TO ENSURE YOUR SUCCESS, YOU MUST RESPECT “THE DISSERTATION”: PART 2

Last week, I recounted my experience hiking Half Dome in Yosemite National Park, an endeavor that I did not take seriously enough, and I suffered unnecessarily because I had not sufficiently prepared. This week, I use this cautionary tale to emphasize the importance of preparing well for your dissertation as you will be doing yourself a huge favor if you appreciate the gravity of this undertaking. There are four important parts to this preparation: inform yourself, prepare well, plan well, and respect the task.

INFORM YOURSELF

Before embarking on your dissertation – or as early as possible after you have begun, talk to faculty and fellow students; read and review some books on dissertation writing (such as my book De-Stressing the Dissertation). Look at one or two recent dissertations in your school library that either used your same methodology and/or had your same dissertation chair.  

You will get a sense from this process of how challenging the dissertation is, how much time it realistically will take you, what the many steps involved are, and how to best approach or organize yourself.  You will also likely get many good tips about how to best proceed and protect yourself from possible missteps (such as not communicating well with your dissertation chair) or hindrances (such as choosing to study a population that is difficult to recruit or a subject that has very few sources).

PREPARE WELL

By informing yourself, you will also get a sense of the importance of preparing well. You will be deciding in advance important considerations, such as (a) how many sources you will need for the literature review, (b) how to best organize those sources, and (c) how you work best and where you’ll want to do most of your work. You’ll also want to (d) put together a support team that may include your significant other, friends, fellow students, family, your chair (you’ll want to ascertain what your chair will and will not do), other faculty, administrators, and support services.

PLAN WELL

Once you have informed yourself and done the preparations you need before starting your dissertation, you need to create a realistic timeline that takes into consideration the time you need to:

 (a)         conceptualize your study 

(b)        collect the sources for your literature review

(c)         read, summarize, and synthesize your sources

(d)        organize the best way to present the literature review (e.g., via major themes, theories, variables,

or chronologically)

(e)         write your proposal chapters

(f)          allow time for your chair and others to read and review (such as your second reader, editor,

friends, and colleagues)

(g)        revise per your chair’s instructions or your own wish/need to revise, expand, etc.

(h)        conduct the research

(i)          collect your data

(j)          analyze your data

(k)        write the results and discussion chapters

(l)          create a final draft that adheres to all of the academic rules and is the best representation of

your writing, analyzing, synthesizing, and organizing abilities

(m)      complete all the final steps, including obtaining signatures, filing copies with the library, etc.

And depending on your study, you may also need to:

(n)        recruit participants 

(o)        create an instrument or questionnaire 

(p)        perform a pilot study

(q)        create tables and figures

You will also want to:

(r)         give yourself an adequate cushion for:

— possibly having underestimated the time you need for doing all of the above steps

—all the many unforeseen curve balls thrown your way (e.g., illness, family emergencies, chair

traveling to India or curating a large museum show)

—the need to take a break from time to time, as well as

(s)         planning for your financial needs

(t)          planning for your childcare needs, as well as

(u)        galvanizing your support team and determining how and when to ask for their support,

as well as

(v)         determining how to take care of your health and well-being, including:

          —good diet

          —sufficient exercise

          —adequate rest

          —R&R, as well as

(w)       planning your weekly schedule (what days and times you will be working on your dissertation),

as well as

(x)         how you will celebrate once you have finished your dissertation

(y)         how you will recover from this long, intense process, as well as

(z)         __________________________________ (other—you fill in the blank!)  

 RESPECT THE TASK

Don’t underestimate the challenge, such as cavalierly thinking that although others have taken years, you can complete your dissertation in a matter of months. The dissertation is a weighty undertaking. If you give it the respect it requires, you will be in a position to complete this undertaking in the most advantageous manner.   

In reflecting back to our Half Dome experience, we thought that we had informed ourselves and prepared well in that we ensured that we would have as much water and trail mix as we needed (√), good hiking boots (√), and gloves for the cables (√). We did one hike in the Berkeley Hills to try out our hiking boots and prepare for the challenging climb. We found accommodations outside the park, determined when we would start our hike, and agreed that we would be down in time to catch dinner in Yosemite Valley.

In hindsight, I realize that we communally and I individually did not respect the extent of the challenge. My boots weren’t worn in, and I hadn’t clipped my toenails. I didn’t take my knee into consideration (I should have had walking poles). We didn’t start early enough — we were the last ones to reach the subdome)[1], and none of us paid attention to where we had parked. 

