A Clare Foland Farewell

I'd like to inform you that it's time for a change of hands in the Thesis Office. Mike’s and my assistantships are coming to an end, and two new GA's will introduce themselves to you in a couple weeks.

I know I can speak for Mike in saying that we have thoroughly enjoyed our time here. We worked hard to implement a service-oriented focus in the Office, as we were tasked to do by Carolyn Law, who has envisioned such changes for a long time but never had a staff to help.

The new GA's will undoubtedly come up with new ideas, but I'd like to leave you with a couple lessons I've learned, which may serve as simple reminders.

First, in my consultations with students, I have continually needed to refer to the Thesis or Dissertation Format Guidelines found on our website. Even working here, I sometimes forget certain formatting requirements, so I cannot stress enough to those who are just beginning their thesis or dissertation writing, and even to those who are winding down, to constantly refer to the appropriate guidelines and use the tools we have provided online. The more that you format your document correctly from the start, the easier your final preparation will be, even though you will still likely have some finishing touch changes to make.

Also, I have learned that formatting documents in Word can be frustrating (lol-you knew that). Here, all I can say is try not to let the frustration get to you. I know that's not much help, but I thought it couldn’t hurt to remind that you are not alone in these issues.

My greatest lesson involves advice we repeatedly give: just write. Write down any and all of your thoughts for a chapter or section, no matter how inelegant, unformed, disorganized, or badly phrased—get those ideas on paper. This has been the only way I have made progress, and I am now about half way through my dissertation draft. When I started here, I only had my proposal written. I actually then rewrote/re-framed my proposal to reign in, and restart, my thoughts before diving into a chapter. Next, upon advice from Carolyn Law, I “dared to be adequate”; that is, I literally slapped some drivel onto paper. (And I learned this new word, “drivel”!) Yet, as I worked along on that first chapter, it slowly started to shape up. I am continuing this practice, and it is the only method that works for me.

I have enjoyed meeting students from many disciplines and hearing about your progress, your studies, and your challenges. I feel privileged to have met and worked with a whole bunch of thoughtful people who care deeply about their projects, even knowing what they give up to get these theses and dissertations written. I wish you all the best in completing your work.

So, at the risk of sounding cheesy, I’ll leave you with the following saying: Keep Calm and Write On!

See you on Facebook, at Founders, and at the Write Place, Write Time sessions.

Write Place, Write Time

The Thesis and Dissertation office has received some queries about our Write Place, Write Time office sponsored writing group (click here for a short article on the group courtesy of NIU Today). I thought that it might be beneficial to use this week's blog to explain the writing group in a little more detail.

Once a month -- the second Thursday of every month to be exact, from 6pm to 9pm -- our office has reserved a space -- the Dissertation room located on the fourth floor of Founder's Library  -- for graduate students to sit in a quiet space and write their thesis or dissertation. I emphasize write because that is the primary purpose of the group.

I am a non-traditional graduate student with an overloaded schedule comprised of family and work obligations. As a consequence, it is difficult for me to find the time -- not to mention a quiet space -- at home to write. When I do manage to eke out an hour here or there, it is not uncommon for outside distractions to find their way into my head -- I am thinking about making school lunches for the next day, errands I have to run, chores that need to be finished, bills that have to be paid, etc. All of the sudden, those become my primary focus and no writing gets done.

The beauty about Write Place, Write Time is that there are no outside distractions. I let my kids know well in advance that on the second Thursday of every month there will be a three hour period when they will not be able to get in touch with me because I need that time to work. I don't use these three hours for research, data analysis, or worrying about how to format my dissertation according to the office guidelines. I just focus on writing.

Once I walk into the room, I set down my bags and turn off my phone -- well, I silence the ringer because I have kids and I need to be reachable in case of an emergency, but I place it on the table screen down so that I am not easily distracted. I write my rough drafts out by hand, so the next thing I do is take out my composition book and a pencil. I devote the first ten to fifteen minutes to reviewing content that I have already written, taking the time to do minimal proofreading, but mostly this is to remind myself where I left off. Before coming into the room, I've done my reading, I've made notes on relevant research, and most importantly, I know what comes next in the chapter. When necessary, I make sure that all of my notes and primary texts are spread out in front of me for quick and easy reference. Once all of that is taken care of, I start writing.

