He Sees You When You're Not Studying. He Knows When You're Not Reading.

I’m an idealistic and ambitious person, and as graduate students, I bet you are too. This means inevitably I become excited thinking about the end of the semester and how much work I’m going to get done over the winter or summer break. When break is over it always feels I’ve gotten very little accomplished and am completely unfocused when the new semester begins again. It also means, I underestimate the time it will take me to complete anything.     

First, especially if you don’t live in the state where you’re going to school, get out of town, enjoy new scenery, and see friends and family. If going home is restorative and inexpensive, do it! If not, go somewhere else that is.

Second, when planning be flexible and realistic. We all want to take advantage of the time to get ahead, because we’re always short on time, but you will not finish three dissertation chapters over winter break or finish a thesis over summer break, so set manageable, achievable goals for each day, each week, and each month and record them. You won’t feel you didn’t accomplish much if you are able to track your progress over break in this way. Pro tip: baking cookies totally counts as research.

Assess the semester ahead: Where are you in your academic career and where do you want to/need to be in the upcoming semester? Breaks are a wonderful time to work on those essential tasks every academic must complete on top of course work. Whether it’s more coursework, the job market, or somewhere in between, look forward to the next semester, the next year and utilize the time to best benefit and prepare yourself for the next stage to avoid, at least a tiny bit, that constant feeling of never being caught up. If you’re still in the coursework stage, begin reading for the next semester. Syllabi are already available.

If you’re past the coursework stage, focus only continuing to prepare for field exams or comprehensive exams. If you’re in the dissertation or thesis stage, let your chair enjoy their holiday and work on sections of chapters. Maybe you’ve put off the literature review during the semester because of you’re teaching assistant or graduate assistant duties because it’s the most challenging section for you to get through writing. Use break time to devote your complete focus to it. If you’re nearing graduation, don’t check out mentally quite yet. Use the time to apply for PhD programs or assistant professor positions/post docs.

At any stage in your academic career you can use break time to polish an article to send off to prospective journals for publication. You can also begin to think about summer employment opportunities during winter break instead of scrambling for a way to make some income when May finally arrives. Apply for internships and travel grants during break as a way to think ahead financially and to facilitate future projects which will benefit your thesis/dissertation research. Applying to conferences and attending conferences during break is another great use of time. Both of us in the Thesis/Dissertation Office will be headed to MLA over break. Prioritize whatever use of your time will benefit you the most. 

Reflect on the past semester: Though you may be happy to put the semester behind you and are looking forward to the semester ending, take time to reflect on how the semester went for you professionally, academically, and personally. What could you have done to be more successful as a graduate student? More importantly, what did you accomplish and what did you do that proved to be very successful? This is just as important in terms of preparing for the next semester as looking over the syllabus. Making time for family and friends over break is even more tough than it usually is during the semester, but it’s equally as important as preparing for the next semester, so be sure to prioritize. 

Co-Working for Knowledge Workers

by Robyn Byrd

I'm firmly lodged in my third "stall" phase of writing the dissertation. First I stalled on the proposal; then I passed the defense after 6 months of rescheduling. Next I stalled on Chapter 2; but I pushed through that (plus an introduction) this summer by going on a distant, week-long retreat. With four chapters and all revisions remaining after a full year of being ABD...I need a plan. One that doesn't involved driving 900 miles away from everything.

How can I recreate that distraction free, work-friendly environment I found so far away? I didn't hide in the woods to work like Thoreau or Nietzsche, even though I was bunking at a house in the idyllic Catskills. Every day I drove to the nearest tiny town to work at a bookstore with a coffee shop, where many locals sat at large tables with reading lamps, and worked on writing, telecommuting, or whatever they needed to do. It was THE THING to get me working. I am hoping I can recreate this atmosphere through local co-working.

There are a few options for co-working, depending on where you live and how much cash you can spare.

Co-Work Office Spaces:

It sounds funny to pay to work, but you can and should do just that if you can afford it. Co-working office spaces provide everything you need: wi-fi, coffee, water, desk space, printers, pens, and so on. All you need to bring is a laptop! Some of these spaces are more collegiate than others. People arrive at set times and keep each other accountable, and even have the water cooler banter you'd expect in the corporate world. Other spaces are more quiet and people keep to themselves.

25N Coworking in Geneva, IL
photo courtesy 25N Coworking

Personally I would like to find a collegiate space where I can report on my days off as if it's a second job. Because technically, it is my second job, and I'm slacking pretty hard at it.

