All But Diss

A Community for the ABD Experience - BETA under development

Advice and shared wisdom on All But the content of the Dissertation.

Latest Activity

Diane Cline added a blog post
Dear friends, Sometimes life gets in the way of best laid plans and intentions. We had a death in the family in mid-April that turned our lives inside out, and now I will be traveling until mid August. At that time I will make a decision about wheth…
July 4, 2009
Brad Fox is now a member of All But Diss
May 12, 2009
sunnypetunia updated their profile
May 7, 2009
sunnypetunia is now a member of All But Diss
May 7, 2009
Taylor Willingham is now a member of All But Diss
April 7, 2009
Laurie Carrillo is now a member of All But Diss
April 3, 2009
Sue Elvins was featured
April 3, 2009
A blog post by Diane Cline was featured
I participated in Government 2.0 Camp, an Un-Conference held this past weekend in DC. About 350 government workers, scholars, new media gurus, consultants, and interested members of the public gathered to brainstorm and share ideas on making govern…
April 3, 2009
Diane Cline added a blog post
I participated in Government 2.0 Camp, an Un-Conference held this past weekend in DC. About 350 government workers, scholars, new media gurus, consultants, and interested members of the public gathered to brainstorm and share ideas on making govern…
April 3, 2009
My dad used to say, "do you have ten years of experience? or one year of experience ten times over?" It sounds like you have a number of remarkable experiences and strengths, but they aren't being articulated or shared effectively on your resume or…
April 3, 2009
Welcome to our community and it sounds like you'll be able to contribute some really helpful ideas here. Cheers, Diane
April 3, 2009
April 3, 2009
April 3, 2009
I have a thought which I would like to share regarding this. Over past many years during my working career, I have experienced multiple personalities on different levels from co-workers, to small business vendors, to small business owner to a corpor…
April 2, 2009
I'm just starting out this term. I can give you a little bit of what I have been dealing with however. I have discovered it is easier for me to read for a few hours then write for an hour then I need to stop and move onto something else. When I do s…
April 1, 2009
Sue Elvins updated their profile
April 1, 2009

Members

  • Ken Gillam
  • Mike Nolan
  • Srinivasan Tatachari
  • Eric H. Cline
  • Carrie Galsworthy
  • George Selmer
  • K Quinn
  • Holt Parker
  • Jen Thomas
  • Rose Tyler
  • Sue Elvins
  • Laurie Carrillo
  • Taylor Willingham
  • sunnypetunia
  • Brad Fox
  • Diane Cline

Events

Twitter

    follow me on Twitter
     

    Blog Posts

    Rose Tyler

    How to Do Your Dissertation Research Productively?

    Are you ready to start your dissertation research? Your research should illustrate a broad understanding of studies done in your area of study. Whether you are starting your research dissertations or have started already, I am going to discuss some important points that you should know in order to carry out an in-depth research productively. Not kn… Continue

    Posted by Rose Tyler on October 31, 2009 at 1:49am

    Diane Cline

    My absence

    Dear friends,
    Sometimes life gets in the way of best laid plans and intentions. We had a death in the family in mid-April that turned our lives inside out, and now I will be traveling until mid August. At that time I will make a decision about whether to re-energize this site or go dark. Thank you for your patience.
    With Best Wishes, Diane Cline

    Posted by Diane Cline on July 4, 2009 at 10:08pm

    Diane Cline

    On Transparency and Engagement in the Academy


    I participated in Government 2.0 Camp, an Un-Conference held this past weekend in DC. About 350 government workers, scholars, new media gurus, consultants, and intereste… Continue

    Posted by Diane Cline on April 3, 2009 at 11:30am

    Diane Cline

    Boring Conference Papers: A Pet Peeve

    This weekend I attended a day-long conference open to the public on the Pompeii show at the Smithsonian's National Gallery of Art. Five academic papers were given in a small auditorium on aspects of Roman art and life. It was really my first academic Classics conference in quite a… Continue

    Posted by Diane Cline on March 24, 2009 at 10:00am

    Diane Cline

    Remarkable Graduate Students Win

    I've been thinking about what it takes to stand out from your peers. For some, it's intellect - prodigious brilliance. For others, it's hard work, sheer volume of productivity. And then there's personality: the sparkle in your eyes when you speak about your subject, the excitement that's contagious when you discover a new idea. When it comes to getting the majority of academic teaching… Continue

    Posted by Diane Cline on March 20, 2009 at 9:21am

    Forum

    Diane Cline

    Honor Roll of Bloggers

    Started by Diane Cline Mar. 1, 2009.

