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!

Announcing: Dissertation Boot Camps

A post-traditional NIU student
*trying* to work from home

This summer, for the eighth year, the University Writing Center at NIU is offering its Dissertation Boot Camps!

These camps are retreat-style workshops, presentations, and writing sessions for those who are in progress (past prospectus defense) on a dissertation in any field. What is retreat-style? That means you the Writing Center facilitates full-day schedules (from two days to a whole week), giving you dedicated writing time with interruptions from home life and other work. We all know it can be impossible to write at home with kids, pets, and responsibilities distracting us. Or even if you write at work... there is always other work! Dissertation Boot Camp is a chance to get away from everything that's been keeping you from writing, and work on your dissertation surrounded by peers with the same lofty goal: a done dissertation.

Quiet writing time in the lab
or around campus

In addition to long blocks of dedicated writing time (approx. 5 hours per day), Gail Jacky, director of the UWC and veteran writing tutor, will lead sessions on tackling writer's block, how to relax, and other common problems. Writing coaches will be available to give formal consultations and feedback, and talks with your peers can be just as fruitful.

Intellectual isolation from our family and friends can be almost as frustrating as not being able to find time to work around family and friends... so being in a cohort of dissertation-writing peers can also potentially alleviate the stresses of compartmentalizing everyday life and feeling alone in our struggles. Even if just for a few short days.

Schedules for the programs depend on the length of the workshop: the cost of the 2-day camp is $100, and the cost of the week-long camp is $250. Some writers decide to go ALL IN and stay overnights at NIU! The Holmes Student Center offers affordable lodging on campus, if your really need to get away and focus your time on your work.

Workshops run throughout the summer. You can make this fit around your summer vacation or work responsibilities:

Writers can chat, cheerlead, or just comisserate!

2-day Bootcamps

June 13-14
July 17-18
August 1-2

Week-long Bootcamps

June 25-29
July 23-27


Learn more at the UWC website, and email Gail Jacky with any questions!

Writing Services Ahead: Proceed with Caution

“I’m thinking of hiring a writing service.”  Imagine hearing those words from a fellow grad student who’s highly stressed about their thesis or dissertation.  “Riding service?” you ask.  Then you quickly realize your colleague isn’t talking about Lyft or Uber.

Actually, the service in question is likely a person or business that offers—for a price—various types and levels of help with a writing project’s potentially stressful components: planning, revising, editing, proofreading, or formatting sections of the document.  But then there are shady services that even offer to “help” with the writing by employing ghost writers to compose texts for paying clients.  That’s taboo!  Submitting academic work as one’s own when that work was actually made (entirely or in parts) by someone else is unacceptable.  Words to the wise: if you’re thinking of paying for help with aspects of your writing project, beware of so-called writing services.  (But, in some cases, you might want to consider working with an editing service.)  If you wonder why we pass these words along, take a look through the comments sections at the ends of our blog posts.    

Writing Services Galore

We’re well aware that numerous paid writing firms exist because posts to this blog regularly attract brief comments with dubious hyperlinks to a wide range of such services.  Consider the murky details behind comments received over the past two months:

- On July 15, in response to our July 7 post about ProQuest blogs, a few bits of generic praise came our way from someone at an eerily sparse blog.  A hyperlink in the comment leads to the sketchy homepage of a UK-based company that entices the visitor to enter personal data and information about a writing project in order to receive an estimate on how much it will cost to have the firm do the work.  Not wanted!

- On July 5, in response to our June 16 post about services for international grad students at NIU, we received another short bromide, this time from someone whose “name” is a link to site featuring a disturbingly glowing review of an online firm that offers academic ghost writers for hire.  We’re not interested!

- On June 19, in response to our June 2 post about taking writing outside, someone sent nice feedback with direct references to topics we wrote about.  But then the letdown: the comment has no author’s name but is instead represented by a link to a website in Australia offering essays for sale.  We want nothing to do with such sites!

