Summer Programs at the Thesis Office

This Summer at the Thesis Office we are offering several of our perennial programs to help you complete your thesis or dissertation.  Some of these were not offered in the Spring session, so here is your chance to check them out! In addition, some programs we offer are now online or hybrid online/in-person formats to make them accessible to all. If you would like to attend any of these workshops, please register here.

Create and Nurture a Productive Thesis/Dissertation Committee
Tuesday, June 4, 4PM

In this online presentation and Q&A, learn methods for creating a functional committee and making work with your committee count. Hear about best practices for common committee blunders and difficulties. Participation and sharing is encouraged!


Demystifying the Thesis/Dissertation Submission Process
Monday, June 10, 4PM

In this online presentation, Thesis Office advisor Carolyn Law will explain the ins and outs of submitting your completed thesis or dissertation. NIU has strict requirements for the "final product," and those requirements can keep you editing even after you've defended! Know what to expect and how to prepare for the final step of the process.


Tables/Figures/Pagination for Theses and Dissertations
Tuesday, June 11, 2PM

If your thesis or dissertation includes tables or figures, this is definitely the workshop for you. And if it doesn't include them, this might be the workshop for you anyway! One of our most common complaints from students is about page numbers, which can be a huge bugbear if your document is not set up properly. Come get it all straightened out in this workshop -- bring your laptop and be prepared to do some good work. This is an in-person event with ample time for workshopping, in Adams Hall room 103.


Writing Your Thesis/Dissertation Proposal
Tuesday, June 18, 4PM

This hybrid workshop will be an in-person presentation and discussion that is Facebook Live fed to our Facebook group. This interactive workshop will address typical characteristics of a successful thesis or dissertation proposal as well as offer practical strategies for organizing the key elements. Breakout sessions will allow for generous time for questions and small-group discussion. Bring your laptop and specific questions to maximize the workshop’s effectiveness!

Last year we had more attendees than ever at these events. Please keep taking advantage of them! We're here to help.

Register for any of these events at The Graduate School's workshop calendar.

It's in the Guidelines, Part 2: "Use them, or you'll do it wrong."

by Robyn Byrd

In last month's "It's in the Guidelines," Tiffany explained how to access our many resources on the Thesis Office website. Knowing where to look up formatting help will save you a lot of time. Now, I want to add to her post in order to stress the importance of actually using these guidelines. That is, the guidelines not just there for you to look at them if you feel like it. They're there because you NEED to look at them. In the words of one of our Thesis Office mottos, "If you don't use the guidelines, you'll do it wrong."

For instance, you'll start off on the wrong foot from the get-go if you don't look at the abstract and title page templates. How in the world would you figure these things out by guessing? You wouldn't!

All successfully defended and submitted theses go through a revision process with this office. Why? To fix the formatting...which is explained in the guidelines. (I apologize if this is giving you flashback to "IT'S IN THE SYLLABUS"). Many students are surprised by how much more work they need to do. When they think they are completely done because they had a great dissertation defense, and then find out they have to make scores of corrections, it's kind of a buzzkill. If you've submitted your defended document on time, you will still graduate! But, the better that document looks at the time of submission, the more headache you'll save yourself. You should be planning a graduation party or looking for a job, not tweaking margins and re-labeling tables and setting fire to your laptop.

For another example, see the figure below. Figures and tables are labeled differently. Figures have the number and title below, while tables have them above. There are also different conventions for naming each, and their placement within the document. Did you think about that before? Some published students already know about such conventions, but many others do not. 

There is a reason that some journals look great and consistent from cover to cover. An editor followed exacting guidelines to get it that way. The Thesis Office has exacting guidelines so that NIU sends documents out into the world that represent the high quality of the graduate scholarship done here. We want you to look great, because you are great!

more guidelines...

Finally, the most common problem students come to visit us about is their page numbers. Unless you have published a book, you probably haven't had to wrangle page numbers a lot. We have a very informative video on how to do it, and the simple logic of it can save you hours. Check it out!

