ProQuest: Your Publisher...and More

Picture yourself near your project’s end.  Writing completed and defense successful, you move on to the long-anticipated last step.  That is, you upload your document for final review to ProQuest.  For a number of reasons, that shouldn’t be your only experience with this company. 

Actually, through reading and research during your time in your program, you’re probably already fairly familiar with ProQuest, a company that traces its history back to 1873.  They maintain numerous online research databases, including ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global, the world’s largest collection of digitized dissertations and theses—and the future host of the degree-qualifying document you’ll finish here at NIU.  But ProQuest’s many other offerings for researchers, educators, and students are worth checking out during any stage of your research and writing. 

GradShare

I was somewhat surprised to discover that, along with its many research databases, ProQuest maintains five blogs, each geared for a specific academic clientele: ProQuest Blog (concerning research databases), International Blogs (academic news in multiple languages other than English), Magazines for Libraries Update (details on scholarly journals), Share This (ideas for schoolteachers), and GradShare.  Concerns of graduate students take center stage in this last one.  Primarily addressed to writers of dissertations and theses, GradShare features brief but informative posts on researching, planning, composing, and completing the big project.  Several of the entries complement ideas we’ve written about here at Project Thesis NIU.  Others unique to GradShare are worth a look right away, namely:

How to Write the Best Dissertation:  Parts 1 and 2 of this post give helpful drafting guidelines and general advice for those at the start or in the middle of their projects.  If you’re in those stages, spend a few moments going through these November 2016 posts, which also happen to be the most recent entries to GradShare because the blog is currently on hiatus.  (We recently contacted Devin McGinty at ProQuest to check on the blog’s status, and he told us GradShare will be publishing again in the near future.)        

Answers to Questions about Dissertation Orders:  This especially informative post from December 2015 features links to pages that answer frequently asked questions about ordering theses and dissertations through ProQuest.  A bonus: it also has a link to a review of the important procedures for uploading your document to the company—the glorious last step of the thesis or dissertation journey.  Several of the questions dealt with here are remarkably similar to ones students regularly bring to the Thesis Office at NIU.
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Review of The PhD Movie:  Movies really can be about anything!  In 2011, Jorge Cham, creator of “Piled Higher and Deeper” (PhD Comics), produced a feature based on the comic strip titled, you guessed it, Piled Higher and Deeper.  In 2014, Devin McGinty reviewed the film on GradShare.  “Sometimes the best ideas arise when we are distracted,” McGinty writes at the end of his enthusiastic review, “so the solution to your academic problems could be a bowl of popcorn and The PhD Movie.  Enjoy!”  In 2015, Cham produced a follow-up film titled The PhD Movie 2: Still in Grad School.  Check out the trailers, stills, and other information about the two films at the producer’s website.  If you happen to see the second film, perhaps you might want to share your take on it with a wide audience in the form of a review of your own, which leads to another attractive feature of GradShare: you’re invited to post there.

Guest Bloggers Wanted:  This post from March 2016 invited grad students anywhere to send in a post of 500 to 750 words on a topic of one’s own choosing.  A review of the second PhD film would likely be a welcome submission.  But other topics would certainly also be of interest.  (And if you do happen to see the second film and write a review of it, and for some reason you can’t get it to GradShare, we’ll be happy to receive your review for consideration as a guest post on Project Thesis NIU.  Send submissions as an attachment to thesis@niu.edu.)
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Final Words

In short, GradShare and other ProQuest blogs can provide helpful supplementary information to the points we pass on to graduate students at this blog.  Happy reading and researching of all kinds, through ProQuest and beyond!

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

Stop Reading and Start Writing: Good Advice?

The Passion of Creation, 1892, by Leonid Pasternak (1862-1945).

This entry is dedicated to those of you working on the dissertation proposal as well as to those who’ve cleared that hurdle.  At bottom it also calls out to thesis and dissertation writers in STEM and related fields.

