Comments on: Strategies for successful dissertation completion

By: George Williams

George Williams — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 12:53:34 +0000

In response to Rachel’s comment #42: when you save a new version of something, prefix the date to the file name.

For example, don’t just name your draft of Chapter 1 “Chapter1.doc.” Name it “20051122.Chapter1.doc” instead. If you work on it a few days later, save that draft as “20051126.Chapter1.doc”

Delete the older drafts as appropriate. This naming system allows you to differentiate among the different copies you have saved in various locations and makes it easy to determine which is the most mature just by looking at the filename.

By the way, putting the year first, followed by month and day, results in files that line up in neat chronological order. Otherwise, they might line up in clumps of all the 22nd days of the month (regardless of month) and all the 11th months of the year (regardless of year).

By: Rachel

Rachel — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 20:19:05 +0000

Regarding number 3—I did this with my MFA thesis: one copy on disk, one on hard drive, one on e-mail in my account, one e-mailed to friend, one hard copy in my house, one hard copy in other location. The only risk is that if you revise after you deposit copies elsewhere, you need to be certain that you don’t wind up with one original version, one version that has revisions, another version with different revisions, etc. It can be nightmarish to try to make sense of this sort of trouble.

By: Gina Hiatt

Gina Hiatt — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 17:32:36 +0000

Having just given a talk to the graduate students at Brown about the relationship with your advisor, I’m interested in the comments on what kind of advisor to look for. I believe that a good advisor will not only help with the conceptualizing and writing of your thesis, but help you develop an identity as a knowledgeable scholar and a peer to your professors, so that you don’t drag yourself out of grad school, spent and filled with self loathing.
I often hear reports of needlessly cruel advisors, or alternatively, advisors who neglect their students shamelessly. My latest newsletter article, Why Are There So Many Bad Dissertation Advisors? explores the underlying reasons for this as seen by Dorothy and the Scarecrow. I agree with the above commentators that it is crucial to investigate how previous students or your potential advisors have done—not just in terms of eventual accomplishment, though. Find out whether these former students survived with their dignity and with their love of the field intact.

By: academic coach

academic coach — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 13:14:35 +0000

Coaching clients I’ve worked with have actually used the “check to a hated organization” technique. However, I’d like to suggest that it only be considered as an extreme measure. In general, the milder the incentive the better.
I’ve been coaching grad students and faculty for over a decade – but have only used this last-ditch method three times:

1) A grad student in a dissertation skills class wrote a page of her introduction to avoid sending a $25 check to a pro-life org.

2) A grad student who’d been ABD for 10 years sought individual coaching from me and we decided that if he didn’t write 10 pages the first week of our work together that he’d send $200 to the Bush re-election campaign. The pages got written the night before we met.
3) A 4th yr assistant professor, who hadn’t published anything in years, decided that he’d send off an almost-completed paper within 2 weeks or send $500 to the re-elect Tom Delay campaign. Fortunately, he mailed in the manuscript.

As you can see – this approach is not for the faint hearted. Use with caution.

BTW, the check needs to be written in advance and the coach or friend HAS to be willing to send it. Gotta say that sending any of these checks would have about killed me…

By: Earmarks in Early Modern Culture

Earmarks in Early Modern Culture — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 09:27:40 +0000

[...] …is a done dissertation. A great way to start a day of writing: Crooked Timber’s strategic advice on succesful completion of a PhD thesis! [...]

By: Barry

Barry — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 20:35:58 +0000

“do your best to avoid a situation where one committee member is having an illicit affair with another committee member’s spouse.” Personally had this situation over 25 years ago; not much could be done to avoid it. The affair was common knowledge and quite visible. Luckily, both (women) were constructive readers, and ultimately, quite polite during the defense. In a way, worrying about their behavior prevented me from being nervous about my performance at the defense.

By: Paris

Paris — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 09:14:02 +0000

This point is most critical before you are even in grad school: make sure that your program is committed to supporting you in a manner appropriate to your project. This is variable according to field, but basically boils down to $$$ to do the things you need to do. For scientists this can mean knowing the facilites available, what projects are currently underway by the lead researchers, and such; for the liberal arts, this means travel grants, library holdings, and a reasonable amount of flat out funding to do research instead of teaching, bar tending, etc.

In the event that you go forward without this commitment, recognize that the dissertation is going to take a lot longer to become successful.

By: Tom T.

Tom T. — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 04:27:33 +0000

Remember, there’s always law school….

By: Ken

Ken — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 02:30:51 +0000

#22: Always move forward. If you feel the need to procrastinate, use the time to do something useful, like organize your citations, preparing a CV or cover letter, laying the groundwork for the project after the dissertation.

By: Ed

Ed — Sun, 20 Nov 2005 22:04:51 +0000

This is just a variant on some of the other things posted, but I’d say this was the most important for me:

Establish a routine of daily writing—actual writing time, and pre-writing time (prepping for the next day of writing), and stick to it religiously. So much about writing a dissertation is establishing the habit of writing the dissertation.

By: A. G. Rud

A. G. Rud — Sun, 20 Nov 2005 19:55:37 +0000

To Mary at #21: the charity may work, but the variation I heard from reading Robert Boice (who, along with Jerrold Mundis, Nick Daws and Peter Elbow, is a great writing guru) was to have a check made out to a hated organization, such as the ACLU if you are a Fox News watcher, or the Heritage Foundation if you do not watch Fox News, and have a friend mail it if you do not meet a goal. (Boice’s obscure little gem, Professors as Writers: A Self Help Guide to Productive Writing, may be available used somewhere. Jerry Mundis has great things to say about writer’s block, too, in his book and tape series.)

By: VidalJr

VidalJr — Sun, 20 Nov 2005 14:46:35 +0000

do your best to avoid a situation where one committee member is having an illicit affair with another committee member’s spouse.

Cue discussion of how and when to restructure your committee…

By: rc

rc — Sun, 20 Nov 2005 06:30:30 +0000

Choose your dissertation committee carefully. Others have warned against thinking of your dissertation as a magnum opus; in hindsight, I’d say it’s better to view it as a parvum opus: your target audience is the three (or four, but three is better) people on your committee. Here’s a practical tip: when choosing your committee chair, check how many papers he or she has co-authored with students. In fact, I sometimes wonder whether it might be a good strategy to seek out exactly the professors I assiduously avoided: those who have a reputation for exploiting and ripping-off their graduate students. They’re the ones who have the most to gain from their students’ productivity. The professors who have a large volume of solo-authored work may be too occupied with their own research agenda to contribute much to your dissertation. Don’t forget to check where a potential chair’s students ended up: the second most important role for a committee member is to sign your dissertation, but the most important is to help you to get a job afterward. Here is a real-life painfully-learned (fortunately, not by me) lesson: do your best to avoid a situation where one committee member is having an illicit affair with another committee member’s spouse.

By: But I only just started! | Airminded

But I only just started! | Airminded — Sun, 20 Nov 2005 02:00:17 +0000

[...] Tips on how to complete a PhD, at Crooked Timber. Permalink | Comment | Trackback url [...]

By: nick s

nick s — Sat, 19 Nov 2005 17:21:11 +0000

After all, you aren’t really in grad school to be in grad school. You are there to get the requisite training and get out.

The UK/US distinction is important here, though: if you’re British and get funding, those three years before the cheques stop are your chance to have the university experience that you most likely forsook in order to get said funding.