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  • What Does it Mean to be Finished

    by

    Beth L. Hewett, PhD, CT

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    Being finished with a piece of writing is an interesting concept. In some ways, writing is never finished. We can always think of a different way to say something or something new to put into an article, essay, dissertation, or book. Sometimes, if we’re really involved in the piece, we’ll wake up at night with ideas we hadn’t considered before or that we’ve reworked in sleep (Hint: Keep a notebook and pen handy for those moments of brilliance!). Sometimes, my best ideas come when I’m in the pool swimming laps. No notebook available there, but I write them down or speak them into my cell phone when I return to the locker room. So, being truly finished is a rare thing. You’ll know you’ve hit “finished” when the project not only feels done, but it actually is done and defended successfully or published in some manner. What comes next? For people who have worked long and hard on a lengthy piece of writing like a thesis or book, sometimes it’s necessary to take time away from writing anything but certainly from that project. I’ve known people who won’t even look at a dissertation for two or more years after it is turned in! But for most of us, being finished means starting anew. It offers the opportunity to look at the problem we’ve worked through a different way or to examine an entirely new issue. Writing as an adult professional isn’t like writing for school projects. We typically don’t do them just because we have to; hopefully, we write because we have something to say and want to say it to others who can benefit from reading it. For writers or for anyone who must write in a profession, endings mean new beginnings. With luck and intention, those endings open up new opportunities, new delights in exploring ideas, and new understandings of the world in which we live.

    Action Steps:

    1. Keep a list of new ideas while you’re working on small and larger projects. Be ready to whittle down those ideas to ones that really matter to you. Get started as soon as you feel the urge to read, reflect, and write.
    2. Take a break after finishing a piece of writing, even if it is only for a few days. That’s a good time to clean off your desk of notes, books, and other debris. Take in a movie. Read a suspense or romance novel. Honor the ending with a dinner out with someone you care about. Then, with a freshened mind, begin anew.
    3. Avoid beginning a writing project just to get promoted or just to be published. That’s the worst possible reason to write. It will dull your brain, make you feel coerced into doing something odious, and cause you to struggle with words at every level. If you must publish for promotion and tenure, then find something truly worthy of your efforts. Remember that the best reason to write and publish something is that you have something of value to say and share.
    4. If you must write and hate writing or frequently experience a block, get a writing coach to help you figure out your next project and how to develop that project to the best of your advantage. Good coaches help with all aspects of writing – the soup to nuts of idea development, organization, drafting, offering feedback, discussing emotional blocks and cognitive concerns, and revising and editing.
    5. Finish something, yes! Be pleased and proud! And then, start anew!

  • Change Locations to Find More Words

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    Risa Gorelick, PhD

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    Sitting in the same location to write each day allows a writer to have a ritual. Often, sitting at your desk or your favorite coffee shop signals to your brain that it’s time to write.

    However, if you find yourself in your regular place and get stuck, a change in location may help. A trip to the library may help you refocus. You can also try a new coffee house to see if the different vibe helps you write. If you’re home, try another room in your house/apartment to see if a different view will allow you to focus on the writing task at hand.

    If you’re still stuck after trying various locations, contact a coach for some assistance on overcoming writer’s block.

  • How and When to Email Your Dissertation Advisor

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    Robbin Warner, PhD

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    Advisors can be tricky. They’re around to help you accomplish your goal, but they also have their own projects and responsibilities. They don’t have unlimited time to prod you and it’s not their job to force you. As a dissertator, one of the most crucial things you can do is to maintain an open line of communication with your advisor because it keeps you moving forward in a positive direction and it helps keep relationships clean. When you communicate your progress freely, your advisor isn’t left wondering what you’ve been doing with your time and you can ask for and receive the help you need when you need it. Maintaining a relationship with your advisor is always easier than rebuilding one, so don’t let yours fall into disrepair by failing to answer emails, even if you’re nervous about your progress or lack of it. You need your advisor’s guidance, so hiding from his/her emails won’t help you get finished. In fact, it’s best to practice professional assertion and send regular emails that communicate what you’re doing even when you’re not ready to send drafts to the advisor. Strive for a formal and polite tone, especially in the early stages of a relationship. There’s time for a more collegial relationship to grow, but don’t force it. Make a plan – hopefully with your advisor’s input – and, as much as humanly possible, stick to the schedule you set. This includes providing regular emails to your advisor informing him/her of how your work is progressing and identifying potential problems before they grow out of control. Be firm (and reasonable) about requests for help, and keep an open mind. There may be times when you don’t like what your advisor has to say, but that doesn’t mean she or he doesn’t have a point you need to consider thoughtfully. Similarly, you don’t have to sit back and passively accept all critique without respectful rebuttal or do everything your advisor suggests in an unquestioning manner. Part of completing a dissertation is maturing into a professional that your advisor and committee would recommend to others as a potential colleague. To that end, you need to learn how to take feedback, use what is helpful, and find your way through this monograph-length project. You alone have the responsibility to write your dissertation, so be assertive about your goals and your plan for meeting them. Emails to your advisor should serve a purpose. You’re both busy; don’t waste your own or your advisor’s time.

