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A student reached out to us because she had finished her anthropology thesis but was at a loss for how to cite some unpublished letters (to and from Edward Ayer, a major benefactor to the Field Museum and Newberry Library).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.

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!

Fear of the Blank Page

We've all been there. In fact, I was there until about three seconds ago.

No matter what kind of writing we do, whether we're consummate wordsmiths or grammar-phobic mathematicians, the blank page is, as one Modernist writer called it, "The face of fear." While we meet many other faces of fear along the way to completing a thesis or dissertation (procrastination, stalled research, critical advisors...), simply getting started causes its own unique terror. But there are several simple ways to overcome this phenomenon.

How to Vanquish the Blank Page

 1.  Put some words on it. This is the simplest way you can lessen the starkness of a white screen.  Something about empty white space instills fear in us, and of course it hurts our eyes too. Really: simply type out a working title. Format a table of contents or dash off an acknowledgements page. Or paste in your bibliography and begin to edit it.  Any of these little tasks not only fill the page with quite a bit of text, but it will get you comfortable with sitting with THAT document. (You know the one.)

2. Use a blue blocker, especially after sunset. Reducing the blue light in your life is good for your overall health, but it also decreases the whiteness (read: scariness!) of the screen. You can buy a physical screen blocker or download an app.

3. Trust that every little step leads to the next one.  You don't have to begin at the beginning! When I began the draft of my dissertation prospectus (so we're talking draft and prospectus... not even the real deal), I was terrified. So, I started with the low-hanging fruit. Did I know how to write a contextual history of the topic I'd barely begun to research? No. Did I even know what methodology I would use? No. So, I began by pasting in my bibliography, cleaning it up, and formatting it. I learned from that exercise which sources were most important to me. Then I was able to write a methodology (i.e. which literary texts I would research and using which sources).  Once I did that, I was homed in on a topic, and better suited to write the introductory paragraphs of the proposal.  And, if I had had to write a literature review, I wouldn't have been able to do that until I'd read everything for the rest of the proposal. Every simple task teaches you something that helps with the harder tasks.

4. Type up your notes. You've already written or typed out ideas, observations, and reactions as you read or researched. Paste those ideas into an outline. The outline can be loose! Whenever you write a first draft, it's just a draft. You can make it pretty later.  Seeing all your thoughts in one place, and connecting them with the tissue of a paper-structure (however tentative it may be) gives you a framework for imagining your paper. 

5. Actually use your imagination. True story: When writing up prospective chapter outlines in my proposal, I asked my advisor, "So, I just imagine the chapter I hope to have written and describe it? Like I'm describing the best chapter I can imagine?" Yes, she said.  Use your right brain to power through those crippling left brain moments. At some point you have to make your imaginary dissertation into reality (and edit the unicorns out of Chapter 2...), but visualizing it helps make it happen. 

These are the tricks I'm currently using to make my dissertation happen.  What frightens you about writing? And how do you find ways to overcome the fear of getting started?

Staying in Love with Your Thesis or Dissertation

Exams passed, proposal approved, and you happily move forward with your writing project.  The growing relationship between you and your significant document draws on several forces, not least passion and devotion.  For some writers, these forces never waver and may even increase over time.  Yet other writers can face weary stretches due to a fading of that initial spark.  How does it happen?  How can writers stay enthralled with their thesis or dissertation?  This post mainly goes out to those of you who ponder such questions.  But it also offers helpful bits even to those convinced from the outset that they will blissfully go the distance—and those thrilled to be nearing their project’s final stages.    

Prime Factors Behind Burnout

Waning enthusiasm over the course of such a long undertaking can result from many things.  You deal with certain matters beyond your control, such as outside commitments to work or family, schedules of your committee, or availability of resources for research, experiments, or data analysis.  But most important are your own contributing thoughts and emotions, internal matters that can press acutely but that you can likely address more readily.  Such as:

Doubts about your progress.  Uncertainties about the development of your lengthy document can crop up during writing slumps and delays.  You may also harbor doubts while waiting for feedback on chapters from your readers—or, after receiving feedback, while acting on requests for changes or revisions, major and minor. 

Concerns that what you’re doing is trivial.  Such concerns partner with the so-called imposter syndrome.  They may cause you to reconsider the theory or methodology you’re applying to your endeavor.  You may ponder tweaking your approach, revisiting your proposal, or even stripping away at the foundations of the entire affair.