After seeing students' worst problems over the years, we know what needs to be clarified. Use the list of guidelines and the red-marked templates on our site, and you won't need to see so much red ink on your own document. Thanks for reading -- now go read the guidelines! 

Thesis: https://www.niu.edu/grad/thesis/pdf/ETD-Guidelines-Thesis.pdf

Dissertation: https://www.niu.edu/grad/thesis/pdf/ETD-Guidelines-Dissertation.pdf

Templates and Examples: https://www.niu.edu/grad/thesis/templates-examples.shtml

Video Tutorials: https://www.niu.edu/grad/thesis/video-tutorials.shtml

Interview with a Freelance Editor

Producing a thesis or dissertation is one thing.  But then after the writing’s done comes the crucial final phase of combining, editing, and proofreading front matter, chapters, tables, references, indexes, and such so that the whole document meets the Graduate School’s formatting requirements—no small chore.  As you head toward (or envision) that final lap, perhaps you’ve considered getting help from an editor.  Here in the Thesis Office we maintain a list of freelance editors who are familiar with NIU’s document formatting rules and offer various editing, formatting, and transcribing services for a fee.  These experts see a lot of research-based writing and can thus share plenty of useful insights on the process of getting your big document in proper shape.   

In this post, we offer some words of reflection, wisdom, and advice from one of the veterans among this group.  She recently visited our office and sat down to share her experiences working with thesis and dissertation writers at NIU.  Our interview covered a range of topics, including her early years of editing (back when clients came to her with printouts and/or files on 3 1/2-inch floppy disks), changes in her work methods over the past decade as documents became almost completely electronic, and the various fields in which her clients have written their papers.  Below is a summary of a few other matters we discussed.     

Red Marks, Red Shoes

It was near the end of the last century when friends and colleagues in DeKalb encouraged Susan Richter, an English literature major, to offer her editing services to thesis and dissertation writers at NIU.  Carolyn Law, our Thesis Office director, told her the work would be “fun.”  Has that prediction turned out to be true?  Overall, Susan’s answers add up to a firm yes.  

“I’m really a bean counter at heart,” she offered at the start of our interview, in reference to the intricacies of arranging and formatting a document in order to avoid a final editor’s red marks.  “Putting everything in the proper order, checking references to make sure they have the volume, issue, and page numbers, making sure everything is following the rules: I enjoy that.”  Though she sometimes finds the content of a thesis or dissertation to be intriguing, Susan insists that what the paper is about is less important to her than the editing of it.  “When people ask me what I do, I tell them, ‘I read but I don’t pay attention.’”  She mentioned that she remembers a few topics from documents she’s edited over the years—teaching methods, management approaches, and engineering solutions come to mind—but doesn’t recall much detail.  She said: “I don’t try to retain any of it because unless it’s something that really interests me, it doesn’t get to stay in my short-term memory.”  In emphasizing her enthusiasm for editing, she also offered a few words worth passing on to writers who may be reaching that final submission stage: “I enjoy making things look the way they’re supposed to look and follow the rules.  If that’s not something you enjoy, you’re going to have problems.  You’re going to have lots of red from Carolyn.” 




Memories about a document’s content may not linger, but anecdotes from her experiences working with grad students readily come to mind.  For example, years ago she would often meet new clients in person.  “It was interesting with the international students,” Susan recalls.  “I would usually meet them over at the student center.  And the first couple of times I said, ‘I’m a white female,’ you know, ‘I’m…’—whatever my age was at the time.  They thought I looked young.  I didn’t look as old as they thought I should.  So I started wearing red shoes.  I would say, ‘I’m 5’3” and have dark hair and will have on red shoes.’”  Thus, students looking for their editor in a crowd would scan below people’s knees, searching for foot coverings matching the color of an editor’s pen.  And does she still have those shoes?  “I do, just in case!”