So, I hope I have convinced you to respect the dissertation by informing, preparing, and planning yourself well!

[1] Here are the park’s recommendations: Check sunrise and sunset times and leave around sunrise (or earlier) and then have a non-negotiable turnaround time. For instance, if you haven’t reached the top of Half Dome by 3:30 pm, you will turn around.

GOOD WRITING IS LIKE CAREFUL GARDENING

Are you a good gardener? I’m not. My husband is a wonderful gardener, and occasionally, he asks me to help him. A few weeks ago, he asked me to weed a section of the front yard.

I did bad job.

 I worked for maybe 30 minutes. I pulled lots of weeds and filled up half of one of our green cans. My husband looked at my work and said, “You missed some.” 

So, even though I did 30 minutes of hard work, I got no credit. No “thank you.” Just “you missed some.” 

Truth told, I didn’t have my heart in it, and so, I wasn’t very conscientious. I did a first pass; I did not go back to look for any missed weeds.

A week later, my husband asked me to do another weeding job, this time the backyard steps. I had been looking at the weeds around these steps for a long time and they really bothered me. The sun was very strong the day I did this job, and I sweated a lot. No matter. I was bound and determined to get every last weed. 

 I did an amazing job. My husband was very pleased – as was I. 

 How was this job different from the other? Same task, same weeds.

 I was motivated, committed, “all in” with the second job. 

So, What Does This Have to Do With Writing?

If you approach writing as I approached my first job: in a lackadaisical, half-assed manner, it will permeate your writing, no matter how much time you put into it.

With good writing, as with good gardening (or weeding), you have to be committed to it. You have to be “all in.” You have to do your best. Consider carefully and with a clear head the whole of what you’re writing: where you want to start and where you are going. 

Every writing project starts with a first draft (as Anne LaMott says, “butt in the chair,” write a “shitty first draft”), and then importantly, you return to that draft, review it, revise it, maybe rearrange text here and there, think of a better word or phrase for saying something, make adjustments, maybe add text, maybe delete some text. 

Then, when you turn it in – or do whatever you plan to do with it – your reader will know that you put your heart into it. You may not be Maya Angelou or William Shakespeare, but if you put your heart into your writing and go “all in,” whatever you write – regardless of your writing ability – it will have merit and you can be proud of it.

Caveat: Being “all in” and having your heart in your work is not the same as trying to be perfect. Trying to be perfect will simply get you into trouble. You can do a really good job, knowing that it will never be perfect.

Can Chinese Students Master Academic Writing in English? continued

FINAL DRAFT

Good enough!

You have now carefully reviewed your essay. It is as good as you can get it on your own. Now what?

• Ask for help from your teacher or your advisor.

• Find out whether your school has other resources such as student tutors or a writing center.

•  Ask someone to read your essay—maybe your roommate, a fellow student, or your partner.

• Consider hiring an editor. 

GETTING NEGATIVE FEEDBACK

Do not despair!

You have now turned in your essay. You are unhappy with the feedback you get. It has many markups. Your teacher has recommended that you “use an editor” or writes that your writing “needs improvement.” You pass “with concern.”  You feel discouraged. You’ll never learn to master writing in English. You are at such a disadvantage compared to the other students, all of whom are native speakers. Do they even realize how much extra time and effort it takes you to write an essay? 

What do you do now?

Don’t become disheartened. Learning to writing in English, especially when your own language is so different, is not easy. Learning to write an academic essay is not easy, even for a native speaker. 

• Learn from your mistakes. Review your paper carefully and compare your first draft to your first draft. Keep in mind that the more time your instructor spent in correcting your essay the better your chances are of improving your writing. So, welcome the feedback! 

• Make note of one or two takeaway lessons from this assignment and take heart that your next essay—although it will undoubtedly continue to have issues—will be better than the preceding one. 

Eventually, you will be amazed at how far you have come. One may never gain the ability to write or speak as well as a native speaker, but with effort and perseverance, you can make great strides. And you must also appreciate how hard it is to master a language that you did not grow up hearing. You are, indeed, brave and worthy of admiration for your efforts. 

Can Chinese Students Master Academic Writing in English? continued

SECOND DRAFT: PART 2

The ESL student encounters many more challenges than the native speaker.

Last week, we looked at choice of words and phrases. This week, we will look at use of singular and plural, prepositions, verb tenses, and running and spelling and grammar check.