Temptations to pull the plug.  These can accompany outbursts like “I’m sick and tired of this whole thing.”  Probably not the exact words of any contemporary American grad student, and most likely not always true about all parts of the undertaking.  For example, in the case of my dissertation, the literary texts I’m writing about are, to me, endlessly fascinating and enjoyable.  But let’s face it: even re-examining stuff you like can eventually become draining.  Outside the context of language and literary research, important supporting tasks like tabulating results, running statistical tests, or transcribing interviews can each get tedious.  Any project requiring long stretches of deep thought, creativity, intense focus, and adherence to standards and guidelines inevitably leads to exhaustion.

Some Solutions

OK, so what to do about all this?  Among the many possible courses of action, the following three seem eminently achievable:

Revisit work that brought you to your project.  Look back at previous studies or research relevant to your current doings—or at things not directly related to them.  This experience may help remind you of what drew you to your project in the first place or point out approaches to it you may not have considered yet.

Talk about your project.  Although your ultimate aim is to arrange your ideas in writing, talking them over with others can help you maintain momentum and flow, rediscover what excites you about your project, and see what others find interesting in it.  The first person to turn to is your director, who knows your project well but is still one step removed from the composition process and, therefore, able to rekindle your sense of its strengths and significance.  Certainly you can also approach your committee readers for similar feedback.  Friends and family members can be good sounding boards, even if they’ve already heard a lot from you about your various compositional ups and downs.  Also consider the benefits of sharing your project’s aims with new acquaintances in your department, across campus, and at academic conferences.  I recently traveled to a large national conference, where I presented a portion of my dissertation research, attended several panels on topics relevant to it, and took in few that were distantly related.  The trip was a brief but helpful break from the writing.  It gave me welcome chances to meet and talk about what I’m doing with grad students and faculty from other institutions.  I came back refreshed and reenergized.    

Take regular breaks.  Needed diversions from your largely indoor endeavor should be regular and clearly distinguished from your main tasks at hand.  Getting outside, especially now that the weather is turning sunnier and warmer, can do wonders for your writing, thinking, and overall enthusiasm for your project.  Such sessions of “meditation on the move,” a term writer and runner Joe Henderson has applied to recreational long-distance running, will be explored in a future post on taking your writing outside.  Look for it in the coming weeks.  Until then, happy writing!     

Meditation on the Move, Southwest of the NIU Campus

A Thesis Office with a Mission

The Thesis and Dissertation Office at Northern Illinois University is focused on student success, offering resources at every stage of the thesis or dissertation writing process, and operating on a unique peer-advocate model for informing and motivating graduate students.

Comprehensive, service-oriented thesis offices exist at a few grad-degree granting institutions throughout the nation, it’s true. But they are not common, and at many schools the thesis office is focused only on guidance through red tape and the managing of documents.  While NIU’s Thesis and Dissertation Advisor, Carolyn Law, can help students navigate the most tangled red tape the graduate school can dish out, we like to think that our holistic approach to thesis and dissertation assistance is a unique one!

Not Just Information

The Thesis Office is the definitive source of information on how to get through the process of finalizing a thesis. But we are not just here to inform. We are here to help.

Some services we proudly offer:

• One-on-one formatting and documentation assistance

• Workshops on tricky thesis issues, such as page numbers, tables, and citations

• Brown Bags and social media for meeting (online or IRL) other grad students and maintaining contact with people who understand your life situation

• Writers’ meet-ups to help you hold yourself accountable for getting the writing done

• Presentations on how to do the things we explain on the website (in case you need to see it and not just read it!)

• And coming soon: Instructional videos on the toughest formatting bugbears 

So, as you can see, we offer a lot more than just telling you what to do!  We believe that this holistic, student-centered approach to guidance throughout the entire thesis process (you can visit us whether you’ve never written a word, or if you’ve written “AAAAALL THE WORDS!”) will help graduate students complete their goals in a timely manner, saving them money, headache, life crises, and preparing them for the job market. (In fact, as a department of the NIU Graduate School, we are committed to the Graduate School’s express mission of student professionalization.)

Another key to our approach is, as I mentioned above, our peer advisors.  Two graduate assistants are always employed by the office, to help you help yourself. I am one of them! (Robyn) The other is Fred. But whether you meet me and Fred this year, or Bob and Joe two years down the road (because Fred and I plan to finish our dissertations and get out of town…), you will come into contact with graduate assistants who know your struggle, and share in it every day.  We are living through the thesis process with all its highs and lows, and we also happen to be experts on how to get it done. (As well as on formatting, grammar, documentation, and everything else you would expect from English majors). In fact, part of our job requirement is that we get it done! So, the graduate student advisor helps students feel like they are not alone and provides a great connection for networking, as well as being an approachable authority in the Graduate School.

