Doing Grad School with Kids

Doing Grad School with Kids

One afternoon as I stood outside the elementary school, waiting for the doors to open and pour out little screaming humans (including my then second-grader), I overheard two Midwestern moms in active-wear talking about a mutual friend.

"Did you know she's going back to school? I mean, GREEAAD school!"

"Really? She's gonna be so busy, oh my gosh. That's just too much, GREEAAD school, with kids and a house..."

"Yeah I think it's just selfish to go to GREEAAD school like that. I mean, she's got her bachelor's why not just stay where you're at..."

I was in my second year of "GREEAAD school," and in addition to the stinker I was waiting for at the elementary school, I had a toddler at home.  Their words didn't hurt me, but they made me chuckle a bit. While graduate study isn't for everyone, who are these judging women to assume their friend isn't an awesome person who can handle the "triple burden" of school, work, and home?  If I can do it, other women can too. They were selling even themselves short, I thought.  (Maybe they just really loved staying all day in yoga pants that much, I thought snidely.)

So what do we do, as parents in graduate school, to keep ourselves emotionally afloat? And conversely, how do we know we're doing what's right for our kids? Support and understanding is probably thin on the ground, whether you live in the affluent suburbs where success = $, or in a crowded city (or empty rural area) where people are just struggling to get by and don't care to make head or tails of what strange thing it is you do at the Local University. Even seeking out other students like us is hard. I've met a few couples and single parents at the school I attend, but just having kids is not a guarantee that you will have anything else in common to talk about.

I argue that we look to the source of our seeming "burden" for some relief: look to your children. 

Early Childhood: The smallest children can understand that you are in school, that you are smart, and that you are atypical. They may even cutely brag about you to their classmates. (Once I brought my son to class with me and he told all my students how smart I am. He was only 7, so he got away with it.) It's an early model for doing what you love, and working independently. Since early childhood, my son and daughter have never doubted that they can achieve what they set their minds to, or that mothers can have important careers.

Middle Childhood: Going to school brings them the ability to share in what you study! You can enrich their school experience by sharing what you know with them. My son always impresses his teachers by his background knowledge. Having grown up with a mother who does school for a living, he knows a thing or two.  (Since he could talk, I have answered honestly, and in as much detail as was appropriate, every question he asked me. I've been told I'll spoil his imagination! Baloney.)

And here's the best part: School-aged children can also start helping around the house, not only because they should anyway, but because you have enlisted them in your campaign! The family is going to benefit from your degree. They can contribute to you getting it done, whether it's by loading the dishwasher or playing quietly on Saturday mornings. You can all earn that degree together.

Adolescence: Tween intelligence and attitudes bring a whole new level of give-and-take into your relationship with your children. Children this age need to be reminded that you are spending so much time on your schoolwork because it will make you better. If it makes you better, it makes the whole family better.  With their growing sense of self, they should be able to understand why they don't always come first. Raising independent kids is important if you plan to have an intense career life and to have a life of the mind. And they will thank you for it. My son still proudly tells people what I do (though bragging wouldn't be cute from a 12-year-old), even if he can't remember exactly what I study.

Teens: If you are in grad school with teens, you probably have not been in grad school their whole life. They may have to get used to it. I don't have a teen (yet) so I can't comment. I will be done before then. :P  But what I have said about balance, independence, and team effort still applies.

2010: Holding my Bachelor's degree,
while 7 months pregnant with kid #2.

There is a myth that children will resent parents for "neglecting" them for other pursuits. It's nonsense, and those moms I overheard were just perpetuating it. Doing what you need to do for yourself, and fitting that in with your family life is not neglect. It's balance. Your busy and interesting life will complement your child's own busy and interesting life. It will certainly not detract or distract from it.

So, if the university parent meet-ups and attempts to befriend non-student parents haven't worked out, turn to those who already know you, and whom you already have a lot in common with. You can't lay all of your problems on them, and you can't make them your confidantes.  But you can draw from their endless energy, contribute to their own lifelong learning, and go in as a family team to kick this degree's butt.  You will all come out very different from most of the people you know. But that is not a bad thing. This journey enriches all of our lives, and paves the way for our children's future successes.