1.  Check singular and plural, subject-verb agreement, and proper use of articles. 

• Make sure that plural nouns have the final “s”: 10 books, the students in the program.

•  Identify the noun/subject and the verb and make sure they agree. In most cases, the singular verb has an “s,” and the plural verb does not. Sometimes the subject and the verb are not immediately identifiable because they are separated by long descriptions or interjected phrases (ergo, the importance of keeping your writing clean and clear!). 

• Make sure you are using articles (a/an, the) when they are required. If the noun is singular, you need an article: “an essay,” “the word”; if it’s plural, an article is not required unless you are being specific or emphatic. So, “restaurants,” without the article is fine (“finding restaurants that are affordable”), but when you are being specific (“the restaurants that are most affordable”), you need the article.

2. Finding the correct preposition. 

The only way to learn prepositions is to memorize them. I still look up word combinations (e.g., is it “different than” or “different from”; “relationship to” or “relationship with”). The best way to make sure that you are using the correct preposition is to put it into your Internet browser. I do this often. Again, just as with determining the proper phrase, the correct answer is usually instantaneous. 

3. Next challenge: verb tenses. 

Here I am only offering the very basic rules for verb tenses. 

• The simple present verb is, of course, the easiest: “I write the essay.”

• The gerund (-ing ending) is probably more commonly used than the simple present. “I am writing the essay.” 

• The simple future tense is also fairly straightforward: “I will write the essay tomorrow” (“I am going to write the essay tomorrow” is more colloquial and thus should not be used in academic writing). 

• The past tense can be more complicated: “I wrote the essay yesterday” (simple past). But then there are many other variations: “The students had been writing (past perfect progressive) the essay, when the electricity went out” (simple past).” 

4.      Run a spelling and grammar check. 

Run a spelling and grammar check, which is available on all word processing programs. You may also wish to download the program “Grammarly,” which is a free app that identifies typographical and grammar errors and suggests correct usage.

Next week, final draft!

Strategies for Overcoming the Writing Challenges of ESL Students: First Draft

FIRST DRAFT

The ESL student is on par with the native speaker. 

The Components of Good Academic Writing Are Universal

Regardless of whether you are writing in your first language or your fifth, the same components of good academic writing apply: accuracy, clarity, conciseness, objectivity, continuity, content, organization. It’s about having something new and worthwhile to say and then taking great care and thought in how to express your ideas. In this sense, ESL writers are on par with native-speaking writers.

I often find the ESL student’s writing easier to edit than the native speaker’s writing. Why is this? Because the ESL writer is often a good writer who is able to incorporate all the important principles of academic writing. Thus, when editing, I am not faced with a morass of inarticulate or randomly organized ideas, but rather the need to correct phrases (e.g., “nervous breakdown” rather than “nerve break down” or “she was a straight-A student” rather than “she received A’s throughout her classes”), word choices (“end” instead of “endpoint,” “adaptable” versus “bendable,” “sculpting tool” versus “scalpel”), and grammatical errors.   

Improving Your Writing Takes Effort and Practice—Also Universal

Learning to write well can only be accomplished through effort and practice—just like learning a sport. With time and effort and a willingness to learn, not only do you increase your ability and improve your skills, but you build your confidence.

Write Clearly and Cleanly

All students need to learn to write in a way that (1) communicates their ideas to their target audience and (2) is easy to comprehend. If you are an ESL writer, I encourage you to make an extra effort to write clearly. Strive to keep sentences and phrases clean and not overly long or complicated. Avoid long introductory phrases or nouns overburdened by too many adjectives. Stick to vocabulary that is commonly used in your field. Too many people think that academic writing means writing formally in a way that is far from natural, using words that are known by few, and making overly complex sentences by stringing together too many ideas, examples, or just being overly wordy. (For example, one could argue that my last sentence is too long at 43 words.) In truth, when I read the essays of “hotheads,” I become distracted from the writing by my awareness of how insecure these writers are because their main objective is really to show me how smart they are. In other words, they do not really care about what they are writing about—they just want to show off.   

Take Frequent Breaks

Forcing yourself to sit for hours at a time is not productive. Our brains need a chance to refresh—just like athletes need to give their muscles time to recharge. So, make sure you take a break at least every hour or hour and a half. 

Next week, second draft!

Can Chinese Students Master Academic Writing in English?