We do think we are special. While comparable missions are expressed by the thesis offices at Purdue and UT Knoxville to name a couple, we think we are hitting it out of the park.  Indeed, we would like to see this type of thesis office mission become a ubiquitous goal, especially among state institutions that often grant degrees to students of diverse and non-traditional backgrounds, while operating on limited funding… and working with students who may have limited funds themselves!

In fact, that is certainly one font from which we draw inspiration for the mission of the Thesis Office: our diverse student body of international, non-traditional, low-income, and returning students. That said, we are here for every grad student.

As you can see, we are a Thesis Office with a mission. We want graduate students to succeed, so our goal is your goal. We want to provide you with every resource (or at least refer you to one if we don’t have it) so that you can finish your thesis or dissertation with confidence and expedience.

Come see us in beautiful Adams Hall during the week, or call or email anytime!
M-Th, 10-2
thesis@niu.edu
815-753-9405

Happy working!
--Robyn

Coming Soon to a Thesis Office Near You

Warm Greetings and Happy New Year!  A quick hello to let you know what's to come this spring at the Thesis and Dissertation Office:

Video Tutorials
This past week our office shifted to production mode and put together our first pair of video tutorials on common questions and concerns about document preparation and formatting.  Soon-to-be available attractions include a short video on formatting leader dots in tables of contents (or similar lists) and a slightly longer one on the sometimes tricky business of formatting page numbers in a thesis or diss.  Stay tuned for further updates!

Spring Presentations and Workshops
We start these again in early February.  Check the NIU Events Calendar for details.

Ongoing Assistance with Your Thesis
Remember--we're available for personal consultation Monday through Thursday from 10 to 2 in Adams Hall, Room 104.

And coming at the end of January to this blog: a guest post by former Project Thesis blogger and recent Ph.D. graduate Michael Yetter.

Time Management for the Worst Procrastinators

Photo by Emilie Ogez on Flickr

Time management is not something I am good at.  I'm good at staring out the window, doodling plans and lists, and doing every other project except the one I need to finish by May 2018. I get a lot done (a doctoral student and a mother has to), but it isn't easy.  And it doesn't often happen through careful planning, but through sheer will!

So as I worked through grad school, my early teaching career, and now the beginning of the dissertation... I realized I need to get my act together. Just like writing a paper without an outline stopped working, so did living a day without an outline. But no loose planning in a bullet journal or motivational mantra on a bulletin board could help this daydreaming procrastinator. Any wiggle room would ruin me. So, desperate for a method, I focused on the smallest unit of time that could be put to excellent work, coupled with a proven system for fighting the distraction of other projects -- the Pomodoro.

What is it?

What the heck is a Pomodoro? It's a tomato. But more on that later.

The Pomodoro work method is based upon research that shows we can most successfully work in something like 25 minute bursts.  This is enough time to get into a groove without wearing out our eyes or our carpal tunnels, and it's enough time to produce a substantial work chunk, say, to grade three long papers or to write a page. It's also a short enough time that we can completely ignore everyone else in the universe and they'll be just fine until we get back from our little Pomodoro planet. Close tabs, log out, hide phone -- blast off!

Photo by Luca Mascaro on Flickr

So why not make it half an hour? Because that 5 minutes at the end gives you a chance to look up from the screen (recommended by doctors, brain doctors, and opticians alike), and move around a bit.  Then you dive back into another 25 minutes or work. Four of these productivity bursts makes for almost two hours of work, only slightly (and restoratively) interrupted.  Four timer sessions = a "Pomodoro."  Say it out loud: "I just did a Pomodoro!"  Get up and take a long break.  Exercise, pet the cat, feed your starving kids, whatever. You earned it!  Then, you can choose to do more Pomodoros or call it.

The method is named as such because the original timer, designed by Francesco Cirillo, is shaped like a tomato. Imagine one of those egg timers that looks like an egg. Now it's a tomato. Tada!

Pomodoro praxis

I began the method with a stack of grading last spring, and it worked like a charm. It is absolutely flawless for clerical tasks like grading, organizing notes and sources, making tables, etc.  Although, I had to practice and get comfortable with it before I could really write in a flow state a la Pomodoro. You may have to work with it awhile until you can do real "knowledge work" on a timer.  But now that is an easy habit for me.

As important as the timer is the minimization of distraction. CLOSE THE TABS!  Nothing bad will happen.  Some online timers can even do it for you.  Half the point of this thing is work-life balance. This is the part where you have to let life slide -- it's only 25 minutes.

I do not use the actual physical tomato, but I may start.  Instead I use one of many online timers specifically geared towards the technique.  You can of course use any timer that goes to at least 25 minutes (but for obvious reasons, don't use your phone!).

