Grad Student Retreat, Fall 2013

Notes, 8.23.2013, “Writing your thesis/dissertation”

• starting with M.A. thesis
  • Dr. James Garza recommends beginning writing in your 3rd semester
  • defense dates come in March or early April
  • need time for revisions
  • gave his students about 3-4 weeks to write a chapter
  • some people on your committee will want the entire thesis all at once
  • don’t worry too much about the organization at first b/c you can change the organization around
  • the earlier you start the writing cycle, the better it will be
    • write a “skeleton” first chapter if you need to
    • hang your primary sources on it as you go
    • anything you write for a prospectus will eventually be part of your thesis/dissertation in some form – don’t think about it as a “throw away” writing exercise
  • remember that you’ll be preparing applications for the PhD programs too (and your professors will also have deadlines related to these)
    • M.A. thesis will be part of your application SO leave time to do corrections
  • be aware of all the technical things you have to do for your thesis
    • all the formatting is your responsibility to figure it out
  • Graduate Studies wants a copy pretty early –> doesn’t have to be finished
    • they are mostly checking the formatting
  • your M.A. thesis is also “for your future advisor”
    • it will reflect on you AND on your committee members
  • even if they aren’t all completely developed, write a few paragraphs per day

• Dr. Carole Levin on dissertations
  • writing anxiety = something most academics suffer from (even at professional level)
    • “one of the most difficult obstacles to finishing a project”
  • she’s telling us how to write the “good enough dissertation” NOT the perfect dissertation
  • two mantras: (1) “It does not have to be great. It just has to be good.” (2) “You can always revise it for the book.”
    • you DO need to get publications out of your dissertation: either book or series of articles
    • chapters do NOT have to be ready as articles; nor does your dissertation have to be ready as a manuscript
    • dissertation = “a step, not the endgame”

• finding a topic early in your grad career = good but it’s important not to latch onto a topic just to have a topic
  • you have to be excited about your topic, you will spend a lot of time on it
  • what are the questions you want to start digging around in?
    • think big, then narrow over time
    • think about how you can add to the scholarly conversation

• “get a committee you can work with”
  • who will read drafts and give feedback
  • who will discuss your/their ideas with you
  • want to get the most out of your committee –> it is a multi-year committment
  • stay in contact with your committee and especially your advisor
  • don’t be avoidant even, especially if you are behind and feeling guilty about being behind

• dissertation prospectus
  • Department requires this
  • preliminary bibliography, chapter descriptions
  • think of it as the first draft
    • you haven’t done all the research yet
    • no one ever writes exactly the dissertation they prospose
    • your committee is not going to pass/fail you on basis of this –> it will be about the dissertation
  • okay to pretend you know exactly what you’re doing but know that it will change
    • your material, as you do your research, will tell you where to go

• recommends start writing within a semester of submitting your proposal
  • yes, research is so much fun – could do it for years
  • you won’t stop doing research, but start writing
  • often you won’t see the holes in your ideas until you start writing them down
  • if can do the dissertation by holding off then writing full-time for months at a time, okay – do what works for you

• keep very careful notes on all of your research
  • helps get rid of anxiety come writing time

• it’s tough, but “just start writing”
  • keep a notebook with you specifically for writing ideas that occur out of the blue, when you don’t have your computer with you

• find a writing rhythm that works for you
  • figure out what rituals you need to write, what time of day works for you
  • if feel overwhelmed, break it into small parts
  • even if you only wrote a page a day, you’d have a dissertation in a year
  • even if can’t write an actual draft, write ideas, make outlines
  • Dr. Levin made herself write 5 pages per day on writing days
    • could stop whenever she finished writing 5 pages (early or late)
  • if get stuck in beginning, jump to another point
  • look at other people’s dissertations, get a sense at how they got started
    • good historians in your field
    • how did they set up their argument’s

• form a dissertation support group
  • between 3-5 people
  • work out commitment of how often you will meet
  • will you read one another’s work?
  • figure out what will be most helpful for you
  • don’t necessarily have to be in your field
  • making a committment to your colleagues as well as to yourself

• talk to your friends about your ideas
• make appointments with your committee members
• send an abstract to a conference
  • trying out your ideas
  • sets a deadline for getting a conference paper done
  • new people to talk with your ideas about

• look at fellowships to support your work
  • is there a specific archive or library that you need to visit? they may well have travel grants
  • important on practical level, improves your c.v., helps with professional networking
  • Warren & Edith Day travel dissertation award = UNL award of $500
    • floating deadline
    • write proposal, letter from advisor
    • her student’s have had great success getting this award
    • means more on your c.v. than you might think, goes further than you think
  • UNL has Presidential, Fling, Dean’s fellowships
    • are incredibly competitive
    • but if you don’t try, you won’t get it
    • handful of students in our department have gotten these
  • UNL Department also has some fellowships
  • be open to applying for everything you can find
  • even the act of writing the proposal is significant – gets your ideas down
  • National Endowment for the Humanities has summer seminars with slots for graduate students
    • deadline = March 1
    • call posted in January (ish)
    • longshots, yes, but not impossible longshots

• think about audience in your dissertation
  • don’t use competitive, combative approach to fellow scholars
  • not civil, bad habit to get into
    • and these will be people you will encounter later in your professional career
    • you want to think about your career in terms of building on work of those who came before you – not trampling it/pushing it out of the way

• when get to 300 pages in your dissertation, think about stopping
  • if what you have yet to write is still valuable, you can return to it later
  • can put hopes of where your work can go further in future in your conclusion
  • no press wants a 600-page dissertation & you need to move forward with your doctorate
  • recommends reading Univ. of Chicago Press’s From Dissertation to Book

• Dr. Jared Leighton
  • try out different writing strategies, be flexible
  • structure was important to him
    • certain amount of time dedicated to writing each day
    • kept track of this carefully
    • deadlines for each chapter – even if you don’t meet them, aim for them, know where you want to be at a particular time

• “write through your process”
  • even if it doesn’t make it into the dissertation, it will be helpful
  • will give you momentum

• keep your Grad Studies deadlines in mind or they will cause you AND your readers trouble
  • sessions for those planning to graduate held regularly
  • recommends going to these even if you aren’t graduating soon
  • construct backward calendar of your graduate goal date & deadline
  • you have to attend these once anyway before you can graduate

• can register for 1 dissertation credit full time but only for 4 semesters
  • ONLY do this if you are confident that you can graduate in 2 years

• leisure time is not a luxury when writing your dissertation; it’s a necessity
  • taking that leisure time will help you write, as will sleep
  • must think of these things as necessities for your writing time to be quality time

• keep up on any new developments in your field
  • read programs of your major conferences
  • read most recent reviews in journals in your field
  • continue this process after you complete your prospectus until you are finishing

• reading anyone you think is a good writer is a good idea
  • not just outside your field, maybe fiction too
  • best work is that which is also accessible to the general public
  • think about: who influences you as a writer?

• dissertation bootcamps
  • can google and get idea how these are structured
  • perhaps Office of Graduate Studies needs to start doing these
  • 1-2 weeks of writing dissertations each day, usually 8:30-4:30
  • talk at end of day with fellow attendees where you are at