Keeping Up Momentum

Today is Super Bowl Sunday in the USA...and yes I am sorta kinda watching the game. More appropriately, I am procrastinating rather than working on my Sunday meeting - that's the time I spend each Sunday planning my work week and ensuring that my writing goals are scheduled along with my teaching, service and life goals. If I fail to add my writing goals to the weekly schedule, the tyranny of my overwhelming teaching responsibilities overtakes every working hour.

So I thought one good way to stop procrastinating is to review this blog, look over the advise that I offer you (which is often also self-pep-talk), and come up with something to say. I haven't posted since November, so this is in fact my first post of the new year. So to the noise of the super bowl,  I thought about how we fail to keep momentum often triggered by our emotional response to requests for revisions.


Perhaps a story or two will illustrate what am talking about. Take student Mwanafunzi, who submitted a draft proposal seven months ago, received feedback from the committee, then fell of the radar. Seven months is a very long time to take to respond to feedback, which for all intents and purposes, should have only taken a few hours worth of work. I thought I'd have had a revised draft a month later, at the longest.

Or take the case of professor Mwalimu Mkuu, who received a revise-and-resubmit from a journal one year ago, and has yet to do the work. In fact, most journals dictate that they want the RnR back within six months, any longer and you have to submit the manuscript as a new submission.

In both cases, the reason for not getting the work done is that both Mwanafunzi and Mwalimu Mkuu felt overwhelmed by the request for revisions, and/or felt slighted by the tone of the reviewers, and/or felt like they'd failed. Perhaps other emotions are involved too. So they put their manuscripts aside for far too long.

The reality for students working on dissertations and professors working on manuscripts is that being required to revise and resubmit is a normal part of the process. An emotional response to the request is also normal. However, you cannot let the emotions overwhelm you to the point of losing momentum. Rather, emote if you must. Then get back on that horse and ride on to the finish line. Read through the reviewers/committees feedback and craft a plan of attack. In other words, emote, then get over it and get on with it!

As always, all the best and questions/comments welcome.

Dr Faith 

Determining a Dissertation Topic at the Beginning of Doctoral Studies

Greetings from Seoul, South Korea! The summer is quickly coming to an end (and so is my summer gallivanting...the school year is almost upon us!) I am writing this post with those who are beginning their doctoral journey in mind.

The beginning is exciting, but can also be angst-inducing as many will ask "so what is your dissertation topic?"

However, that question is perfect at this early stage in your journey; it should motivate you to start to articulate your dissertation topic ideas, and get early feedback from fellow students as well as faculty and even interested non-academics. If the topic is not in perfect shape or form yet, that is to be expected. The two or three years of coursework will provide you sufficient opportunity to refine the topic.

If you do not know what you would like to study for your dissertation, that ought not be a problem either. The first year is a time of discovery and exploration.

In my Introduction to Research Methods course, I ask students to brainstorm three potential dissertation topics and come to class ready to discuss them. Essentially, this exercise allows them to think about their interests, and conceptualize those interests into research-able ideas. Some of the  questions asked in class include:

a. What is the problem you seek to investigate?
b. Why is it important to investigate that problem?
c. Why is the problem of interest to you?
d. How long would it take to engage in the study?
e. How passionate are you about the topic/problem?

These initial questions help students to clarify their ideas and choose just one of the three topic areas of interest to focus on for the rest of the semester. In subsequent assignments, they are able to further refine the topic by writing preliminary proposals on how they could potentially investigate the problem using qualitative and quantitative approaches. The final assignment is a literature review on the topic/problem.

By the end of the semester, each student is better able to determine whether the topic and problem they'd chosen to study is actually feasible, worthwhile, and whether there is indeed a sufficient literature base upon which to build the study.

My advise to my Intro to Research Methods students is to use subsequent courses to further refine their topic. Those who follow this advise find that by the end of their coursework, they have a proposal ready to defend, and thus can proceed to the dissertation phase expeditiously.

I want to encourage you all who are beginning your doctoral studies now, or who are in the early stages to think about doing something similar to help you focus your coursework towards defining and refining your dissertation topic. The sooner you determine your dissertation topic, the better as coursework can be more narrowly focused towards developing the research proposal.

What other dissertation related advise would those of you who are over on the other side of the journey offer to the newbies? Comments and questions always welcome.