I have used some great Pomodoros online. There are dozens if you search:

Tomato Timer
https://tomato-timer.com/
A super simple platform with start and stop key commands (or mouse buttons) and no frills. My favorite.

Tomatoid
https://www.tomatoid.com/
A tricked out timer that lets you create an account and track projects and time spent.

The Real Pomodoro Tomato Timer
https://theanimalrescuesite.greatergood.com/store/ars/item/76859/Tomato-Timer/136868
The "real deal" tomato is available from many sellers, but some are mightily over-priced. I think I will get mine from The Animal Rescue Site, so my $12.95 feeds a dog or some other fuzzy guy

One more thing about TIME

Ok, I am a mother, a grad student, a teacher, a "life-partner" if you will, and a gigging musician. I know a thing or two about not having enough time (one of those things will require another blog post). So let me tell you something that we hear all the time in this office, and that I have had to turn into a Pomodoro-complementary mantra:

You do not find time.  You MAKE time.

There is no extra time anywhere waiting to be found. And if you happen to stumble upon some, you will not even realize you have found it because you will be caught up in it, looking at the TV or just resting with your loved ones.

Extra time has to be made. The only way to do this is to shorten the length of time spent doing other tasks (i.e. non-dissertation tasks and clerical dissertation tasks) so that you grow the time you have to think and write and be healthy and whole. Get efficient. Make extra time for yourself and your family, and for your knowledge work.

So, some parting questions for you:

What work can you let slide in the name of making time?  Instead of thinking of it as letting something slide, can you think of it as producing something precious -- the time you need?  

What work could you do more efficiently or delegate to a partner or child?

What unproductive time-suckers can you give up completely? We all need some. But maybe you could make time by reducing them?

What could you work on being less perfectionist about? Good tasks are done tasks! (And a good dissertation is a done dissertation.)

More on all this in a later post.  Happy tomato-timing and time-making!

Building Your Tribe (Again and Again)

If you're an average-aged grad student or older, you're a full fledged grown-up by now, whether you like it or not. Like me, you've probably realized that making friends as an adult is not like making friends as a young person. When we lose the easy friendships of our high school tribe, our college tribe, or even our bar-going, concert-going, or [insert any 20-something activity here] buddies, the road to a graduate degree can get lonesome. The sobriety of adulthood and of the graduate journey are two strikes against us as friend material.

What I've realized is that adults, especially in our line of work, need friends with common interests and similar goals. The exuberance of youthful friendships and the energy of their bodies and minds (and their staggering amount of free time) makes friendships of all kinds enjoyable and sustainable.  We can still have our old friendships. But as graduate students, we have a specific goal shared by a small percentage of the population. Not only that, our most passionate interests are only interesting to an even smaller, infinitesimal percentage of the population. It seems like we need to bust out the Venn Diagrams to figure out which of the people we know should still put up with us as friends!

The First Tribe: Get One!

When I say we need similar people in our lives, I don't mean vaguely similar. Like "We are both success oriented and outgoing!" similar. I mean SIMILAR. Like, "We both study the genome of a rare species of Bolivian rat!" similar. ...I'm kidding. But students in your department who share the same journey are the first place to look for camaraderie, if you are newly doing the grad thing. Attend lectures, talk to people after class, join a group, go out for drinks. At first it will be awkward. But we're all old enough not to care about being "cool"! So try really hard just to soak it all up. Be observant, and don't be competitive.  You are all in the same leaky boat.

In the English Department at NIU, we had a broad core of classes, no matter our focus, and I met many like-minded people. Among the TAs in particular, our shared experience of teaching composition to freshmen created a strong bond. (Working on campus and being a part of the department is priceless.) The coursework experience, and the combined experience of the first few years of teaching with people I also studied with, won me a new tribe. I can only hope that coursework and GA work is such a social boon for all early career grad students.

End of Coursework, End of Social Life?

That tribe disappears, all too soon. The MA students were gone in two years. I miss some of them a lot. PhD students who entered ahead of me, core members of my tribe, are off dissertating, locked away from social interruptions. Some have finished and moved far away.  I stopped driving to campus for the drink nights that used to be so easy to attend when they were right after class. Today, I have the solid support of my office, and the vague support of my family who have no idea what I'm doing. But I haven't much in the way of comrades. I feel like I'm writing all alone.

All I can say is don't let that happen. The involvement will diminish, but the time spent together is still important. At the stage of the thesis or dissertation we need so much more than commiseration and shop talk. We need support, strategies, hope, and human connection. We spend so much time with our research and our laptops. It's odd, really. But you know who won't think it's odd? The other people who do it.