Words of Experience 

Susan also shared insider views on what writers who seek a freelance editor’s assistance can get right or get wrong.  Highlights worth noting:

• Determine the particular editing or formatting problems you need help with.  Susan likes it when clients are “honest about what they have” up front.
• Give your editor ample lead time before deadlines.  “Most clients contact me ahead of time and seem to be working through the process like responsible adults,” she said.
• Remember that your editor feels deadline pressure, too.  As Susan puts it: “If clients say they’ll send something to me Monday morning and they don’t send it to me until Wednesday night, then a Friday deadline is going to be a little hard to meet.”
• Check your in-text citations and references extra carefully for accuracy and completeness.  Susan reports that they’re never correct.  She says, “People will say, ‘Oh, no, I used a program.  It’ll be fine.’  They will not be fine.  That has never happened.  Twenty years—never.”  Susan will often assist a client by adding missing information in citations and/or references, but she notes that the writer is ultimately responsible for these things.

Sympathy and Advice

Over the years, Susan has also developed a great deal of sympathy for soon-to-be-finished students at this stressful stage in their careers.  “When people would come over to the house to pick up their three copies and their original, or just their original if they needed it, I kept Kleenex by the door.”  Why Kleenex?  “Because they would just burst into tears—men and women—when I would give their finished document to them.  It was done, and it was delivered, and they would be talking and normal and then just start crying.  And so I know it’s a stressful time.  What I hope is that I can relieve some of that stress.”

Near the end of our talk, we asked if she has any words of advice on how to accomplish the thesis or dissertation wisely.  Her answer provides food for thought for writers of all stripes, not just those who may be thinking of sending their document to an editor for hire:  “Focus on the project and the writing.  Nobody can do everything equally well.  The actual formatting, the mechanical part that I work on, has pretty limited value.  Don’t let that end part be a bad memory or a problem.  Make your research worthwhile for somebody to look up and quote.  That’s the whole purpose—to contribute to the body of knowledge.  Do that.  And if editing and formatting has you overly stressed, consider hiring somebody else to make your document look pretty.”  

Video Tutorials Are Here!

You'll find a new page at our Thesis and Dissertation Office website: Video Tutorials!  Robyn and Fred spent the summer designing step-by-step guides to some of the most frequently used Microsoft Word tools for theses. Here, you'll find videos on:

• Page Numbering: Proper pagination (creating page numbers and hiding page numbers) in your document

• Leader Dots: Creating rows of leader dots (......) to build a professional-looking Table of Contents and other tables

• COMING SOON, Landscape Pages: Working with landscape pages to accommodate your tables and figures

Don't get as frustrated as Fred! Watch our videos!

We use on-screen help plus live video of real people (us!) to guide you through every step of these processes. Watch the videos at full speed, slow them down, or watch as many times as you need to in order to learn the processes. Also, we have carefully captioned each one so you can watch without sound. We chose the videos we made based on what we've seen come through the office -- page numbers out of control, margins obliterated by big tables, and Tables of Contents with MS Word weirdness everywhere. When we see these problems, we sometimes have to tell a student the last thing he wants to hear: "We need to start from scratch." With these videos, we're trying to nip bad formatting in the bud. 

Fred's award for his blockbuster,
"Page Numbering"

We try to have a sense of humor to help lighten up what can be a boring and lengthy process. We don't love formatting either, but we'll help you learn to like it just a little better!  As one of our recent graduates said after spending weeks formatting his dissertation, "I should get a degree just for that!"

So before you throw the laptop out the window, avail yourself of these new videos. And if that doesn't work... come see us! We'll be glad to help in person, too. (No autographs, please.)

Thesis Office Outreach: Presentations, Workshops, Brown Bags

Two weeks into February, and here at the Thesis Office we’re ready to deliver our spring presentations, workshops, and brown bag sessions for writers at any stage of the thesis or dissertation process.  Below we give a rundown of what’s on offer over the next several weeks.  We look forward to seeing you!