Slouching towards Proposal’s End

It was rough, putting my dissertation proposal together.  Winter merged into early spring as I ran ideas past my director and formed my committee, taught two sections of English 203, and completed an internship on campus.  All the while I was steadily tracking down books and articles and even a few dissertations related to my research, reading them extensively and intensively, rereading notes and papers from courses I took last year and several years before that, compiling a colossal bibliography, staring into space, making notes and plans in my head and on paper and screen, thinking ideas aloud during long walks and bike rides, and trying to explain what my dissertation would be like to colleagues, friends, and family members whose quizzical grimaces, doubting frowns, and muffled guffaws in response to my ramblings linger on in bittersweet memories of that drawn-out span of time.  The best part of it, of course, was when the actual writing happened.  Once I finally entered the “zone” and was drafting and revising my proposal in earnest, things moved ever more smoothly and swiftly.
   
Sound familiar?  Most likely you can offer up an account like the one above about your progress on your proposal (or, for that matter, your progress on just about any major writing project).  Plenty of similar accounts on the proposal can be found on relevant blogs like The Thesis Whisperer (a particularly popular blog, which we here at Project Thesis recommend).  Such accounts tend to convey the idea that accomplishing the proposal is like completing the dissertation in miniature. It’s a big project but not as big as the main event.  It’s simply another engagement with the writing process. Many predictably advise that in order to complete it you must eventually do two very important and rather obvious things: stop reading and start writing.  But, in the cold light of second thought, to what extent is that bit of advice helpful?
   
Stop reading?  

It’ll never happen.  No matter how many times others tell you to stop reading and start writing, no matter how many times you say this to yourself, those words and the message behind them won’t dissuade you from naturally turning from your writing, at some point, to read something else. Perhaps it’s a secondary source like another research article that may shed more light on your project.  Perhaps it’s a book chapter you read two months ago that now seems to deserve another look.  Perhaps it’s a primary source, a text or study you’re analyzing and have read countless times before but now feel compelled to return to once more.  Turning to readings such as these when you need to be writing is often branded taboo.  Consider, however, that in some cases this judgment may a bit too drastic.  Recall the writer in the picture at the top of this page.  He’s clearly engaged in the writing process but isn’t putting words down.  He appears to be working out an idea in his head.  What should he do next?  Continue thinking with his eyes closed?  Draft whatever comes to mind?  Why not turn to some of the notes or books by his side?

Reading through a Writing Delay

Sometimes during the writing process writers get stuck in the drafting or revising stages and need to find a way back in.  Temporarily revisiting the pre-writing stage at such times can be a constructive move.  Among the various strategies for pre-writing, there is certainly a place for reading or rereading old or new sources.  Yet when you do turn to reading or rereading such materials to reactivate the writing you need to do, heed these tips:

• Set suitable reading parameters
For example, if you’re proposing a dissertation on popular songs during the American Civil War,
clearly you should stick to sources within the boundaries of this topic area and avoid irrelevant
readings about, say, Modern Art.

• Read and write in tandem
Reading broadly and deeply is a fundamental component of your project, but, naturally, you do need to write in order to complete it.  However, instead of thinking you should be either reading or writing, accept that, as you progress, both reading and writing can overlap.

No matter what your field is, embracing reading while working through each stage of the writing process is an idea worth considering.  Certainly, however, the nature and scope of the reading involved will vary from one field to the next.

A Call to Writers in STEM and Related Fields

Incidentally, if you happen to be working on a thesis or dissertation in the sciences, technology, engineering, mathematics, or related fields, we’d be interested in hearing from you about your experiences with your project proposal (or hearing about your project as a whole).  What important differences in process or approach do you notice between your own work and what you read about here (and elsewhere)?  We invite you to drop ideas in the comment box below.

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.

Reviews of Guidebooks on the Topic of Oral Defense

Today, I’d like to follow up on our last post, “The Defense Rests.” After reading Mike’s July 9 post, I felt better about the oral defense that many of us will face (or have faced). Yet I was left with a question: Mike mentioned that all committee members of the defense he observed had paper copies of the student’s dissertation. Since our office only requires students to bring one paper copy to Adams Hall Room 223 (three weeks in advance of oral defense date for the “outside” reader), were the paper copies Mike noted provided to the committee by the defending student? I would guess “yes,” but I also started wondering, what other preparatory tasks exist that we "defenders" might wish to know about?

To find out, I did some research. Below, I’ve summarized what a few of the books we keep around The Thesis Office say on the matter of the oral defense. *Note: most of what follows applies for doctoral students--unless your master's thesis requires an oral defense.

