7 Secrets to Completing your Dissertation in One Year
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In this webinar, we will share 7 secrets to assist you in completing your dissertation in just 1 year! There will be a brief question and answer session at the end of the presentation.
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7 Secrets to Completing your Dissertation in One Year
- 1. 7 Secrets to Completing a Dissertation in 1 Year
- 2. 1 Develop Research Questions and Hypotheses Research questions are the foundation of the project All sections of the dissertation stem from the research questions Take a deep dive into the literature Need help with your dissertation? Call 727-442-4290
- 3. 2 Establish a Detailed Timeline and Methodology Work on IRB early Practice time management Block time on your schedule for writing Create a step-by-step list of your methodology Need help with your dissertation? Call 727-442-4290
- 4. 3 Anticipate Participant Recruitment Process & Challenges Have contingency plans in place Talk about your ideas with others Need help with your dissertation? Call 727-442-4290
- 5. 4 Utilize a Reference Librarian and Citation Management Tools Utilize your school's library resources Create a table of evidence Explore citation management tools: EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley etc. Need help with your dissertation? Call 727-442-4290
- 6. 5 GetOrganized with your reviewers Be aware of expectations Set deadlines Get written feedback Need help with your dissertation? Call 727-442-4290
- 7. 6 Keep Perspective Positive reinforcement Seek support Take breaks Need help with your dissertation? Call 727-442-4290
- 8. 7 DelegateTasks Hire a statistician, consultant, APA editor, transcriptionist Undergraduate or graduate research assistants Need help with your dissertation? Call 727-442-4290
- 9. Additional Support Statistics Solutions is a full-service dissertation consulting company providing graduate students timely, editorial support for their dissertations and scholarly projects For information about our services, receive a complementary 30-min consultation available Mon-Fri 9-5 ET Contact info@StatisticsSolutions.com Phone: 877-437-8622
Editor's Notes
- They set-up your methodological approach, theoretical constructs, participants and sampling frame, and data collection procedures
- If writing is a commitment, it shouldn’t be an all-encompassing one (like marriage) nor should it be a short spark (like Tinder). Potentially terrible analogy aside, many people have written about the benefits of writing incrementally and this strategy follows suit. The best thing I have done has been committing to writing often, rather than procrastinating or leaving the work aside for too many consecutive days. This can take two forms: Commit to a daily word or page count: Set a realistic and somewhat flexible goal. For instance, I aim to write 600-1000 words a day. Some days I easily hit that target and keep going, others I may fall a little bit short. Committing to a ballpark figure adds up much faster than you’d think! Or commit to a daily time goal: Though I personally prefer the word count, thinking about the work in terms of hours may be a more efficient strategy for some. Either way, the goal is to aim for consistency. Tell yourself that you’ll commit for two hours a day and stick to it, then do whatever else you need or want to do and come back the next day. I do think it should be at least an hour (rather than x minutes), because you need some time to work into the writing state. Methodology is the blueprint of a your dissertation bridge Gather all of the plans for your study, then imagine you can give your methods chapter to your next door neighbor who knows nothing about your research; can they now replicate your study? All Science is based on the ability to replicate findings, and a clear methods chapter is the instruction manual for others to replicate your study. Develop the participants, instruments, and procedures sections – if you don’t have these, you don’t have a study. This probably could fit in the number one slot, but I wanted to emphasize the importance writing right away. Besides, you might find that you modify your thesis and methodology slightly as you write and make progress in developing your overall argument. Nevertheless, the adage is true: form a solid thesis and methodology statement and your dissertation will “write itself.” Plan to spend some time writing and rewriting and rewriting (again) your thesis and methodology statements so that you will know where you are going and where you need to go. Developing a clear thesis and methodology will allow you to move around in your dissertation when you get stuck. Granted, we should not make a habit of avoiding difficult tasks, but there are times when it will be a more effective use of time to move to sections that will write easy. As you continue to make progress in your project and get words on paper, you will also help mitigate the panic that so often looms over your project when you get stuck and your writing ceases.
- Consider participant recruitment and data collection very early What are the potential implications (read “roadblocks”) when submitting your proposal to the Institutional Review Board (IRB) if you are planning to interview vulnerable participants? Do you think they may be cautious in approving your application? Of course they will! As an institution they are opening themselves up to potential liability.
- Finding a good reference librarian is worth it’s weight in gold Find a reference librarian to identify relevant articles and learn how to summarize peer-reviewed articles for literature review and examine them closely for possible research questions and methodological approaches. Literature Review More than just reviewing a literature, you’re building an argument. Referring to the literature is going to be an important factor here. You may have heard the phrase good readers make good writers. To really understand the state of the current literature and be able to add to it I recommend reviewing articles in your field or about the variables that you are interested in studying and practicing active reading. So don’t just read the article but create a table of evidence where you are documenting the variables that were used in studies, the way the variables were defined, and the findings. This will help you formulate ideas in advance of writing. When you are putting together your table of evidence you should also make note of your own reactions to, and insights about, the studies that you have reviewed. Citation management tools help you keep track of articles and books as you find them. They also easily create in text citations and bibliographies in Microsoft Word. These are very time efficient tools that will take some of the work load off of you as you are writing your paper.
- Plan Appropriately Expect revisions from your chair, readers, and the IRB, and plan for them. For example, my advisor put a 3x-4x multiplier on the original timeline to complete a research project. Ask for written feedback
- It’s a challenging time during this process, but to be creative and to think well, you need to stay calm. It helps to maintain a strong vision of you completing your dissertation. Stay in balance in your life, and keep your attitude positive.
- Hire a statistician, qualitative researcher and APA editor The fact is we’ve been through the process a thousand times. Student’s time is better spent on thinking through the implications of their findings rather than working through the nuances of statistical analyses to generate accurate results. We know which assumptions can be violated while retaining trustworthy results