Finally, a word about the advantages of doing grad school with kids. Many of us can point to our little imps as the impetus for doing school in the first place. And what made us want to do it for ourselves is that having kids makes us want to be the best people we can be!  I didn't really go "back to school" until my son was 9 months old. After five years of undergrad, three for an MA, and four more of PhD-ing... well, he's 12 now and he's never seen me do anything else. To stop now would be to abandon a goal as old as my first best creation (him). While, again, we can't rest our goals and fears on their little shoulders, we can certainly look to them as a major source of inspiration, a cornerstone that child-free grad students do not have the benefit of building upon.

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The Thesis and the Dissertation: Peas in a Pod

We call the document for the master’s degree a “thesis,” and the longer one for the doctorate a “dissertation,” and perhaps you wonder why.

Well, many thoughts on the nature of theses and dissertations have been buzzing through our office lately. Over the past four weeks, we held our fall slate of presentations, workshops, and brown-bag sessions for students working on one or the other kind of document. Several of our programs cover important details behind the Graduate School’s document-formatting requirements. When we look through these requirements closely, it becomes clear that they’re nearly identical for either a thesis or dissertation.

So, then, if the format looks nearly identical, what distinguishes the thesis from the dissertation? A glance at the histories of the two words makes for an interesting way to highlight some differences and similarities between these two important writing projects.


"How do I put it?"

Thesis writers, do you sometimes find yourself wondering how to put your ideas in writing while working on your project? If so, you're not only human (nearly all writers, at some point, wrestle with how to put thoughts on paper or screen) but also hinting at some of the history behind the word "thesis." Like many terms in academia, the words “thesis” and “dissertation” come to us from Greek through Latin. "Thesis" originally derives from the Indo-European root *dhe-, which had the meaning of ‘to set’ or ‘to put.’ The root later formed the central element in the Greek verb tithenai, meaning ‘to place, put, or set,’ as well as the noun thesis. In Latin, thesis referred to the unstressed and later the stressed syllables in a line of poetry. (Stress for thesis writers today is usually of a different nature!) In the English of the late 1500s, “thesis” began to refer to a statement to be proved through logic—in other words, a thesis statement. By the next century, the word’s meaning broadened to include what we in the twenty-first century think of when we speak of a master’s thesis--the formal document presented for the master’s degree.

Scholars at a lecture. Engraving by William Hogarth, 1736

"Contrary to what others have said, I argue that…"

Dissertators, when you explain your project, do you sometimes linger around that point where you need to arrange your thoughts to emphasize how your work stands apart from previous scholarship? Such efforts invoke something of the original spirit of the word "dissertation." It's rooted in the Latin verbs dissertare ‘to debate, argue, examine, harangue’ and disserere, a combination of dis- ‘apart’ and serere ‘to arrange.’ The etymology zeroes in on the general task doctoral candidates must carry out today: arrange an argument based on original evidence as well as on an examination of the surrounding scholarly debate, write it out clearly and convincingly at length, share it with the world, and live to tell about it. (Long sentence, longer ordeal!) The word began to refer to such a thing in the 1650s, around the same time "thesis" began to refer to a similar piece. According to the OED, the meaning of "dissertation" began to be restricted to the monograph produced for the doctorate in the 1930s.


Peas in a Pod

Thus, once established in academic circles, the terms "thesis" and "dissertation,” along with the documents they refer to, grew up alongside each other. No wonder, then, that their format requirements overlap and that we sometimes speak of these two types of documents in the same breath. But in addition to the etymological and historical hints at what these documents do, universities usually separate the two by degree and kind. The thesis is shorter and is a kind of knowledge display. The dissertation is longer and is a kind of original research and significant new contribution to a field.

Of course, the Graduate School also offers clear and succinct definitions for a thesis and a dissertation. Check them early and often. And you can always turn to us if you seek further information or guidance. We’re happy to help!

In case you missed one of our fall programs, note that we’ll be offering presentations, workshops, and brown bags once again at the start of the spring semester. In the meantime, we’re available through email, phone, or walk-in. And remember that our writing group for thesis and dissertation writers, Write Place/Write Time, meets on the second Thursday of every month from 6 to 9 p.m. in Founders Memorial Library (4th Floor East). Look for us there this coming Thursday, October 13. Happy writing!    