Basic Info
Our programs are free.  Brown bags meet Wednesdays from 12 to 1 p.m. in Adams Hall, Room 103.  Workshops and most presentations will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. in the same location on Tuesdays or Thursdays, but note that two presentations (Writing a Dissertation in Education and Demystifying the Submission Process) will take place on different days and at different times and locations—see below. 

Registration
No registration required for brown bags.  Registration is required for a presentation or workshop.  Register via email at thesis@niu.edu.  Include the name of the presentation or workshop you want to attend in the subject line or message.  We do have space limitations.  Register early! 

What to Expect
Plenty of important information.  Many who experience these events walk away a bit surprised at the intricacies behind things like meeting various deadlines, submitting the proper paperwork to the proper place, or formatting the long document.  Expect thorough coverage of common concerns as well as ample time to address individual questions.   

Presentations

Thesis Essentials
Tuesday, February 21 (2 to 4 p.m. in Adams Hall, Room 103)
Designed for all master’s students enrolled in 699 in any department.  Staff will walk students through the Graduate School’s specific requirements for theses and cover a wide range of the most troublesome issues thesis writers frequently encounter.
  
Dissertation Essentials
Wednesday, February 22 (2 to 4 p.m. in Adams Hall, Room 103)
Designed for all doctoral students enrolled in 799 in any department.  Staff will walk students through the Graduate School’s specific requirements for dissertations and cover a wide range of the most troublesome issues dissertation writers frequently encounter.

Writing a Thesis in Engineering
Thursday, February 23 (2 to 4 p.m. in Adams Hall, Room 103)
Designed specifically for thesis writers enrolled in thesis-credit hours in the College of Engineering and Engineering Technology.  Staff will walk students through the Graduate School’s specific requirements for theses and cover a range of issues that students in engineering fields often find troublesome.

Writing a Dissertation in Education
Saturday, February 25 (9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at NIU Naperville, Room 162)
This one-day program is designed specifically for dissertation writers enrolled in 799 in the College of Education.  Staff will walk students through the Graduate School’s specific requirements for dissertations and cover a wide range of the most troublesome issues dissertation writers in Education frequently encounter.

Demystifying the Submission Process
Wednesday, March 8 (5 to 7 p.m. in Wirtz Hall, Room 104)
This presentation is for graduate students preparing to submit a thesis or dissertation to the Graduate School for May 2017 graduation.  Carolyn Law, Thesis/Dissertation Advisor, will walk students through the steps of the process: defense, electronic submission, and final approval.

Workshops
ASME Documentation
Tuesday, February 28 (2 to 4 p.m. in Adams Hall, Room 103)
This hand-on workshop will teach the documentation style of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, known as ASME journal style.  Using real-word examples, students will apply the principles in real time to their own writing.  ASME journal style is ideal for research documentation in all departments of the College of Engineering and Engineering Technology.

Problems in Theses/Dissertations: Tables/Figures/Pagination
Wednesday, March 1 (2 to 4 p.m. in Adams Hall, Room 103)
This hands-on workshop is designed to help writers comply with the Graduate School’s requirements for tables, figures, and pagination.  Students should bring their work in progress on their own laptops.  Staff will cover the specific format requirements, demonstrate helpful techniques and short-cuts in Microsoft Word, and allow generous time for individual troubleshooting and one-on-one consultation.

Brown Bag Sessions 
Committee Relations
Wednesday, February 15 (12 to 1 p.m. in Adams Hall, Room 103)
Informal discussion on choosing committee members, creating productive working relationships with them, maintaining good communications, and managing feedback throughout the process.  Graduate School policies regarding committees will be reviewed.  Faculty and students welcome.

Breaking Through Writer's Block (and Other Obstacles)
Wednesday, February 22
(12 to 1 p.m. in Adams Hall, Room 103)
Informal discussion on common obstacles that slow or entirely halt progress on one’s thesis or dissertation.  Carolyn Law, Thesis/Dissertation Advisor, will facilitate the discussion and offer practical strategies.  Students only, please.