Facebook groups (friend everyone!) are a great way to plan events and stay in touch, even when you hardly see each other in person anymore. Part of the reason I dropped out of the tribe was lack of transportation.  Well, I've got a new car! Writing this post has given me the urge to get back on social media and find some real-life social activities to do.

Other Ways to Connect

I know I just said you need grad student friends. But there are other kinds of specifically like-minded friends! That's my main thesis here --  we are not the best friend material right now.  So we should seek friendship that is as supportive as possible of our unique situations.

I have a social life outside of school, almost solely because I'm in rock bands. This is another way that I surround myself with people of very specific interests. Do you play? If not, you're probably not someone I see very often. It sounds bad, but we only have so much time, and we need to fill it with the right kinds of stimulation.  So in addition to your efforts on campus, finding a hobby and focusing on it can round out your social life better than aimless bar-going or online dating. Most of us can't turn our brains off, right?  So find something that stimulates a different part of it.  Art, geo-caching, gaming, hiking, whatever. A specific thing to share.

Someday We'll Be Normal (Sort of)

Someday we will finish our theses and dissertations. We can nurse neglected friendships, balance our lives out, and maybe even start eating real food again! I'm not arguing at all that high-achievers have no use for broader social circles and diversity among their friends. I'm just saying that right now, you need grad school friends. And the best way to find the ones who will help you along your journey is to simply look around at your fellow travelers.

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.

The Right Place to Write?

Mark Twain finishing a chapter?

NIU’s thesis and dissertation writing group, Write Place/Write Time, met yesterday from 6 to 9 p.m. for our first fall meet-up. Four of us convened in our clean, well-lighted place—reserved every second Thursday—next to the Fourth Floor East windows in Founders Memorial Library. After greeting and chatting briefly, we each got down to business: composing in a quiet environment largely removed from everyday distractions. A great experience!

Writing alongside others working on projects similar to your own has many benefits: structure, support, accountability, and a spirit of healthy competition (in the positive sense suggested by the Latin roots of compete: com- ‘together’ + petere ‘to strive’). In previous posts, this blog has featured excellent overviews of Write Place/Write Time and its benefits in the context of one dissertator's routine and schedule (May 20, 2016, and December 4, 2015). Here I’d like to add a bit more on the topic of the places where successful writing happens through sharing of a few pieces of literary trivia.

Other Writers, Other Places

Virginia Woolf once famously said, to be able to write one needs money and a room of one’s own (in reference to women writing fiction in Shakespeare’s day). As any grad student can tell you, she was right about the money part.  But what about that other part? Is a room of one’s own the optimal setting for good writing?

Georges Simenon--
I think he's the guy at the desk.

Settings you can’t call your own may very well feature all manner of unhelpful distractions. Perhaps that’s why Belgian novelist Georges Simenon strongly favored working in a room just for him. Creator of hundreds of detective novels, Simenon was “perhaps the most widely published author of the 20th century,” according to his official website. Simenon would reportedly complete a novel in about eleven days of isolated, non-stop writing. He would take breaks to eat and sleep, but during these writing stints he would speak to no one, take no phone calls, and never leave his room (Salgado 66). No word on whether he ever considered grad school.

Writing in your own space may help foster constructive writing methods. In his later years, as pictured above, Mark Twain apparently preferred to write in his bedroom while still in bed. Twain isn’t the only successful author who developed a fancy for horizontal composing. The approach has been taken up more recently by DeKalb High School graduate, novelist, and Stanford professor Richard Powers.

Richard Powers: Standing up at Stanford.

In a 2003 interview in The Paris Review, Powers related that his dream “has always been to suspend myself in space when I write, and lying horizontal in bed is the closest to doing that.” Perhaps this method is worth exploring.

Just as memorable and worth considering is Ernest Hemingway’s habit of writing in his bedroom while standing up. A fascinating portrait of Hemingway’s work habits appears in this 1958 interview in The Paris Review.


Summing Up: Write Place/Write Time

Ernest Hemingway thinking on his feet.

Certainly all writers need some sort of combination of place and time in order to get their writing done. May the above anecdotes and reading links refresh some of your ideas about writing, help you rethink places where your best writing happens, and inspire you to get back to it.

And remember: a room of our own is available every second Thursday in the library. We hope to see you there. Until then, happy writing!

                             Work Cited

Salgado, Gamini.  “The Novelist at Work.”  Novels and Novelists: A Guide to the World of Fiction.   Ed. Martin Seymour-Smith.  New York: St. Martin’s, 1980.  Print.

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.

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.