    Action Steps:

    1. Know how and when to approach your advisor. Don’t fall off the face of the Earth and don’t inundate your advisor with meaningless emails.
    2. Email regularly with confidence and in a polite tone. You have a right to receive feedback and help. You’re paying for it through your tuition. However, that doesn’t mean your advisor will jump the minute she or he reads your email, so be patient and send a polite reminder if necessary.
    3. Keep a record of your email correspondence and notes from phone or face-to-face meetings to help resolve problems if miscommunications do occur.
    4. If you’re hiding from your advisor for fear of letting him/her down, know that you can’t hide forever and you can’t finish your dissertation without an advisor. It’s best to jump in and get the reintroductions over with as soon as possible.
    5. Speak up early when a problem arises. Help your advisor to help you by asking for what you need to get through the problem. Be assertive about your own goals.

  • There’s Always Time to Proofread

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    Robbin Warner, PhD

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  • There’s Always Time to Proofread

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    Robbin Warner, PhD

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  • Setting Goals and Sticking to a Calendar

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    Robbin Warner, PhD

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    Time management is key to accomplishing any task, especially one as complex as a dissertation. Too often students get overwhelmed or stuck and lose track of not only how to move forward, but how to do it in a timely fashion. In those situations, the most useful thing you can do to help yourself (assuming you’ve been in helpful contact with your advisor) is to establish a calendar and stick with it. No easy task, that; we know. So start small by setting daily goals related to your dissertation project. This could be a simple goal like creating a brief outline of a chapter-in-progress or identifying relevant library material. A more ambitious goal might be producing a pre-determined number of pages per writing day. Once you have daily goals set, start thinking bigger. What are your weekly and monthly goals? Identify them, break them into manageable pieces, and write them down so they’re staring you in the face. Many of us don’t have the will power to stick to a calendar in the face of other, possibly more entertaining, activities, especially if we’re already struggling. That’s where an outside voice enters your life. Your calendar isn’t just for yourself. Let a writing buddy, your significant other, or a dissertation coach know your plans so there is someone else who is aware of your goals. This person can help keep you on track. She or he can help you refocus if your attention wanders and can recognize your effort when you meet your goals. This person doesn’t necessarily need to know much about your topic, but you must be comfortable sharing both your successes and you failures, so choose wisely. If you get stuck, don’t despair. Recognize that we all have bad days no matter how diligently we work and pick back up tomorrow. Each day’s work adds up and before you realize it, you can have a finished draft ready to hand off to your advisor.

    Action Steps

    1. Set daily tasks related to your dissertation project.
    2. Move on to weekly and monthly goals. Try working backward from your desired date of completion to create a goals-related calendar that makes sense.
    3. Put your daily, weekly, and monthly goals into writing. This could be a paper calendar or your phone or tablet’s calendar program, but make sure you see it every day.
    4. Choose a person to hold you accountable for meeting the goals you’ve set for yourself. This person should be someone you trust.
    5. Hire a coach to help you identify reasonable goals and troubleshoot writing, planning, time management, and committee-related challenges.

  • Just Write

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    Robbin Warner, PhD

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  • Working Well with Your Adviser

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    Beth L. Hewett, PhD, CT

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    Advisers. You can’t live with them; you can’t live without them. Actually, most of the time, your adviser is a good ally to the dissertation project. This person – for some reason – has opted to work with you for a lengthy gig that may take a few years. That’s quite a commitment to you and your potential! At some point, hopefully, you had (and still have) a good relationship with him or her. Sometimes, though, the relationship sours, and you may need outside help figuring out how to manage this important association. It’s important to remember that your adviser is not a writing coach. She’s not a therapist for writer’s block or marital problems. He’s not a doctor of medicine to figure out whether any malaise you experience is physical or psychological. Your adviser’s primary job is to advise you on the topic and the written product of the dissertation. That means you need to do the work and provide the dissertation to him or her in whatever form is required. Some advisers want to see the chapters as they are written; others want to see whatever you’ve gotten done in perhaps a month or two months; while still others only want to see the entire piece. But advisers also owe you something. Most dissertation students still pay tuition while they dissertate. That means you’re a paying student who is entitled to your professor’s time and feedback. To that end, it is the adviser’s job to provide you with timely face-to-face, Skype, or phone meetings and written or other feedback on dissertation chunks. When months go by and the adviser hasn’t responded to your request for a meeting or for feedback, something is badly wrong. If you have provided your best efforts to write the dissertation and don’t hear back from the adviser in a reasonable time frame (hint: months of no contact is not reasonable), you should change tactics and get your needs met immediately. Yes, you are entitled to this help!