- Finally, on July 21, in response to our May 19 post about facing the fear of the blank page, we received a positive comment from someone appearing to represent another essay-writing service.  But this time, the attached link doesn’t lead to such a business but instead, oddly, to a 2015 article at The Huffington Post about the increase of undergraduate and graduate students paying to have papers written for them.  The article points to an alarming trend.

At Project Thesis NIU, we don’t endorse paid writing services.  When doing routine blog maintenance, we eventually delete comments with hyperlinks to such services.  In the past we’ve been inclined to let a comment with a suspect link stay as long as wording in the comment is remotely related to ideas we write about in a post.  But now, after digging deeper into the above recent comments, we plan to delete anything associated with a writing service.

Editing Services: Wheat from the Chaff

Aside from essay mills, many places offer student writers ethical and professional editorial assistance.  Fee-based editing services tend not to publicize through brief comments to our blog posts.  But they sometimes approach us.  Several months ago, for instance, our office received a promotional piece in the mail from Editors for Students, a Minneapolis firm that specializes in academic editing, proofreading, and formatting.  On their website, they mention that they have connections to academic institutions and are “committed to working within the legitimate boundaries of academic honesty.”  Perhaps worth a look, if you’re interested in paying someone to review a draft.  In addition, note that our office maintains a List of Freelance Formatters and Editors who work in the DeKalb area and who are equipped to assist thesis and dissertation writers with NIU Graduate School guidelines.  We can confidently refer these local freelancers to writers whose documents may need extensive help with matters of grammar and punctuation in addition to things like formatting of tables, figures, page numbers, citations, or end references.

Free NIU Services

Also remember that NIU student writers can get constructive help with no extra fees attached.  The University Writing Center is a free consultation service for students at all levels.  We’ve heard that most of their clients in recent years have been grad students.  Finally, come see us in the Thesis and Dissertation Office!  We provide free editorial assistance and expert help on formatting your important document.  We’ll be happy to hear from you.

Images Source: Wikimedia Commons

Engaging with the Writing Process

Over the past few weeks, several advanced grad students have contacted us in the Thesis Office to check on requirements and deadlines they need to meet now that they’ve passed exams and are moving on to the thesis or dissertation.  Congratulations to all who’ve reached that point!  Heading toward completion naturally entails reengagements with the writing process, a process that involves five stages: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and proofreading.  Each stage deals with important but discrete sets of activities, and it’s worthwhile reviewing them.  Noting how writers move back and forth between the stages can help you set goals and prioritize tasks as you work on the different parts of your project.

Stages of the Writing Process

Prewriting:  Many activities before (and even after) you sit down with pen and paper or face keyboard and screen are parts of prewriting.  Prewriting is likely one of the longest stages of a thesis or dissertation project.  Ideas for your project likely begin to form as you take courses, complete other program requirements, and prepare for your qualifying exam(s).  For some writers, ideas have been forming over a period of many years.  As you turn to the writing project itself, prewriting involves focused idea-generating activities like listing, clustering, freewriting, and outlining.  

Drafting:  Composing with a plan.  The word plan distinguishes drafting from activities that belong to the stage before or after it.  When you’re producing text from a plan based on outlines, notes, or texts you generated while prewriting, you’re drafting.  If instead you’re staring at a blank page and don’t quite know how to move forward, you’re still in the prior stage and need to engage in prewriting activities until you can form a plan for your draft.  On the other hand, if you’ve drafted a considerable amount of planned text and feel it’s time to make changes to it, you’re progressing to the next stage.

Revising:  Literally, looking back at an accomplished draft.  But more than just looking back, revising involves rethinking and changing the “big picture” of what you’ve drafted: reorganizing sentences or paragraphs, deleting passages, or adding new content.

