Your Committee
In selecting your committee members, view the process as building relationships
Look into two areas: The faculty's intellectual and academic qualities; and their professional and ethical qualities
Be proactive and visible when managing your committee
Set deadlines for yourself and share them with your committee to keep you accountable and responsible
Thesis/Dissertation
You can't say anything without knowing the literature. If you can't take it apart, you don't know it and you can't write about it. You must do the leg work.
Voice and Argument
You must be clear about what you're studying, its complexities and nuances, and its connections to the larger scholarship, so that you can establish your own authoritative voice.
To be a good writer, you have to be an attentive, effective reader of good writing.
Every sentence should provoke additional questions.
Respect the feedback from your committee.
One of the most difficult tasks in the process of writing your thesis and dissertation is editing.
The Inner Game of Tennis, book suggested with special emphasis on the conversation of the various "selves."
Keep your integrity intact during this process and see the benefit in the perseverance. This is a process to enhance your autonomy.
Don't sacrifice your well-being in this process.