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Write Place, Write Time -- August session

Due to abbreviated library hours between the summer and fall 2016 semesters, the August 11, 2016 session of Write Place, Write Time has been cancelled.

The writing group will reconvene on September 8, 2016. The meeting place and time will remain the same: Founder's Library, 4th floor, dissertation room, 6 to 9pm. See you then.

Over the past few weeks, several advanced grad students have contacted us in the Thesis Office to check on requirements and deadlines they need to meet now that they’ve passed exams and are moving on to the thesis or dissertation.  Congratulations to all who’ve reached that point!  Heading toward completion naturally entails reengagements with the writing process, a process that involves five stages: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and proofreading.  Each stage deals with important but discrete sets of activities, and it’s worthwhile reviewing them.  Noting how writers move back and forth between the stages can help you set goals and prioritize tasks as you work on the different parts of your project.

Stages of the Writing Process

Prewriting:  Many activities before (and even after) you sit down with pen and paper or face keyboard and screen are parts of prewriting.  Prewriting is likely one of the longest stages of a thesis or dissertation project.  Ideas for your project likely begin to form as you take courses, complete other program requirements, and prepare for your qualifying exam(s).  For some writers, ideas have been forming over a period of many years.  As you turn to the writing project itself, prewriting involves focused idea-generating activities like listing, clustering, freewriting, and outlining. 

Drafting:  Composing with a plan.  The word plan distinguishes drafting from activities that belong to the stage before or after it.  When you’re producing text from a plan based on outlines, notes, or texts you generated while prewriting, you’re drafting.  If instead you’re staring at a blank page and don’t quite know how to move forward, you’re still in the prior stage and need to engage in prewriting activities until you can form a plan for your draft.  On the other hand, if you’ve drafted a considerable amount of planned text and feel it’s time to make changes to it, you’re progressing to the next stage.


Revising:  Literally, looking back at an accomplished draft.  But more than just looking back, revising involves rethinking and changing the “big picture” of what you’ve drafted: reorganizing sentences or paragraphs, deleting passages, or adding new content.

Editing:  Making changes to textual details.  The phrase textual details anchors the answer to the question “What’s the difference between revising and editing?”  But in truth, revising and editing often overlap.  The nature of the changes you’re making helps distinguish the two stages.  If you’re reordering sections of a draft, adding substantial amounts of text to it, or cutting out large portions, you’re still involved in revising.  If instead you’re more concerned with word choices or word forms, fact checking, and confirming that your in-text citations match your end references, you’re editing.
  

Proofreading:  The final stage.  Proof is a publishing term for a nearly-finished piece that needs final checking before going to the printer and out for public viewing.  Final checking involves careful, methodical, line-by-line reading and correcting of textual mistakes to ensure accurate punctuation, spelling, and formatting throughout the document.

Embrace Each Stage: Advice for All Seasons

As you progress through your project, a sound piece of broad advice to take on board: embrace each stage of the writing process in nearly equal measure.  Prewriting is needed to get you started in the right direction, and drafting is essential.  But revising, editing, and proofreading are also vital to a successful finished product and deserve plenty of attention and care.  If you seek help or guidance during any of these stages, but particularly with prewriting and drafting, remember that the University Writing Center is a fantastic resource.  If you have questions or concerns with revising, editing, or proofreading, be sure to contact us here in the Thesis Office.

Good luck in all stages, happy spring break, happy writing!      

A First-Generation Academic

"First-Generation College Student" is a label proudly worn by many undergraduates at NIU. These students used to be the minority. But since the twentieth century's Civil Rights movement and resultant anti-discriminatory provisions ensured everyone a fair shot at education, and since increased government funding and loans enabled more and more students to eke out some tuition, students from all walks of life have flocked to universities and community colleges to do better than their parents did. As an instructor, I am aware of their unique challenges. And I am also aware of their unique advantages; they bring to the culture of the university a fresh outlook and a profound appreciation for the opportunity to learn.  However, their challenges sometimes outweigh their eagerness and talent, and many do not complete degrees.