    Diane Cline

    All But Diss topics list

    Started by Diane Cline Feb. 26, 2009.

    Chronicle of Higher Education news blog

    Discipline Envy

    I recently ran across a great quotation from the late Bill Lane, who was a longtime professor at Western Kentucky University: "Never despise your own gift and never covet another." This caused me to ponder something I see repeatedly: discipline envy.

    A sense of envy that can so easily turn into rank jealousy finds fertile ground in the "perks" of other academic disciplines, whether they occur in the form of greater institutional support, higher pay, lower teaching loads, elevated

    Faculty Relations With the Governing Board

    The February meeting of our board of trustees starts this evening, and so this afternoon we held an orientation session for two incoming members of the board. As part of this orientation, I give a presentation on academic freedom, the tenure-and-promotion process, and other matters in which the work of the board is likely to intersect with that of the faculty.

    We have a pretty small board—fewer than 25 members. Several of them are prominent local citizens, though

    Starting Dates and Pay Gaps

    Many institutions are starting to offer contracts to their new faculty members. It's an exciting time all around. For the hiring departments, it's fun to think about the energy and talents the new colleagues will bring. For the incoming faculty members, it's joyous to celebrate leaving the job market behind successfully.

    For the new hires, there is often a shock, though, that comes in August: either no paycheck or a reduced paycheck. At many institutions, new faculty members report

    Chris Brogan

    Earn Your GED- Find Success Tomorrow

    No, not your General Equivalent Degree. The GED to which I refer is “guest experience design.” What the heck am I talking about? I’ll tell you. Old words: customer service. New words: guest experience. Disney, where I am this week, has a concept called a Moment of Truth. A moment of truth is “any time a guest comes [...]

    Pursue the Goal Not the Method

    In the back of a town car hired to take me to the Kansas City International airport, talking to Jeff, a driver with two kids, self-proclaimed ADD, and a history of quitting rote sales jobs every few months, I realized something of importance to the story of what’s brought me to this place: I [...]

    Your Blog From the Prospect’s Point of View

    When you use your blog to complain or report sideways about the industry at large, what message is that sending to your potential new clients? If you’re spending your time analyzing what other people in your space are doing, citing why they’re wrong, and providing your commentary about all the things they’re doing, what does [...]

    Dissertation Diva

    When writing is like the end of a hot dog eating contest

    Dear Dissertation Diva, You know that hot dog eating contest on Coney Island? Whenever I open the file of the final chapter of my dissertation, I feel like I've eaten 180 hot dogs. I can't stand to even see one...

    Minnesota Graduate School writing resources

    A plethora of helpful dissertation writing resources from The Graduate School at University of Minnesota here -- including a link to Dissertation Diva's instant classic, "Practical Advice for Writing Your Dissertation, Book, or Article" (thanks!)

    Academics Anonymous

    funny update

    That professor I posted here about who kept calling on me last semester. I am taking a lecture hall class with him now AND I have not been behaving myself. I am pissed off about what happened last semester so when he calls on me I pretend to not know the answer and I do not smile at him. I roll my eyes and act really bored.

    He made everyone in the class meet with him. During my meeting he RANDOMLY says to me, "You need to talk more in class. Last semester I would always call on you and you always had something to say. You were my secret weapon."

    He just brought this up to obviate my thinking anything amorous was going on. He knows he was attracted to me and lead me on by calling on me every five minutes. Now he is trying to act like it was purely academic.

    UPDATE: I am being completely serious. If you guys can guess what large research university this tenured professor teaches at I will post a link to his profile.