Visit co-work spaces near you to check out the culture and environment before signing up. (I'm doing that this month.) This can start as low as about $100 per month, which is a pittance if it means your dissertation is getting written. (Note the passive voice there after my months of stalling... what I mean to say is you are writing your dissertation.) Many co-working spaces also offer higher cost plans that include perqs like assigned desks and lockers for your books.

The only caveat I anticipate about these spaces is that I might not fit in. Dissertation writing is a weird thing!

Public Library Work Spaces:

"Public" is the key word here. The public library is an excellent place to work that offers many of the conveniences and tools of the university library -- but it gets you away from the university! Working in THAT building, the school's library, can be just as distracting and psychologically disadvantageous as working from home. Changing it up by using a space that is still conducive to knowledge work, yet is less familiar and full of people doing different sorts of things, can help you work.

Treat it like an appointment! Some libraries have dedicated study rooms that you can reserve for a couple of hours at no cost. Make a date of reserving one on your thesis work days. You'll have access to everything you need, and you can even search for a library with a coffee shop attached or nearby. The only cost associated with this is the commute, and you'll have to bring everything with you every time.

I have used public libraries this way ever since I started grad school, because the university library had lost its draw for me by then. They are very comfortable and welcoming.

A public library's shared work space, Naperville, IL

Monthly Meet-Ups:

Meeting once a month may not sound like much, but scheduling and hosting a meet-up of busy people probably can't happen more often than that. Though, if you think about it -- meeting once a month for a few dedicated hours means tens of hours of writing over a year! You could use these to get through a chapter's worth of work, if not more.

Several of my colleagues host informal meet-ups in their homes or in seminar rooms on campus. They keep each other accountable and share an enormous task that they all understand (the latter, you can't get from a co-work space).

If you are a student or a local to NIU, this office hosts a monthly meet-up in the Founders Memorial Library called Write Place, Write Time, on the second Thursday of every month from 6-9pm. This group is ONLY for thesis and dissertation writers (or those writing proposals for such), so again, you are in good company if you attend. Having others working alongside you on the same kinds of tasks keeps you focused and activates that inner spectator who will tell you to "get back to work!"

The Magical Coffee Shop:

The indispensable coffee bar at Inquiring Minds Bookstore
(The bookstore that saved me! In Saugerties, NY)

It's a long-shot, but if you can find a coffee shop that tolerates working loiterers, isn't too loud, and has enough work space for you, you've found magic! Coffee shops were the first modern co-work spaces in the early 2000s when the dot-com bubble created thousands of telecommuters and office-less entrepreneurs. While that bubble has burst, many coffee shop owners still expect to see a good amount of labor happening at their tables. By my calculations though, I think it might be the same cost (and a surer thing) to rent a space at a co-working office. Those lattes are expensive, and loud people can ruin all your plans.

Good Luck!

If you are a person who has an awesome home-office situation that works for you, that is great. Or if you can work anywhere without feeling distracted, that's cool too! But for many of us, we need to remove ourselves from the dirty floors, dirty dishes, and hungry kids, or from the over-familiarity of the university office and library, in order to focus. I wish I could have brought that perfect bookstore home from the Catskills with me, but I couldn't. So I need to recreate a work space that uses the power of other people's work and the effects of a consistent but impersonal environment. I don't know how else to get things done. I hope you can find what works for your work too!

On Learning to Journal Your Dissertation Journey: From Chaos to Completion

I’ve never found a physical planner I like that was completely functional. One Drive calendars are helpful, and I do use it to set reminders and schedule meetings and social engagements. I have a blog and a journal which I keep up with sporadically. Then a friend of mine in the Audiology department showed me her bullet journal. It’s a combination of a journal, planner, and to-do list, which you can customize to fit your academic and personal preferences and needs. I was a little overwhelmed so I immediately, of course, researched the idea. Perfect Pinterest and Instagram pictures popped up everywhere and I thought, “Ain’t nobody got time for that. I’m a terrible drawer.” I was determined to figure it out and find a system of organization that worked for me. I first had to buy myself the essentials to get started. Grad students don’t have a ton of expendable cash and so I read about products that bullet journal enthusiasts loved and recommended.

My kit included stencils, a dot grid essentials notebook (dot matrix, not ruled), stencils, a 6” ruler, and Paper Mate ultra-fine markers. I began by making of list of dissertation ideas as a brainstorming exercise to help me narrow down a topic. I then moved on to a dissertation timeline with actual dates and a dissertation completion guideline with intended dates. I wrote an outline for my prospectus, notes on all three drafts of the prospectus from my committee, pre and post proposal defense notes, outlines for each dissertation chapter, notes on feedback for each chapter, a list of sources, key search terms, a list of possible journals to send my dissertation chapters to, blog journal entry ideas to share research, goals, quotes, reading list, monthly calendars, weekly calendars, library book return list, a monthly budget, and a list of grants and fellowships to apply to related to my research. 