Editing:  Making changes to textual details.  The phrase textual details anchors the answer to the question “What’s the difference between revising and editing?”  But in truth, revising and editing often overlap.  The nature of the changes you’re making helps distinguish the two stages.  If you’re reordering sections of a draft, adding substantial amounts of text to it, or cutting out large portions, you’re still involved in revising.  If instead you’re more concerned with word choices or word forms, fact checking, and confirming that your in-text citations match your end references, you’re editing.
 
Proofreading:  The final stage.  Proof is a publishing term for a nearly-finished piece that needs final checking before going to the printer and out for public viewing.  Final checking involves careful, methodical, line-by-line reading and correcting of textual mistakes to ensure accurate punctuation, spelling, and formatting throughout the document.

Embrace Each Stage: Advice for All Seasons

As you progress through your project, a sound piece of broad advice to take on board: embrace each stage of the writing process in nearly equal measure.  Prewriting is needed to get you started in the right direction, and drafting is essential.  But revising, editing, and proofreading are also vital to a successful finished product and deserve plenty of attention and care.  If you seek help or guidance during any of these stages, but particularly with prewriting and drafting, remember that the University Writing Center is a fantastic resource.  If you have questions or concerns with revising, editing, or proofreading, be sure to contact us here in the Thesis Office.

Good luck in all stages, happy spring break, happy writing!     

Demystifying the UWC's "Dissertate in Eight" Program

As you know, Project Thesis NIU aims to keep you informed of updated and valuable information relating to all aspects of theses and dissertations. You may also know that we occasionally invite guest bloggers to contribute to Project Thesis on topics relevant to graduate students today. 

So today, we are happy to present you with a guest blog written by Gail Jacky, director of NIU’s University Writing Center. Please read her post below about a great summer opportunity, “Dissertate in Eight,” the UWC’s “Boot Camp” for Thesis and Dissertation Writers.

Pick a topic, write a proposal, defend the proposal, conduct the research, write up the findings, discuss the findings, defend the dissertation/thesis, format the dissertation/thesis, submit the dissertation/thesis to the Graduate School, and glide/stomp across the stage for hooding. How challenging can that be??????? Well, just as Dorothy and her friends ventured off to the Emerald City with trepidation, “Lions and tigers and bears – Oh My!,” the journey toward completion of a dissertation/thesis can also be fraught with unknowns and, yes, sometimes even a little fear.

Stevenson Towers B is Shown at Left

If you are seeking a way to demystify – okay, some would say “survive” – that process, please join the staff of the University Writing Center (UWC - Stevenson Towers B) for the 7th annual Dissertate in Eight boot camp June 15 to August 3, 2016. 

From 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. each Wednesday afternoon, speakers present some facet of the dissertation/thesis process per the following schedule:

• Navigating the dissertation/thesis journey (6/15)
• Determining what a dissertation/thesis looks like (6/22)
• Understanding conflict resolution/negotiation strategies (6/29)
• Employing graphics in your document (7/06)
• Employing quantitative and/or qualitative methodologies (7/13)
• Incorporating sources and maintaining your voice (7/20)
• Meeting the Graduate School reader (7/27)
• Preparing for the defense (8/3)

The discussions are conducted by the UWC staff and/or individuals who have completed their dissertations within the past academic year. The premise being – they made it, so can you!

Participants generally also take advantage of the rest of Wednesday afternoon, and sometimes the mornings as well, by working independently, connecting with the other participants, or scheduling sessions with the UWC writing coaches to discuss their ideas, organization, coding, etc. – you choose the focus, we provide the support.

Participants also often seek feedback on their writing and/or help finding sources. The UWC coaches love working with writers and are great sounding boards and resources. Many of this summer’s coaches are currently writing their own dissertations, so they can definitely support, and probably commiserate with, you.

Registration is required, and because of the size of the room the number of participants is limited to 30. The registration link is found on the UWC website . Applications are due by June 1. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me at gjacky@niu.edu or 815-753-6336. I am the person behind the curtain, and I am ready to help you!

If you cannot attend the boot camp, you are always welcome to use the UWC services at other times: summer hours are M-Th, 9 to 4:30.