Within the first twenty minutes, I am composing new material for whatever chapter on which I am working. I work hard for an hour and break for a quick snack or dinner -- there are no fridges in the room and since I have a pretty strict diet, I typically pack something in tupperware for a quick meal. After a twenty minute dinner break, I write for another hour or so, and then I use the remaining time to go over all of the new material before packing up and calling it a night. Thus far, there have only been two sessions of Write Place, Write Time and I've managed to write one new chapter and finish revising a second. And these are not perfect chapters. Far from it. They are horrible first drafts that I know are in dire need of future correction. The important thing is: they are done. By the way, I should mention that if you have a chapter written but need the time to do a rewrite after corrections suggested by your committee, Write Place, Write Time is the ideal venue.

Now, don't get me wrong -- I do my best to be courteous. This means that I make the time to acknowledge everyone else in the room. However, we are all there to write. This means that socializing is not the priority. This is the unspoken agreement. If I do need to speak with someone in depth about something, we step out, go downstairs to the basement of the library, and grab a coffee -- yes, there is a coffee bar in the library if you need some late night caffeine, though I am not sure how late they are open. Even then I keep it to a minimum because I set aside time in my unbelievably busy schedule to write. I will not get this opportunity again -- at least, not until the next meeting.

Even though office staff participates in these writing group sessions, we aren't really there to help with questions about forms, thesis guidelines, or concerns about how to suppress a page number or set up Tables and Figures -- watch for upcoming presentations and workshops on these topics -- or to proofread people's work -- feel free to drop by Adams Hall, room 104 during office hours as we will be open all summer. If a question does come up, we will do our best to answer it; however, our task is to help keep everyone on task by ensuring a distraction free zone.

Anecdotal evidence and statistical data reflect that the most common reason many graduate students do not complete their graduate program is: they never found the time to write their thesis or dissertation. Write Place, Write Time has been set up to try to alleviate this problem. We want you to succeed as much as you want to succeed.

If you're still not sure if Write Place, Write Time is for you, please feel free to raise your concerns on our Facebook group page; send an email to the office; post a comment on this blog; better yet, drop in during the next session -- we meet on June 9.

Interesting Reading

It's been awhile since I've put up a post on recent-ish articles having to do with graduate school, graduate students, or having to write your thesis or dissertation.  I recently came across a couple of pieces that I found to be good reads, so I decided to share them with you.

"The No-Fail Secret to Writing a Dissertation" by Theresa MacPhail

MacPhail tells us that the secret to writing and finishing your dissertation is -- get this -- to sit down and write. She offers essentially the same advice that I wrote about in an earlier post on writing groups:

"Sit your butt down in a chair, preferably in a quiet and distraction-free room. Disable your internet and turn your phone on silent. Come into your writing space having already done the research you need for that day's writing task. You will not be researching or looking anything up during your writing time (researching and editing are discrete tasks, believe it or not, and should be done in separate blocks)."

She recommends writing every day, five days a week, 50 minutes a day. Don't write in ten minute chunks. Such a strategy does not accommodate deep thinking when writing.

Her style is conversational, making it a quick and easy read. I like a lot of what she has to tell her audience, such as: "[T]he dissertation is best thought of as the lousy first draft of an eventual book. No one but you expects your dissertation to be perfect." My director, my boss, and my committee have all told me this exact same thing. For some reason, it sinks in when I read it in MacPhail's piece.


"Your Dissertation Begins in Your First Seminar" by Rebecca Schuman

Schuman tells us that writing a dissertation is no different than writing the all-too-familiar 20-page essay for one of your seminar courses. She outlines strategies -- researching, writing, revising -- graduate students should be using to write an essay for a seminar class, as opposed to throwing something together a couple of days before the paper is due. I don't know anyone who would -- wait a second . . . oh yeah. I may have committed this egregious sin. It is actually good advice, and it reminded me that a couple of my peers in the English department expanded some of their own seminar papers into master's theses and dissertations.

Schuman's essay is a quick read, reeks of common sense, and I like her approach to the topic -- i.e. the dissertation is not some holier than thou document; it's just a longform version of a seminar paper. It made me wish I had read this back when I first started out in the graduate program.


"Master's Degree Programs Specialize to Keep Their Sheen" by Jennifer Howard

Howard's article focuses on graduate schools and how "master’s-level programs have had to adapt to keep up with students who seek an educational experience customized to their particular goals, and who put a premium on skills and experience that prospective employers will find valuable." 