Even more importantly though, a bullet journal can be used to remind you of self-care. I've got a self-care checklist, a list of my favorite movies and albums to listen to for inspiration during downtime, a gratitude list, a list of my favorite teas, a list of things I love about myself, and a list of positive feedback on my work. We all need these reminders when we feel like we're not getting enough work done quickly enough and well enough. 

It would be easy to create an excel or word document for each of these tasks, but there are several benefits to taking time each day to make entries into your bullet journal. You can easily visualize and track progress, vent about frustrations (personal or professional), hold yourself accountable, keep track of everything in one place, and most importantly foster creativity. When I sit down to write in my bullet journal it's a reflection upon the day and my work. It’s a much-needed break for some me time which gives me a sense of calm because I feel I have my act together and know what I’ve got to get done and where I’ve got to be each day. I enter information into my online calendar and journal too, but until I’ve written it down, I feel as though all my tasks and responsibilities are floating around in my head and it makes me anxious. Pictures and links to products below. I hope you all find this information encouraging and helpful!

- Tiffany 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B076PFG2W9/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Stencils

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073XZL7HY/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Stencils

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001GXHG2U/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Paper Mate Flair

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1441311335/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Essentials dot grid notebook small

https://www.amazon.com/Essentials-Matrix-Notebook-Bullet-Journal/dp/1441327754/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1541644679&sr=1-1&keywords=essentials+notebook+large

Essentials dot grid notebook large 

https://www.amazon.com/Leuchtturm-Hardcover-Medium-Dotted-Notebook/dp/B00HAPOME8/ref=sr_1_9?s=office-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1541645042&sr=1-9&keywords=dot+grid+notebook

Leuchtturm notebook small (different colors)

Markers do bleed through the page. 

The Alt-Ac Decision (for PhDs)

by Robyn Byrd

Whether you have fallen out of love with your specific field, or have simply realized you don't want to spend your life at a university (darn kids everywhere!), there may come a time when you consider the alt-ac path. That is, looking for a job outside of universities, and maybe even outside of research. This might seem frightening and even disappointing to even consider, after years of work and best laid plans for the future.

Yet in this economy, a job that is a lucrative alternative to an academic career (hence, alt-ac) may be a prudent plan. I myself have considered looking for alt-ac work, probably for a temporary bridge between the doctorate and a tenure-track teaching position. After a decade of low-wages and part-time work, I am ready for a "grown-up" salary! But then I have to consider... how could this break with university culture and work affect a future prospective tenure-track opportunity? Woe is me! This is hard.

First, some things to consider about alt-ac:

Is alt-ac your long term plan? Are you ready to get out for good? Motivated by pay? Go for it. Your track record of project-management, working with teams (your committee), and stick-tuitiveness (not to mention your intelligence) make you a great catch for the corporate world.

Is this a temporary bridge plan, because of the poor academic job market? Do your research. Do the types of universities you wish to court consider alt-ac work to be a lowly thing or a shirking of your nobler projects? Or do they understand, as a community college or state school might, that financial pressures put people to work at all sorts of things? Seek a job that gives you experiences that could leverage you back into a highly-sought research/teaching position. Or even aim for an administrative role that would not have been open to you as a "merely" academic Ph.D.

Do you want to leave the university, but hate the idea of the corporate world? Research options in non-profit work, consultancy, and government offices. Depending on your credentials, you could work for a state-run food bank, a local housing authority, a non-profit counseling and psychiatry firm, or even the U.S. Geological Survey (there's an office right up the road from DeKalb...). Some of these positions would not pay as well as the corporate world, but they would allow you to continue your research and problem-solving in impactful ways, perhaps even more impactful than the classroom.

Are you looking for a job the way a normal person would? This isn't the academic job market! Reformat your CV as a resume. Seek out workshops now on how to maximize your LinkedIn presence. LinkedIn employers frequently contact people like us for non-academic work.

These are just a few problems and questions that have been on my mind, and a few ideas for where scientists, teachers, psychologists, and all manner of doctorate holders could find work outside of the familiar, yet sometimes growth inhibiting, landscape of the college campus. Good luck in your search! The Ph.D. may narrow your opportunities in some ways, but the payoff is in the specific and rewarding opportunities it opens up.