The Balancing Act: A Life in Grad School
Wednesday, March 1
(12 to 1 p.m. in Adams Hall, Room 103)
Informal discussion on the complexities of managing life as a graduate student, balancing family responsibilities, personal health, outside work, and the pressures of a dissertation or thesis.  Session will be facilitated by Thesis Office GA Robyn Byrd, doctoral candidate and mother of two.  Students only, please.

The Thesis and the Dissertation: Peas in a Pod

We call the document for the master’s degree a “thesis,” and the longer one for the doctorate a “dissertation,” and perhaps you wonder why.

Well, many thoughts on the nature of theses and dissertations have been buzzing through our office lately. Over the past four weeks, we held our fall slate of presentations, workshops, and brown-bag sessions for students working on one or the other kind of document. Several of our programs cover important details behind the Graduate School’s document-formatting requirements. When we look through these requirements closely, it becomes clear that they’re nearly identical for either a thesis or dissertation.

So, then, if the format looks nearly identical, what distinguishes the thesis from the dissertation? A glance at the histories of the two words makes for an interesting way to highlight some differences and similarities between these two important writing projects.

"How do I put it?"

Thesis writers, do you sometimes find yourself wondering how to put your ideas in writing while working on your project? If so, you're not only human (nearly all writers, at some point, wrestle with how to put thoughts on paper or screen) but also hinting at some of the history behind the word "thesis." Like many terms in academia, the words “thesis” and “dissertation” come to us from Greek through Latin. "Thesis" originally derives from the Indo-European root *dhe-, which had the meaning of ‘to set’ or ‘to put.’ The root later formed the central element in the Greek verb tithenai, meaning ‘to place, put, or set,’ as well as the noun thesis. In Latin, thesis referred to the unstressed and later the stressed syllables in a line of poetry. (Stress for thesis writers today is usually of a different nature!) In the English of the late 1500s, “thesis” began to refer to a statement to be proved through logic—in other words, a thesis statement. By the next century, the word’s meaning broadened to include what we in the twenty-first century think of when we speak of a master’s thesis--the formal document presented for the master’s degree.

Scholars at a lecture. Engraving by William Hogarth, 1736

"Contrary to what others have said, I argue that…"

Dissertators, when you explain your project, do you sometimes linger around that point where you need to arrange your thoughts to emphasize how your work stands apart from previous scholarship? Such efforts invoke something of the original spirit of the word "dissertation." It's rooted in the Latin verbs dissertare ‘to debate, argue, examine, harangue’ and disserere, a combination of dis- ‘apart’ and serere ‘to arrange.’ The etymology zeroes in on the general task doctoral candidates must carry out today: arrange an argument based on original evidence as well as on an examination of the surrounding scholarly debate, write it out clearly and convincingly at length, share it with the world, and live to tell about it. (Long sentence, longer ordeal!) The word began to refer to such a thing in the 1650s, around the same time "thesis" began to refer to a similar piece. According to the OED, the meaning of "dissertation" began to be restricted to the monograph produced for the doctorate in the 1930s.

Peas in a Pod

Thus, once established in academic circles, the terms "thesis" and "dissertation,” along with the documents they refer to, grew up alongside each other. No wonder, then, that their format requirements overlap and that we sometimes speak of these two types of documents in the same breath. But in addition to the etymological and historical hints at what these documents do, universities usually separate the two by degree and kind. The thesis is shorter and is a kind of knowledge display. The dissertation is longer and is a kind of original research and significant new contribution to a field.

Of course, the Graduate School also offers clear and succinct definitions for a thesis and a dissertation. Check them early and often. And you can always turn to us if you seek further information or guidance. We’re happy to help!

