2. First the Challenges
Personal issues during the process.
Hegemonic forces from English-based countries.
Shifting cultural priorities, especially in funding.
Transitioning from being a student to being a scholar.
Conflicting paradigms.
Departmental culture.
Inadequate advisement.
Failure of nerve.
Lack of creativity.
3. On Transitions, Orientations
and Living with Ambiguities
Where we are going is inseparable from the way we go
there.
How are conclusions made?
What is the role of free will in research?
All research supports the paradigms from which it comes.
Sometimes we control the paradigm, sometimes it controls
us.
Clearly research is both a calling governed by standards
and cumulative trends. But it is also intensely personal.
4. Evolving Standards of
Research
Whose values does research serve?
More personal, more autoethnographic.
More mixed methods.
More critical.
More emphasis on the holistic nature of a piece, the
congruence factor.
5. A Word or Two about
Congruence
Title
Terms
Purpose
Audience
Literature
Research questions
Data collection
Data analysis
Products
7. Eight Signs of Successful
Dissertation Success
Realistic self-appraisal.
A sense of the future and maintaining visions.
Organization skills.
Willingness to take a risk.
Managing competing demands.
Evolving research skill.
Knowing one’s calling.
Knowing the dissertation is a step along the way.