My college roommate was studying Mandarin; I was studying French. While I was grappling with accents grave (è) and aigu (é), she was learning Chinese characters. Each word has its own unique character! She told me that even her native-born professor sometimes forgot a character and would just put a circle on the chalkboard.

Many of my students are Chinese.  They are required to do a lot of writing in the doctoral program where I teach, which culminates with the dissertation. Whether it’s an essay, a report, or a CV, it cannot have grammatical errors. Just as it takes Westerners years to learn to write in Chinese, it takes Chinese students equal effort to master writing in English. But they do. I am always amazed by how much their English improves from the first year to the last.

Let’s first look at the unique challenges that Chinese students face in English writing: 

1. As mentioned above, the structure of their language is dramatically different from English, but it’s more than just Chinese characters versus an alphabet.

2. The Chinese language has no plurals, so instead of “one thing” or “many things,” it’s “one thing” or “many thing.” 

3. The Chinese language has no tenses, so instead of “go,” “went,” “will go,” it’s “I go,” I go yesterday,” “I go tomorrow.” 

4. English, arguably, has more words than any other language---over 170,000 according to The Oxford English Dictionary.

5. English words are derived from many languages, both active and ancient, including Arabic, Bantu, Chinese, Czechoslovakian, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Zulu, to name a few.

6. English words go in and out of style, and their connotations change—even becoming the opposite of their original meaning, such as: 

   Bad—Bad now means better than good--such as “she is hella bad” (meaning sexy), “bad ass” (meaning really good at something). 

   Queer—Queer used to mean odd, unusual. Then, it became a derogatory term for homosexual. Then, the LGBTQ+ community adopted the word, so that now it has a positive connotation but has no relationship whatsoever to its meaning 50 years ago. 

7. In academic writing, many words are not allowable because they are clichés (overused phrases) or too colloquial/informal, such as the words awesome, cool, fine, perfect, really, super, sensational, and common spoken phrases such as fit the bill, down to earth, crystal clear. 

8. Correct use of prepositions must be memorized: at, among, amid, amidst, by, in, into, of, off, on, upon, with, within. Using the wrong preposition is a common error, even among native speakers.

9. Choosing the correct term when making comparisons is another common error for native and nonnative speakers alike: Is it fewer, less, a decrease in, or a smaller amount? Is it more, greater than, or an increase in?

10. Finally, the proper use of punctuation marks deserves a “shout out”: comma (,), period (.), semicolon (;), colon (:), dash (—), question mark (?), exclamation mark (!), parenthesis ( () ), slash (/) and ellipsis dots (…). 

Next week, we will begin to look at strategies to overcome these challenges.

What Is the Cost to Have Your Dissertation or Thesis Edited? Based on a 100-Page Dissertation

All of the students I have worked with across the globe have one thing in common: They don’t have much money. Yet, most students—regardless of their writing ability and time factors—would undoubtedly welcome some form of help from an editor. But can they afford it? Is it worth the cost?

Here is a guide for help you can get from working with an editor. Note that these prices are general estimates and are based on a 100-page manuscript.  

$500. A cursory review for formatting and compliance with your school’s specifications and academic style guide.

 There are a few formatting commands that I can perform in seconds or minutes that some students never master or spend hours trying to figure out. For example:

·      Creating/formatting the Table of Contents. Do you know that the customary dots in the Table of Contents is a simple tab? Take a second. Under paragraph formatting, click on tabs. You will see two options on the right: “alignment” and “leader.” So, rather than hitting dot, dot, dot, dot, dot across the page and still not being able to line up the page numbers, a simple tab is all you need (as shown here with the tab stop at 6.5”). 

·      Formatting headings and block quotes:

As you are getting ready to submit your dissertation, there can be a lot of anxiety around formatting and style guide compliance. For many students, it is well worth the cost of hiring an editor to review their dissertation before final submission. 

$1,500. A careful/technical reading of your dissertation, correcting grammatical errors (data are, none is), typographical errors, formatting errors, and noncompliance with the academic style guide (10 or ten? noncompliance or non-compliance?). Many students hire editors for technical editing as they would rather not slog through the rules in the 200+-page style guide. It is very reassuring to have a professional do a once-over, page-by-page reading of your dissertation.

$3,000-$6,000. In this price range, you are asking an editor to provide copyediting. Some students need this for a number of reasons, such as: 

·      They are so busy in their professional life that they simply don’t have time to do more than the first draft.