In case you missed one of our fall programs, note that we’ll be offering presentations, workshops, and brown bags once again at the start of the spring semester. In the meantime, we’re available through email, phone, or walk-in. And remember that our writing group for thesis and dissertation writers, Write Place/Write Time, meets on the second Thursday of every month from 6 to 9 p.m. in Founders Memorial Library (4th Floor East). Look for us there this coming Thursday, October 13. Happy writing!   

Source for the above images: Wikimedia Commons.

Proper Document Formatting: Your Readers Want It!

Since our undergrad years we have been told to use seemingly arbitrary formatting conventions for many of the academic assignments we've turned in.  There are lab report formats, literature review formats, citation styles such as APA, MLA, and a hundred others. As an English student, I learned MLA, scoffed at what I thought was APA's fixation on dates and enshrining of other people's research, and never looked back.

But now that I teach writing, and sometimes research writing, I've had to learn how format and style is dependent on discipline.  My students use what suits them. APA makes much more sense for many of the sciences.  I, a literature student, could write many pages on a hundred year old piece of scholarship, as long as I knew what else has been said about it in 2016.  But a science student or psych student has no use for moldy old papers, beyond understanding the history of their discipline. Dates matter, and I'm glad we don't take medicine produced with ancient methods or visit hospitals built upon century-old research!  (APA helps make sure of it.)  Just as I'm glad that engineers even have their own way of documenting things (ASME, and others) that respects the research of others, so that when someone uses their findings, our bridges stay up and our cars drive straight. (I'm showing my humanities understanding of how things work now, haha!)  So, there really are reasons for these things.

But even though I know about the plenitude of research styles and the uses for them now, I see even more clearly that all the formatting of these styles, on the page, is definitely arbitrary.

So why the heck do we format?  

What's the point? I'll tell you. Because it is a convention that is absolutely necessary to keep your reader from pulling their hair out and losing their eyesight!  (Especially now that you are writing a hundred or even hundreds of pages for someone else's review). Students, especially my freshman writers, sometimes balk at this arbitrariness. But I kind of revel in it.  (After all, even language itself is arbitrary. And so are apostrophes.). Arbitrary strictness, when it comes to documents, is far and wide preferable to willy-nilly personal formatting quirks (at best), or incoherent methods of document organization that impede meaning (at worst).

Here at the Thesis Office, we understand that many quirks about your document have to do with whether you are a biologist, or an art therapist, or a computer scientist, or a linguist, or... you get the idea. We see the marks of your discipline on the page, and we can even help you make sure you are making those marks correctly (citations, references, tables, etc.) before your committee even sees the thing.  Please, come see us!  But in addition to those formatting requirements handed down from your discipline gods, the Thesis gods have a few more.  And this is where you might really need our help.  Again, you're asking EGADS! WHY?  Because someone has to read your paper, that's why. And hopefully for your sake, many someones will read your paper. Format, and every other kind of orthography, that is, the way things look on a page, is about making yourself easy to read. Your document will go into a repository with thousands of other documents, and if it looks different, it will look funny.  And it may even look confusing. The reader has to know: Where do I find the list of tables? How is the front matter arranged and numbered? What corner are the page numbers in? What level of heading am I reading, like is this an important section or a sub-thought?  Can I put this in a binder and be sure the holes aren't going to punch right through the data sets? Etc. Standardized formatting means readers know what they're getting, and can use it easily.  Nothing we ask you to do will compromise the goals of the formatting of your discipline. But it might drive you crazy anyway.  Seriously, come see us.

A reader's experience

I have a first grader, and I commend the teacher who can read thirty little papers in thirty handwriting styles and in thirty invented spelling styles, all written in everyone's favorite crayon color. I salute you! As a teacher of philosophy and freshman English, I don't have it so bad. But I see so many papers. A few hundred every term.