Working 9-5

If you’re anything like me part of the reason you chose academia is to avoid the 9-5 grind. Academics generally seem to harbor a slight distaste for the corporate world. We certainly didn’t get into academia because we’re interested in making money. For this reason, unless you’re a graduate student in Business, you likely don’t approach your Thesis or Dissertation project like a CEO managing time, resources (human and material), and tasks. As a Liberal Arts student, I like to view my Dissertation as an artistic endeavor. I’m not a structured individual. I’ve always observed that academics have no sense of time. Time exists as a continuum or a social construct. However, waiting for the Muse to strike you with the inspiration you need to make timely progress toward your Thesis or Dissertation is not a strategy for success. Prior to this point in your academic career, your work has been structured for you by professors, who set due dates and class schedules via syllabi.

By the time you’ve reached the Thesis or Dissertation stage, you’re working independently with direction from your committee, but your chair will not be setting deadlines for you and e-mailing you for submission. You and your committee have outlined a tentative schedule for completion, which will change, but it’s your own responsibility to keep yourself on task as an emerging scholar. As you begin to structure your Thesis or Dissertation project, it’s likely you’ll feel uncertain about how to begin. You’ll experience uncertainty at every stage of the process and this is very beneficial personally, professionally and intellectually, but can also be overwhelming. Creating a schedule for yourself, structuring your time, will help to combat the confusion and give you a feeling of confidence, amidst the uncertainty. This will also allow you to manage tasks much more easily by setting yourself daily, weekly, and monthly goals. You’ll be forced to segment your work into manageable tasks and this will give you a feeling of accomplishment.

Measuring actual progress toward the ultimate end goal (graduation) becomes much easier. Setting hours for yourself ensures you are less susceptible to burnout and overwork and more likely to complete your Thesis or Dissertation and enjoy the process. Most importantly, a schedule is a contract you make with yourself, motivating you to continue. Motivation rather than inspiration leads to completion. Drafting a schedule is the initial step toward taking responsibility and ownership of your own work. Some days, you’ll sleep in too late. Some days you’ll have a doctor’s appointment. Some days your cat will sit on your keyboard and delete a chapter. Some days you’ll accidentally binge Parks and Rec for 10 hours. Some days you’ll fail and not get even 5 minutes of your allotted 4-8 hours of work done. Begin again the next day. Most days you’ll succeed.

- Tiffany 

Bibliographic Hygiene: Keeping Your References in Ship Shape

The last thing that is on your mind when you are drafting your thesis is probably your references pages. You know your sources, you might even know their authors by name. But when it comes to making that list of documents at the back of your paper, we need to make it with the idea that... someone else may have to find those documents someday!

APA, MLA, and various other disciplines have styles that help us point out the most relevant features of our sources. "Who wrote it?" is most important to the humanities.  "When was it written?" more important in the sciences.  But when we do our bibliographic work we still need to make decisions sometimes, about what to put where, and what information is really needed.

Your references should serve the reader – they should dish up every source in your document in an easily searchable format and contain all the information the reader may need to find the sources. In the 21st century this is probably a more complex process than ever. Even though we can Google up a storm, multi-media sources can be hard to track down. And despite our modern search engine powers, looking for obscure documents, dissertations from other countries, or a journal by the same name as another journal, can lead to bibliographic snarls!

Cases in point: Our office recently had to untangle a source snarl for a client’s references page. And I have dealt with this myself, trying to track down a master’s thesis I needed to read.

A student reached out to us because she had finished her anthropology thesis but was at a loss for how to cite some unpublished letters (to and from Edward Ayer, a major benefactor to the Field Museum and Newberry Library). She had found the papers unsorted in an archive. Literally found them in a box! She was a lucky researcher, because she had been looking for the letters based on a faulty citation. So, it was up to her to fix this paper trail. Carolyn recommended citing the letters under only Ayer’s name, even though he was not the author of all of them. Her reasoning:

Edward Ayer

 “It appeared to me that the correspondence was held in a single archive of Ayer correspondence and that what the reader needs is direction to the archive, not citation to individual pieces. The principle in my editing is to document with the clearest path of recoverability, so that everything on the reference list is accessible in a clear location, whether a book, journal, or website, or in this case an archive of correspondence.”

So, in this case, the other author’s names would not be of any help. The student needed to cite them under the name of the archive they were found in – the only way for another researcher to find them until they are published.