·      They are unfamiliar with academic writing or do not have confidence in their ability to write at a level that they themselves wish to see in their own scholarly publications. 

·       Writing is not their forte for other reasons: ESL (English is not their native language), LD (they may have a learning disability), or they were never taught how to write well.

Is it worth it? Yes.

If you hire an editor, you will finish your program sooner—which in and of itself may save you the cost of working with an editor; you will be proud of your published dissertation; and you will be able to get on with your chosen career (i.e., start to make money!).

One important caveat: Editors are not licensed, and thus, you must be confident that the editor you hire is qualified, trustworthy, and ethical. 

Are considering hiring an editor? Stay tuned. Next week, I will be writing about how to hire an editor.

You may also wish to purchase my book, De-Stressing the Dissertation and Other Forms of Academic Writing: Practical Guidance and Real-Life Stories.  

Kathleen Kline is an academic editor with over 35 years’ experience working with students across six continents. She is the Director of the Writing Center at the Wright Institute, a clinical psychology school in Berkeley, California.  

What Is the Best Way to Approach Your Dissertation or Thesis? Setting Yourself Up for Success

But, first, before you delve into the hours and hours of research and writing, take a moment to set yourself up for success. Think of it as bicycling up a steep hill on the hardest gear versus on the easiest gear. Both ways, you’ll get there eventually, but the difference in degree of effort is enormou

My point: It is very much worth your while to do some important preparations and take in some important considerations before delving into your dissertation. 

1.     Your relationship with your committee. Always keep in mind that you will only have completed your dissertation after your committee members have signed off on it. So, keep appointments and be respectful, grateful, thoughtful, and diligent in all of your communications with them. Also, know what they can do and are willing to do to help you.

2.      Organization of your materials. Think carefully through how to best create an organization system for your literature review. Devise a system for your sources such that you can find what you need when you need it, know where you are going to use it, and be able to identify within each source the main points, direct quotations you may wish to use, as well the complete citation. This may be more difficult than you think, and yet, it is critical to your success.

3.     Backing up your work. Losing any work will cause distress. Make sure you’ve got it backed up with at least one of the following methods: using iCloud and/or an external hard drive, emailing it to yourself, printing out a hard copy.

4.     Work schedule. Set a weekly schedule to work on your dissertation (e.g., M 9-12, W 3-5, F 2-4). Try it out for a few weeks to see if you can maintain it, and if not, modify it. Then, consider it set in stone. During these hours, you will only be working on your dissertation—even if you spend the time staring at your computer and getting nothing done. 

5.     Don’t expect too much out of yourself. If you create a schedule that is too ambitious, you will be setting yourself up for failure. It’s so much better to say, “I accomplished what I set out to do,” or even, “I didn’t get as much done as I had hoped to,” versus, “I failed.” 

6.     Take frequent breaks. The human brain is only able to fully focus for 1-2 hours at a time. When we try to push past this limit, we end up being less productive, not more. Just as with physical exercise, taking a break during a bike ride, a ski run, or a swim can totally reset the muscles so that you will feel refreshed when you go back to your activity.

7.     Take care of yourself. Consider the dissertation as an athletic event—a marathon. In order to make it across the finish line, you need stamina and to be in good physical and mental health. This requires that you eat well, maintain consistent physical exercise, get good rest, and schedule in entertainment—something you can look forward to. 

8.     Get all the help you can get. Support comes in many forms and from many places. There are school resources (librarian, faculty, support services); fellow students willing to read/edit your manuscript; family and friends willing to bring/make you meals, clean your house, buy groceries; your parents or a favorite aunt willing to offer financial support, such as paying for an editor; and outside professional support (editor, statistician, researcher). Not to be overlooked or underappreciated is your partner who is willing to tolerate your absence, anxiety, and obsessiveness during this time. Finally, be reassured that your dissertation committee is charged with ensuring that you complete your dissertation.  

9.     Avoid disappointment, discouragement, burnout. To continue to make good progress on your dissertation, you need to remain upbeat—which is why it is so important to set yourself up for success. So, maintain a good relationship with your committee, be well organized, back up your work, set up a good work schedule, get support, take care of yourself, and don’t expect too much out of yourself. 

10.  But expect the unexpected. Something unexpected always come up.

Last week, I wrote about Charles’s progress. Today, he sent his completed dissertation to his chair.

Let me hear from you. What concerns do you have about completing your dissertation?

 Next week: the $64 question: What does it cost to get my research project edited?