    Action Steps:

    1. Begin with an adviser with whom you can work. If forced into a relationship that is less than ideal (and, yes, this does happen – often for political reasons in the department), find an ally right away who can help you plan to manage the relationship. A writing coach is one person who can help.
    2. Be accessible to your adviser, keep him or her in the loop of your progress with regular (bi-monthly, at least) emails or calls, and be appreciative of the time you receive. Be polite and lean more to formality than informality in emails because one day they may become evidence of a relationship that isn’t working as it should.
    3. If the relationship sours, try to figure out what, if anything, you can change about your own approach to the interpersonal dynamic or to your dissertation writing. Some responsibility will be in both camps. If changing your own behavior isn’t sufficient, try talking to your adviser honestly and without undue emotion (you can cry later!) about what you perceive to be wrong and what you need for the relationship to work.
    4. Talk to another committee member who may be able to provide you with the guidance you need, but don’t pit one committee member against another! That makes problems worse and you’ll most likely lose. Remember that eventually you’ll move on with or without the degree and university colleagues will need to keep their relationships cordial with or without you.
    5. If all else fails – if you cannot get a response from the adviser or if you and he or she cannot get along – go to the graduate dean. The university has something invested in your graduation, and you’re a paying student. You do have options other than to suck up a bad relationship. Be prepared to outline the problem; state fairly and clearly what you have done to mitigate it; describe what results your efforts have wrought, if any; and ask for what you need in order to finish the dissertation successfully. If possible, offer your choice of a reasonable defense date for completion or, if needed, make a request for a new adviser.
    6. Managing the committee and working well with the adviser are core skills you’ll need in any academic or professional life after the PhD. Take charge, think and act carefully, and enjoy what you can about your future colleagues. They’ll respect you for your efforts.
    7. If you need help, call a coach who can walk you through the challenges of navigating adviser communications and interactions. You don’t have to go it alone!

  • Reward Yourself

    by

    Risa Gorelick, PhD

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  • It’s Okay to Ask for Help

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    Robbin Warner, PhD

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    Writing projects, especially lengthy ones like dissertations and books, are hard work. There are lots of moving parts and changing ideas we need to keep straight to express our thoughts clearly.

    Advisors, committee members, and publishers sometimes make suggestions or set requirements whose purpose can be difficult to understand. It can be hard to break up such a large project into manageable pieces. Setting a reasonable schedule and sticking to it is also hard.

    Take the dissertation, for example. It requires several specific kinds of evidence to be presented in fairly standard forms. To write a quality dissertation, you need to be able to learn and juggle each of those items and many more. It’s no wonder that the task often feels overwhelming. Advisors, research, writing, schedules, evidence, literature reviews and methodologies – it may feel like too much for a single person to master

    That’s when you need to ask for help. Maybe getting help is as simple as asking someone you trust to listen to you vent after an emotionally draining week. But sometimes, help needs to be more formalized, and that’s okay. In fact, that’s why dissertation and writing coaches like the ones at Defend & Publish exist.

    In the early stages of particularly long projects, you may find yourself struggling to formulate a topic or articulate research questions. Later, you might be unsure about how to write a strong literature review or to figure out what a massive pile of data actually means. Toward the end, you may need help with navigating your committee or general formatting and editing requirements. These are all places where a coach legitimately can help shoulder the weight of finishing a dissertation. Similarly, book projects and even academic articles for publication can benefit from a coach’s eyes.

    Working with a coach isn’t cheating. Coaches offer necessary support and guidance so that you can successfully complete important professional writing tasks.

    Action Steps

    1. Think about what kind of help you need: a friendly ear, a surrogate advisor, a writing coach to help you maintain balance or a productive pace.
    2. Act early. Don’t wait until you’re drowning in your dissertation or other writing project. It’s easier to finish a project well having started it with support than to have to regroup in mid-project. (But it’s also better to regroup in mid-project than to flounder alone!)
    3. Contact a coach like the ones at Defend & Publish who can help with a wide variety of issues throughout the writing project process from conceptualization to completion.

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