My own problem required a 21st century solution. I just simply couldn’t find the thesis I wanted to read, and it wouldn’t show up in ProQuest or anywhere else, not even at the university where it was written. What was I doing wrong? …The one source I had that referred to the thesis had mis-typed the title. It was a plain enough title, and the author’s name was a common enough name, that I was on a wild goose chase until I decided to chase a different bird – I took to Twitter!

I found the graduate's Twitter account based on his bio, apologized for the bother, and timidly asked in his mentions (so that others might see)… can you send me your thesis? He was happy to oblige. It took a while to dig it up, but getting another citation was worth it I suppose. Now I can cite it as an unpublished thesis, with the correct title, and hope that the next person who wants to read about Northumbrian dialects can easily find the little gem I’d tracked down.

Bibliography is partly about giving credit to the scholars whose research we couldn’t do our own research without. It is also about keeping track of when and where research was done, for that is relevant information in many disciplines. But none of that matters if we don’t give our readers the right bibliographic clues to find those same sources. We’re not just referencing our sources to cover our own butts or to show our research areas. We’re doing it so that research can continue in our fields, even when we’re not around to explain our sometimes cryptic sign-posts. Theses and dissertations are rarely the end-all-be-all on a topic. Let’s leave nicely legible markers along our paths so that others might follow, and even surpass the milestones we’ve made.

Presentations, Brown Bags, and Workshops, oh my!

Presentations, Brown Bags, and Workshops, oh my!  

            We here in the Thesis and Dissertation Office are very busy working on presentations and Brown Bag discussions for the month of October to help keep thesis writers and dissertators informed, on track, and motivated. On October 2^nd from 2-4 pm in Adams 103, we will be offering a Dissertation Essentials presentation that benefits all dissertators no matter what field. If you are enrolled in 799 next semester or are looking to enroll next semester, come get guidance on the most daunting aspects of the dissertation process. 

            October 3^rd same time, same place, we’ll be hosting the same presentation specifically for thesis writers enrolled or enrolling in 699. October 4^th from 6 – 8 pm in Founders Memorial Library, room 297, we’ll be discussing the submission process with ProQuest, the very last step before graduation. Then, on Oct. 6^th at the NIU Naperville campus room 166, from 9 am – 2pm we’ll be giving a seminar for those of you writing a dissertation in Education. There will be plenty of time for one-on-one inquiries as well. October 8^th from 2 – 4 pm in Adams Hall 103 we’ll explain formatting tables, figures and pagination. This can be tricky no matter how familiar you are with MS Word so make it easy on yourself by attending. October 17^th 12 pm – 1 pm Adams Hall 103, come and discuss issues with Writer’s Block and how to overcome it. If you experience anxiety staring at a blank MS Word document this is a must. There isn’t a thesis or dissertation writer who doesn’t experience this stumbling block so come get advice from peers and the experienced writers in the office on how to work through it and come out better on the other side.

Finally, for many of us the proposal, and just understanding how and where to begin, is the biggest obstacle to the thesis/dissertation journey. On Oct. 24 from 12 – 1 pm in Adams 103 come talk with us about putting a proposal together, from formatting to narrowing down a workable research topic. No matter how many papers you’ve written, the proposal is a unique genre and you probably have questions.

To register for any of these events, please send a request e-mail to thesis@niu.edu and include the name of the event in the subject line. For more information, visit the Thesis and Dissertation Office website at  https://www.niu.edu/grad/thesis/workshops-support.shtml.  

First-Generation Scholars at NIU

by Robyn Byrd

NIU is hosting a series of talks and events this September designed to welcome first-generation college students to the university. But these events are not just for undergrads -- all are welcome, and especially first-gen alumni, faculty, and staff.

I plan to attend because as a first-generation college student and subsequently a first-generation scholar (i.e. doctoral student), a path which comes with its own set of confusing and unique "firsts."

Events will be taking place in Founders Memorial Library:

Tues Sept 4, 4-6pm

Wed Sept 5, 11am-1pm

As a former teacher of freshman composition at NIU, I met students from varied economic backgrounds. The more privileged of those students, whose parents either have degrees or can easily pay for their children's degrees, don't have a lot of insight into how first-gen students live. Nor do some professors who teach first-gen students. At NIU, many teachers and programs try to acknowledge the troubles of these young people -- struggling to find time to do both school work and "work work," struggling to focus because this all makes them so tired, and perhaps even more tired because they haven't had a good meal in a week. (We even have an on-campus food pantry for this reason.) I understand these struggles particularly well, as I was a first-gen student myself; and years later, I'm still struggling to make ends meet while writing my dissertation.