    Academic Peer Review, 1945

    I don't know whether you guys have already seen it , but I just find the subtitles so hilarous. Have a nice day!

    Doing a dissertation via distance,

    Since it seems to be doctoral student day here, I guess I need to check in with a problem.

    I'm ABD on an Ed. D. in Curriculum and Instruction, focusing on instructional technology and instructional design. I finished my comps in July.



    In August, I relocated 600 miles away from campus. My college had no work for me--no GA positions, no GRA positions, no teaching (since I only had a year and a half of public school teaching--in spite of seven years of college teaching--the administrators would not place me as an instructor in EDG classes) positions, nothing. All the while, the adjuncting positions I had in central Florida dried up, and financial aid was refusing to fund a loan for me. I did two MAs at this institution, so my Ed. D. classwork put me over the number of hours allowed a grad student, and FA couldn't look at the common sense of it--that I was making adequate progress on my doctorate. So with no means of making a living in central Florida, I took an offer from a friend to relocate to North Carolina, both to work on my dissertation as well as start a new life.

    While my program advisor understood the situation, my dissertation advisor was furious, and the news of this decision was met with a long speech about how I'd never finish if I didn't get the first three chapters of my dissertation done before I moved. But again, with no support from my university, there wasn't a lot I could do.

    So for four months, I've been working on the dissertation. In the fall term, I collected research--about 100 articles that I pared down to 84 that were appropriate for the topic. The actual data has been collected--gathered on a project on which I assisted in the 07-08 academic year. When I left, I was given the dissertation of one colleague to look at and model from. I last heard from my advisor in September, and I was told to mail in something when I had it done--again, not even having started the research.

    I've almost got the prospectus done--which I've been told is essentially chapter one of the dissertation. I'm hoping to have that done this week. But I've been looking at the second chapter--the literature review--and I'm feeling lost here. In the past, when I've done literature reviews, the piece has opened with some contextual framing, the actual review (broken up into themes or units), and some synthesis. But looking at the dissertation I was given, the lit review looks nothing like that. This author talks about models of lit reviews, discussions of search terms, and things like that before even getting into the review.

    So my questions:

    1) Has anyone done this before--done a dissertation via remote? What are the coping strategies that helped you survive it?

    2) Should I feel like I've essentially been abandoned by my advisor and department?

    3) I'm feeling really overwhelmed by the lit review. Those of you who have done a dissertation in education, how did you put yours together? Again, the one I saw in that model dissertation looks nothing like anything I was required to write either during my MA or Ed. D. classwork. Can anyone point me to some reliable online support to help me on the lit review?

    4) Being an Ed. D. doctoral student, is there a different rulebook for the dissertation than the Ph. D. That is, since the Ed. D. is a considered a practitioner's degree (in spite of the strong research background), should I be considering a different approach on the lit review? I'm just trying to figure out this disconnect between what I've been taught and what I'm seeing in the model dissertation.

    5) Is this overall feeling of anxiety and hopelessness normal for this phase of the degree?

    I'm not quitting. I can't quit. I've come too far to quit--or settle for an Ed. S. But at the same time, I'm feeling really lost and overwhelmed on the project right now.

    Seth Godin

    When I want your opinion, I'll ask for it

    Too many people, when asked for their opinion, dissemble. Instead of giving an opinion, they push back. They ask, What do you think? Did you do any research? Can we do a focus group? What did Will say? There's a...

    TEDthink

    Can you factor this? If you're like most people, you get a little queasy at the thought. And when you were in tenth grade, you surely wondered why they were bothering you. (the answer is (x-2) times (x-2), in case...
     
     

    All About All But Diss

    This community is for graduate students and the professors who care about them. I created it out of a desire to create a space where grad students can share their common experiences and where professors can offer advice. Many advisers are simply too busy or unable to advise students on the issues that don't have to do with the content of the dissertation.

     

    © 2010   Created by Diane Cline on Ning.   Create a Ning Network!

    Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Privacy  |  Terms of Service