While this is a big problem for first-generation students, it is an even bigger problem for first-generation academics.  Those of us who come in as first-generation, complete that bachelor's degree, and then stick around for more degrees... well, we are not only entering the realm of university life without much direction, we are entering a culture in which a very small percentage of Americans ever participate.  Academia is its own beast. So the stick-tuitive-ness that got us our bachelor's degrees is not necessarily enough to finish a masters thesis, and certainly not enough to push us through the drudgery that is Ph. D. work and dissertation writing. We need a special kind of help. But no one really knows what to do for us.

But...we're so alone!

Scores of extensive, longitudinal studies have been done on the first-generation college student. Those kids have been around for some time! But the first-generation academic is still a somewhat rare anomaly. Also, the amount of time it takes to produce one of us (years upon years of coursework, going back to school after taking breaks, part-time work while having kids, etc.) means the data just isn't there or hasn't been collected yet, that is, extensive data on who finishes, who achieves success in academia, and what kinds of services, attitudes, or funding, got them through all of it.  This is something that needs to be studied, both for the success of these students and for ensuring that the future fields of technology, education, health, and others, can benefit from an increasingly diverse pool of talents. 

Quite frankly, I think that first-generation academics are the key to revitalizing the stagnating university model. We can innovate how we do research in a budget crisis. We can engage with the community outside of academia and bring our discoveries to bear on the "real world." There, I said it. Academia needs us! Or it might just perish.  Nowhere is navel-gazing stronger than academia, a group that can cut itself off from the struggles of the world (and of their students) by living, working, and socializing among their university bubble. But this phenomenon of the academic enclave does not apply to blue-collar and low-income academics. I take offence when any blue-collar type tries to accuse me of being out of touch, just because I'm doing a Ph. D. ...Sorry, guy, I'm living in your "real world" every damn day. And I can also think abstractly! :D

While the studies are lacking, the stories are not. In fact, our Thesis Office Director, Carolyn Law, published a book entitled This Fine Place so Far from Home, a collection of personal accounts and essays from first-generation academics working in the 1990s.  The pieces range from opinionated, to irreverent, to poignant.  You can check it out here, at Temple University Press.

Think about it -- college is a defining experience for many people. But a decade of college and then a *life* at the university is, well, your entire life! When no one in your family or inner circle has any experience with college, let alone designing experiments and writing monographs, this can mean that not only is your college journey a lonely and confusing thing, but so is the life of the mind to which it leads you. Even the most supportive families can only offer hollow messages of encouragement -- they literally have no idea what we're doing.  Blue-collar scholars, like the ones in Law's book, speak of not being able to fit in anywhere -- afraid of being found out at the university, afraid of getting made fun of at home. (And of course, saddled with the debt of climbing out of the lower classes.) How do we address this? What can universities do to help us find a balance? And, perhaps more importantly, what can they do to ensure that our unique voices are not drowned out by the ideas of the privileged, established scholars?

Let us know in the comments of anything you've read on this. Or tell us about your experience!

Yours Truly,
Daughter of a Truck Driver, M.A.

Thesis Office Outreach: Presentations, Workshops, Brown Bags

Two weeks into February, and here at the Thesis Office we’re ready to deliver our spring presentations, workshops, and brown bag sessions for writers at any stage of the thesis or dissertation process.  Below we give a rundown of what’s on offer over the next several weeks.  We look forward to seeing you!

Basic Info
Our programs are free.  Brown bags meet Wednesdays from 12 to 1 p.m. in Adams Hall, Room 103.  Workshops and most presentations will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. in the same location on Tuesdays or Thursdays, but note that two presentations (Writing a Dissertation in Education and Demystifying the Submission Process) will take place on different days and at different times and locations—see below.

Registration
No registration required for brown bags.  Registration is required for a presentation or workshop.  Register via email at thesis@niu.edu.  Include the name of the presentation or workshop you want to attend in the subject line or message.  We do have space limitations.  Register early!

What to Expect
Plenty of important information.  Many who experience these events walk away a bit surprised at the intricacies behind things like meeting various deadlines, submitting the proper paperwork to the proper place, or formatting the long document.  Expect thorough coverage of common concerns as well as ample time to address individual questions.  