The first-gen undergraduate student has been the subject of study and of university re-focus for a couple of decades now, and more of those students are now making their way into the academy. First-gen academics, on the other hand, are less common, and therefore less supported by university programs, counselors, and financial aid. Of course universities can train faculty to welcome fresh faced first-timers right out of high school! But what does a graduate professor do with a roomful of students of varied economic and educational backgrounds?

At the graduate level there is quite a bit of assumption on the part of those firmly lodged in the academy about what people already know. Our privileged peers have had much more time to read and travel, and they have had parents to show them what to read and where to go. Furthermore, there is almost no consideration on the part of faculty of whether grad students know how to walk the walk. Not intellectually speaking, but when it comes to scheduling, networking, obtaining data or materials, writing a proposal, and so on. These are skills acquired through trial by fire if you are a first-gen grad student. Your parents didn't know what you were doing as an undergrad. By now you might as well be working on astrophysics in an alien language. No one in your circle can help you, and most professors don't seem like the ones to ask. And as for troubles outside of coursework and writing, you had no idea what you were getting into when it comes to the
psychic and emotional weight of a grad degree.

This is why I'm excited about the First Generation events at NIU! In addition to the solidarity that we have already engendered among first-gen undergrads, I want to see that same solidarity at work among grad students, in faculty-student relationships, and so on. First-gen academics do have folks to turn to - other first-gen grads at the same campus. And while those mentors may be few and far between as of today, we will certainly see more and more of them in years to come.

Hello From Your New Blogger and Fellow Dissertator!

by Tiffany Messick

Tiffany at work

I’m a transplant from Austin, TX. This month I’m beginning my fifth year as a PhD student in the English Department. I put my committee together in February and recently defended my proposal at the end of June. I’m currently half way through a first draft of my first chapter. I’ve taught FYCOMP for four years and absolutely loved it but now I am here to help other dissertation writers make progress. I can answer big existential content questions but am also great with MS Word formatting. My concentration is 20th Century American Literature, specifically Southern authors (Walker Percy, Zora Neale Hurston, Carson McCullers, and Richard Wright). I like to complicate matters for myself by choosing topics which are interdisciplinary, which is how I landed on Cartesian dualism and the American South. I’m often in libraries or coffee shops dissertating.

Bowie at work

When I’m not twisting my brain into a pretzel, I love to watch classic movies like my favorite, A Streetcar Named Desire, and listen to music. I’m a bit of a rock music encyclopedia. Test me sometime! I have two wiener dogs, Vienna (Sausage) and Bowie, who are very cute and very spoiled. I also like to read (obviously) philosophy. Camus, Nietzsche, Sartre… are a few of my favorites. Eventually I hope to become a professor of literature at a university somewhere. I earned my Bachelor’s in English at the University of Texas. Hook ‘Em! For my MA I studied at Northwestern State University of Louisiana. I love to write and I’m sure my enthusiasm for writing will rub off on you to make the seemingly endless dissertation process easier. I’m addicted to watching history programs on PBS and National Geographic and true crime on Investigation Discovery.

The biggest struggle I’ve encountered writing the dissertation has been being away from my support group back in Texas. Graduate School, especially the dissertation process, can be very isolating. Come talk to me about any obstacles you might be facing and how to tackle them. 

My Dissertation Boot Camp Experience

by Robyn Byrd

For the past eight years, Gail Jacky, Director of the University Writing Center at NIU, has had a summertime mission: getting dissertation writers to finish their dissertations! In June, July, and August, Gail runs what she calls Dissertation Boot Camps. Writers hole up in the Writing Center's isolated basement, and do nothing but write and snack. (And maybe talk a little.) The program's alumni are proof that this "retreat" method of retiring from the world for a few days is a proven winner for getting dissertation work done.

You may be wondering, "Why can't I just lock myself in my own basement for a week?" Well I'll tell you why, curious reader! I did the Boot Camp lite version last week (2-day camp versus 5-day camp) and here are the perqs of doing this with Gail in the UWC:

1) Healthy snacks, water, and coffee/tea are provided. No getting up to make food or brew a pot.

2) You work alongside other dissertation writers who are similarly focused and unfocused. You will all need to hole up, but you will all also need to take breaks. You can do so together if you like.

Jack London writing outside.
Idyllic! But not practical.

3) You work alongside a mildly busy office team. The UWC continues to meet with students (mostly graduate and adult students in the summer) during the Boot Camp, the phone continues to ring, and Gail continues to stay busy. No one is breathing down your neck, but they are present, creating an environment conducive to working productively.