While it is certainly nice to have everything typed on white paper, I also ask my students to use certain formatting, and invariably they don't take it very seriously until about mid-term.  I get papers in the default Microsoft Word font, I get papers in fonts that look very much like Times New Roman but are not Times New Roman ("TNR 12pt!" I write, in screaming teacher commentary at the top of their paper, right next to "TITLE!" because for some strange reason they don't title their work...)  I read the piles of papers, and the idiosyncrasies drive me mad. The font called Cambria makes me want to scream. OMG CAMBRIA UGH! The attempted use of 2.25 spacing to pad their papers (instead of a double-space) just makes me laugh. 1.5" margins make me put my head down on the table and take a break.  While some of these things are because of students trying to trick me (I know grad students don't do that!), some are them are out of pure carelessness.  They are not bucking against convention. They are being undisciplined and causing problems for their reader.  The students with the best grades?  The ones with good formatting.  Not because I grade them on their perfect margins!  But because they are people who pay attention to detail, and that comes out in both the content of their papers and in the presentation.  While the Thesis office won't have much to say about your content, your committee will. The presentation of it is important.

So when Carolyn at the Thesis Office finally reads your work, we don't want to hear her head thud to the table in the next room, or hear her scream "AAAACK 1.5 inch MARGINSSS!" from down the hall. We'll all want to know who did it.

You have worked so hard on this thesis.  Do it an honor and do your future readers the honor of formatting it like a pro!  Because once you pass this last "test," you are a pro.  Conventions are annoying, they take up time and brain-space, and no one can tell us exactly why they are the way they are.  But they are still important, just as important as the conventions of using a period to end a sentence or quotation marks to set off a quote. If we value our research and its products, we should do everything we can to participate in the community by keeping our reviewers', committee's, and future readers' eyes on the page and their heads off the table.

Have You Seen Lynda?

, that is!

*As of last November, NIU provides all students, staff, and faculty with this service. You can read DoIT’s introductory write up here.

 

Today’s blog post intends to “introduce” you to Lynda.com, in case you haven’t tried this tool.

Basically, Lynda.com is pretty cool. Here’s how it works.

You log in with your student or employee ID and its corresponding password. You get to Lynda.com either through NIU’s A-Z link or by typing http://go.niu.edu/lynda in your browser’s address bar.

This site contains many video tutorials. Most are mini-courses, taking an hour to several hours to complete, but each course is broken up into minutes-sized segments. You do not need to view an entire course. Each course includes a transcript and exercise files, should you wish to practice a specific task. And Lynda.com keeps track of your viewing history and place.

I suggest that you start by hovering over the library button on the top banner next to the Lynda.com name, and browse the larger categories of Business, Design, Education and Elearning, Photography, Video, Web, etc. Each of these categories breaks down into specific topics and applicable software tutorials. If you click on the library button, you will get an A – Z listing of the larger categories’ subtopics and the number of tutorials available for each.

Within the subtopics, you can select specific applicable software tutorials or a specific author to see all of his/her videos. You also choose a skill level from Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, and Appropriate for all.

How can Lynda.com help with a thesis or dissertation?

Well, it can’t—not directly. However, most of us are preparing our documents in Word. 

The Thesis Office receives a lot of formatting questions for Word, but we find that students have different versions of Word running through different operating systems on computers that are purchased from all over the world; these often have unusual default settings. Add Word’s styles and hidden formatting into that mix, and sometimes, it’s hard to untangle what is going on in a document.

Also, Lynda.com is available twenty-four hours; while we try to respond to any inquiry quickly, we can’t always help you right when you’d like. 

So we want to direct you to the 59 Word Processing courses containing 2647 video tutorials on Lynda.com.  

Don’t be overwhelmed with those numbers; you can search for specific tutorials on any issue. For instance, I searched: “inserting page breaks in Word 2013,” and though I received two thousand results, I could see quickly that the top five were most applicable. You may want to look through some of the various courses’ tables of contents just to get ideas about how to phrase your searches too.

There is more to Lynda.com; I’ve only begun to explore the site. Our office will provide you with updates as we discover any helpful tips.

Have fun exploring Lynda.com, and feel free to post a reply on this blog post or on Facebook if you have found or find anything helpful there.We'd love to hear from you.