According to the Department of Education, 751,000 master's degrees were awarded during the 2012/2013 academic year. Approximately half of these degrees were in health and education. While students continue to pursue higher degrees in fields like Math, computer science, and engineering, fewer students are pursuing master's degrees in subjects like education. There are a number of reasons for this drop in enrollment.

What Howard notes is that this generation of graduate students desire more specialized degrees that will be appealing to potential employers and to be taught a diverse skill set that will enable them to have an impact on the community. This is being attributed to an "activist air" among grad students. Because they want more from their higher education, graduate school programs are readjusting in order to be more appealing to future students.  
It is a fascinating read.

One last thing:

I want to remind everyone that the next session of Write Place, Write Time is coming up -- Thursday, April 14, 2016. Once again we will be meeting at 6pm in Founder's Library. Be there or be a dodecahedron. If you are still a bit confused about the group, you can read up on it by clicking here.

As always, please feel free to share your comments, concerns, random thoughts, hopes for the future, jokes of the day, etc. on our Facebook group page, or feel free to post in the comments box below.

A Quick Note on Re-Writes

What is the most frustrating part of writing my dissertation? All of the revisions.

For example: I just turned in the latest draft of chapter four of my dissertation. It was the fourth rewrite of the chapter. Do not get me wrong - with every tweak, alteration, subtle adjustment of my language, argument, organization, etc. I know the quality of my monograph improves.

Here's the problem: my eyes have begun to glaze over with all of the re-writing that I have been doing. I have devoted more time -- or at least, it feels like I have -- to re-writing and re-organizing my dissertation than actually researching and writing the original draft. I made so many changes to one of my chapters that I completely forgot my thesis for the entire dissertation. I started to wonder: Did my thinking change about the topic? Or did comments from my committee steer me in a completely different direction? (It was both)

I started doubting myself. I fell under the spell of the impostor syndrome (see blog entry from March 9, 2015). Based on all of the comments that I was receiving, I started to question whether or not I was a qualified academic. Where was all of this marginalia on essays I wrote for my graduate level courses? I always thought that I was a halfway decent writer. Was I delusional to think this? Why was I having so much trouble writing my dissertation? It got so bad that I even started to consider dropping out of the program. Why had the department not offered an one hour seminar on the theory behind organizing and writing a dissertation?

All writing is rewriting. I know this. I am in English Lit. I teach composition. Every semester I tell my students this basic fact about writing. Still . . .

When I first wrote my prospectus, I was tasked with designing a calendar of due dates for the rough draft of each chapter. In addition to this, it was recommended that I incorporate potential due dates for revisions. I was told to figure four to six weeks to write each original draft, and then plan two weeks for each revised draft. Needless to say, this calendar was thrown out. My experience for the past couple of years has been to write a chapter, and then rewrite and rewrite and rewrite and rewrite that chapter. I do not move to the next part of my monograph until after having composed a "finished" draft of a chapter -- this alteration in my writing and revising schedule became necessary as each chapter builds on the argument of the preceding chapter. Still, all of the revisions are driving me insane. Even now, with one chapter remaining, I am writing and rewriting, and I have deadlines looming over me that I am scared that I will not meet because I expect to hear my director say, "You need to do another daft." It is as if this phrase has become obligatory every time we meet. What's more is that even though a draft has been deemed "final" by my director, I still have to submit the work to the other members of my committee who may or may not -- let's be honest, they will -- have comments about how the work can be upgraded. Oh joy . . . another round of rewrites.

Just last night I was sitting in Founder's in the dissertation room on the fourth floor taking part in Write Place, Write Now -- the office's writing group for NIU graduate students working on their thesis or dissertation. For two and a half hours I worked on yet another rewrite of an earlier chapter, previously deemed "finished." At some point, I realized that my prose was getting stronger, my thinking about my topic was clearer, and I came across a random sentence that I completely forgot about, yet as it turns out the phrase supports a vital claim that I make in a later chapter.

Here's the thing: I never would have realized this had I not been compelled to perform all of these revisions. For a few minutes, I thought myself rather smart. I've since made a note to myself to highlight this point in my work, thus prompting . . . another round of rewrites.

Oy!