Theses and Dissertations: A Guide to Planning, Research, and Writing by R. Murray Thomas and Dale L. Brubaker (Bergin & Garvey, 2000 ). 

This book is geared towards students in the “social and behavioral sciences” (Preface), but its chapter on the oral defense could help any presenter. The authors devote 7 of 277 pages to the defense, which may sound short but is actually one of the longer treatments. Thomas and Brubaker begin by pointing out that the oral defense is usually the “penultimate” (257) step to graduation, mentioning that students might still have revisions after the defense, as Mike also explains in his post. The book then delineates “7 cases of concern” for defenders, including issues of study validity and significance; candidates' and advisors’ roles; objections; “committee member debates”; and “inadequate proofreading” (Thomas and Brubaker 257).

The authors then go through each of the above topics in Q&A format, mimicking how an advisor would respond to student questions. The following points sum up the chapter:

              ·  2 and 1/2 pages devoted to validity issues, aimed for defense of qualitative studies

              ·  Preparation for the question, “What does it mean?”

o   offer your take on the different types of “meaning”

o   state which applies to your study (260)

              · Preparation for other situations, including the “intrusive advisor” (261)

o   don’t worry if committee members seem inattentive

o   keep quiet when committee members debate

o   generally, “answer … questions precisely and concisely, and then STOP” (263)

Finally, the authors mention that many students don’t believe that “spelling, grammar, and format” are of main concern, but they note that faculty members are in the “business” of “fostering responsible scholarship” (Thomas and Brubaker 263). The authors caution students to proofread thoroughly before the oral defense to avoid additional revisions.

Surviving Your Dissertation: A Comprehensive Guide to Content and Process by Kjell Erik Rudestam and Rae. R. Newton (3^rd ed., Sage Publications, Inc., 2007) 

Another book for graduate students in the social sciences--this one has a positive feel with several examples of tables and figures for students. However, Rudestam and Newton devote only about 2 and 1/2 pages to “Dissertation Orals” (218). They frame the experience as a range from a “congenial ritual … to a more excruciating examination … by an unsympathetic faculty committee” (218). But Rudestam and Newton say, “You can make a number of reasonable preparations to make the experience a positive one” (218).

         Their biggest advice: 1) Know your study and 2) Take control

For example, Rudestam and Newton describe a candidate who arrived at her defense early, rearranged the furniture to her liking, and greeted the committee members as they arrived, as if she “had invited them to an event she was hosting” (219). The book then describes the typical oral defense format, which matches Mike’s experience fairly closely. The authors mention a possible “let down” after the event but hope students will view the defense as a “transformative experience” (Rudestam and Newton 220).

         The Portable Dissertation Advisor by Miles T. Bryant (Corwin Press, 2004) 

Bryant takes a “pragmatic” (xi) approach in this text, gleaned from his years of working with graduate students. He aims his book more towards the part time or “nontraditional” doctoral student (ix). He, too, devotes approximately 2 and 1/2 pages (of 150) specifically to the defense.

Bryant’s defense section starts with an Oscar Wilde quote:

          “The play was a great success, but the audience was a disaster.” 

Funny guy, that Oscar Wilde. And good choice of opening for Bryant because this quotation encapsulates the scary vibe of oral defenses: the audience, i.e., your committee; how will they be?

However, Bryant reassures that the majority of defenders pass, and here are his main pieces of advice:

o   Have a “plausible answer for every question asked” (140)

o   Speak with confidence and clarity

Bryant then mentions scheduling and room arrangement issues (may or may not be student’s responsibility) as well as reminds to set up and check technology ahead of time. Done! 

Finally, we have another book called Destination Dissertation: A Traveler’s Guide to a Done Dissertation by Sonja K. Foss and William Waters (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2007 ). This is one of my favorite dissertation guides, and its chapter on the oral defense is like a 14-page How-to (book has 359 total pages). As this post is quite long already, I'll just note that the authors confirm most of what I’ve already reported and what Mike found in his experience, but they also give several example responses, and they list several ways to work with your main advisor and practice for the event. If you want a one-stop source of advice (albeit one that's a little wordy), I’d suggest that you check out this guide. 

Anyone have other helpful remarks? Please feel free to comment!