4) Assistance is all around you. Gail and her team are ready and willing to read parts of your dissertation with you, during the camp. You will get the same attention they give their appointments, and quality tutoring and critiques for your writing. They can work with writers at any stage, from "Is this a bad idea to put this chapter here?" to "I'm almost done please check my citations!"

5) Most importantly, no matter what the UWC has or doesn't have to offer, it has this: IT'S NOT YOUR HOUSE. We all need to get out of our own spaces at times, or we get stuck in a rut. This is a chance to jump start your writing in a new place, a place where you don't have to answer the phone or worry about the dishes in the sink (there aren't any).

So don't lock yourself in your basement just yet! And don't go sit on a mountain top. There aren't any good snacks there.

As for me, I did not get a ton done in those two days, but my colleagues clacked away merrily all day. If I went again, I could make a better go of it, I think. I was delving back into my diss after a summer hiatus. What I did take away was a renewed understanding of what the heck I was writing, an organized to-do list for the rest of the summer, and about four new pages of material. That's not a lot of writing, but the executive function work I was able to do by being out of my house will lay the path for a lot more writing. I can see where I'm going now! I needed to temporarily remove my kids and my dirty floors from the view to be able to see the big picture.

So I highly recommend the camps to anyone who can swing it, at any stage of writing the dissertation or even the prospectus. But there are a couple things I would change:

Actual photo of me
in the cold writing center

1) I would like to see more programming. We did have encouragement from Gail and the opportunity to sit with tutors, but I wanted to talk and interface a little more. Just enough to break up the writing for a few. The longer 5-day session might be better for really digging in and yet having these opportunities.

2) The UWC is COLD!!! If you are one who starts wearing flip-flops on March 21, you will be very happy. If you are like me, and wish you lived in balmy Palm Springs or the like, you will be very cold. For myself and the older woman I sat with, we got very sluggish in the afternoons as 12 floors of cooled air sank its way further down into the basement of Stevenson Tower B. The camp could use a better location... but the cave-like nature of where the UWC sits now is probably an asset too.

Next week I am leaving for a writing retreat in the Catskills Mountains. I hope it'll be warm!

Approaching the End

In composing your thesis or dissertation, you naturally move back and forth through all five phases of the writing process.  (For more on engaging each stage of that process, see this post from March 2017.)  In this entry, we revisit this theme but with an emphasis on the eventual product—your final monograph—and some tips and thoughts on one of its important components: the end.

The End First

No matter how many chapters it has, your thesis or dissertation is like any piece of writing in that it presents to the reader three broad parts: an introduction, a body, a conclusion.  In the Thesis Office, we generally suggest that you compose these parts in following order: chapters of the body first, conclusion next, introduction last.  Still, we acknowledge that during the long project you’ll likely need to veer slightly from this overall plan.  If you find yourself stuck on a certain chapter or part, you should move on to another that you can more actively and productively make progress on.  If you find yourself adequately ready to draft introductory material, so be it.

Yet consider the advantages of drafting your ending very early on—long before you start to tackle the introduction and even before you draft one or more chapters of the body.  Components of a successful final chapter include a brief summary of your key findings, a restatement of your conclusion(s), an assertion of your work’s significance, an acknowledgment of its shortcomings, and recommendations for related future research.  When you wrote your proposal, you likely envisioned how your project would address such concerns.  You may be able to draft a concluding chapter that tentatively covers them while—or shortly after—you complete necessary readings, lab experiments, interviews, field work, and/or data analysis.  Drafting an ending first can provide a firm foundation on which to build the rest of your document, particularly its beginning. 

The End in Reach…

As you head toward your finish line, keep in mind that, in the final analysis, no piece of writing is ever fully realized.  “Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see,” said poet Alexander Pope back in the 18th century, “Thinks what ne’er was, nor is, nor e’er shall be.”  Granted, in the Thesis Office, where we generally work with writers in the final stages of document preparation, we do stress the need to adhere to the Grad School’s guidelines for formatting a thesis or dissertation at NIU.  Your finished document must be consistent and accurate in terms of form.  But we certainly recognize that any piece of writing varies in presentation of content.  So should you.  Ways to express ideas in writing are infinite.  In finalizing your overall written statement, try not to let the best be the enemy of the good.

The Writer’s End

On a related note, consider the various meanings behind the end to a piece of writing.  More than just the happy moment when you can confidently type “The End,” it can refer to the purpose you bring to the overall task.  Pope, the poet mentioned above, had this meaning in mind in these further lines in his versified “An Essay on Criticism”:

          In ev’ry work regard the writer’s end,
          Since none can compass more than they intend;
          And if the means be just, the conduct true,
          Applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due.

Thoughts worth keeping on board as you realize—and approach—your writing’s end.

Incidentally, in another sense this post is this blog writer’s end.  My assistantship in the Thesis Office ends on July 31.  Another graduate assistant will take my place in August and work with Carolyn and Robyn.  Best of luck to all, at any and all stages of your projects!

Fred Stark
Doctoral Candidate in English

Graduate Students: University Assets, Underpaid Labor

by Robyn Byrd

On a recent Wikipedia journey, I ended up on the page defining graduate assistants. They got some of it right. But the page doesn't mention that many grad students are not exactly "assistants." We teach classes as the instructor of record, developing our own syllabus and lesson plans. We run labs by ourselves. We hold office jobs that keep the doors open. We are mandatory reporters, freshman advisors, and perform hundreds of other roles that carry the burden of a "real" job. Sure some of us spend a semester here and there "assisting," but many of us have regular duties that would fall under a full-time job description. 

The fact that people outside of academia continue to think of us as "little helpers" rather than workers and laborers, allows our low pay and lack of representation to persist.  

The real clincher on the Wiki definition? People also don't understand how little we're paid: "The stipend allows for the graduate student to focus on their studies instead of a full-time job, but pays a significant portion of the income of a full-time job." I laughed out loud at this. Perhaps if you go to Yale and are a member of Local 33. But such a tier of income is not accessible for most American graduate assistants, forcing us to work outside the university to make ends meet, compromising the studies the assistantship is supposed to fully support. At NIU, almost everyone I know who has a master's degree works as an adjunct (which is a whole other can of worms and exploited labor). This makes life extremely stressful, and puts studying extremely on the back burner.

What can we do to alleviate the suffering of grad students? It may be somewhat voluntary suffering, but for no other laborious job do we fault the workers for asking for more money, especially when they work for an enormous entity. What's different about our work? What's different about a university system with millions versus a corporation with millions?  Non-academics and administrators seem to perpetuate the myth that we don't do much but "assist" and that our lifestyle is easy. A chosen path of intellectual pursuit and austerity. But it doesn't have to be this way. We are academics. But we are also laborers.

There are ways to solve this imbalance!

A graduate nursing student conducts a patient exam

• Increase awareness and transparency about grad student labor, and improve the language we use to talk about it: First and foremost, any of the below suggestions will require a change in how administrators and tenured faculty talk about GAs, their work, and their pay, both to the public and to new recruits. For instance, perhaps "assitsantship" is an outdated word that does not accurately reflect the professional and valuable work that grad students contribute. Even "stipend" could use an update since we pay taxes on that as income!

UW's GA union marches

• Unionization: While some GAs at U.S. universities have managed to organize unions, faculty, admins, and former students I've talked to say it is quite difficult and discouraging. Yet grad students do not have the representation that many other university employees do, so how do we ask for what we need? How do we protest pay decreases, terrible work schedules, or a refusal to give us medical leave? We have to do this as individuals, each governed by a different handbook per the year we began our current program. It's quite a mess, and even if one of us can follow through with some kind of complaint or demand, we are all alone. No other university employee has to deal with this lack of security for such a long-term position. (But they make it not so long by giving out 9-month contracts, and not so important by not even lumping us in with employees.) Unionization would definitely benefit all GAs. Nearby universities with GA unions include UW Madison (which claims the first ever!) and UI-UC.

• University Reorganization: I fear the only way grad student unionization could become an accepted norm would be for universities to reorganize and reprioritize. If knowledge is the product of the university, then the teachers, including the rookies, must be treated well. The plights of the adjunct and the grad student (while university administration swells and football fields get built and re-built) show just how backward university priorities have become. I don't know what it would take for this to happen. Do you?

• Fewer GAs: Finally, one way to reduce the pressure on the university to provide a living wage to grad students, is to reduce the number of grad students. Since assistantships are usually awarded to only the most talented grad students, many others are paying full tuition and not receiving a stipend. If GAs were based more on enrollment than on growing a program, that would ensure that there is plenty of work to go round, and plenty of budget to cover it. While those doing the hiring would tell you they consider enrollment, I have seen cohorts come in with nothing to do, or having to snag jobs from more experienced GAs. Don't hire so many!

When it comes down to it, I don't have one good answer to our problems. But I know we are workers, not just assistants, and I know that we don't have to suffer the way we do just because people don't understand what it is we even do, or how little we actually get paid.

These views are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Thesis and Dissertation Office.