Presentations

Thesis Essentials
Tuesday, February 21 (2 to 4 p.m. in Adams Hall, Room 103)
Designed for all master’s students enrolled in 699 in any department.  Staff will walk students through the Graduate School’s specific requirements for theses and cover a wide range of the most troublesome issues thesis writers frequently encounter.
   

Dissertation Essentials
Wednesday, February 22 (2 to 4 p.m. in Adams Hall, Room 103)
Designed for all doctoral students enrolled in 799 in any department.  Staff will walk students through the Graduate School’s specific requirements for dissertations and cover a wide range of the most troublesome issues dissertation writers frequently encounter.

Writing a Thesis in Engineering
Thursday, February 23 (2 to 4 p.m. in Adams Hall, Room 103)
Designed specifically for thesis writers enrolled in thesis-credit hours in the College of Engineering and Engineering Technology.  Staff will walk students through the Graduate School’s specific requirements for theses and cover a range of issues that students in engineering fields often find troublesome.

Writing a Dissertation in Education
Saturday, February 25 (9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at NIU Naperville, Room 162)
This one-day program is designed specifically for dissertation writers enrolled in 799 in the College of Education.  Staff will walk students through the Graduate School’s specific requirements for dissertations and cover a wide range of the most troublesome issues dissertation writers in Education frequently encounter.

Demystifying the Submission Process
Wednesday, March 8 (5 to 7 p.m. in Wirtz Hall, Room 104)
This presentation is for graduate students preparing to submit a thesis or dissertation to the Graduate School for May 2017 graduation.  Carolyn Law, Thesis/Dissertation Advisor, will walk students through the steps of the process: defense, electronic submission, and final approval.

Workshops
ASME Documentation
Tuesday, February 28 (2 to 4 p.m. in Adams Hall, Room 103)
This hand-on workshop will teach the documentation style of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, known as ASME journal style.  Using real-word examples, students will apply the principles in real time to their own writing.  ASME journal style is ideal for research documentation in all departments of the College of Engineering and Engineering Technology.

Problems in Theses/Dissertations: Tables/Figures/Pagination 
Wednesday, March 1 (2 to 4 p.m. in Adams Hall, Room 103)
This hands-on workshop is designed to help writers comply with the Graduate School’s requirements for tables, figures, and pagination.  Students should bring their work in progress on their own laptops.  Staff will cover the specific format requirements, demonstrate helpful techniques and short-cuts in Microsoft Word, and allow generous time for individual troubleshooting and one-on-one consultation.

Brown Bag Sessions 
Committee Relations
Wednesday, February 15 (12 to 1 p.m. in Adams Hall, Room 103)
Informal discussion on choosing committee members, creating productive working relationships with them, maintaining good communications, and managing feedback throughout the process.  Graduate School policies regarding committees will be reviewed.  Faculty and students welcome.


Breaking Through Writer's Block (and Other Obstacles)
Wednesday, February 22
(12 to 1 p.m. in Adams Hall, Room 103)
Informal discussion on common obstacles that slow or entirely halt progress on one’s thesis or dissertation.  Carolyn Law, Thesis/Dissertation Advisor, will facilitate the discussion and offer practical strategies.  Students only, please.


The Balancing Act: A Life in Grad School
Wednesday, March 1
(12 to 1 p.m. in Adams Hall, Room 103)
Informal discussion on the complexities of managing life as a graduate student, balancing family responsibilities, personal health, outside work, and the pressures of a dissertation or thesis.  Session will be facilitated by Thesis Office GA Robyn Byrd, doctoral candidate and mother of two.  Students only, please.

Writing an Abstract

You’ve done the work (or almost have); your thesis or dissertation is pretty much finished! So now, you take another look at the Guidelines for Preparing a Thesis or Dissertation at NIU to see if there’s anything left to do. Oh, yes, write the abstract.

Your abstract should be the last thing you write because it is a summary—a very condensed one—of your entire thesis or dissertation. But how do you summarize all of that work? You probably have 100 – 300 pages of great ideas that, according to most sources, should be summed up in fewer than 350 words. NIU’s Thesis Office does not restrict your abstract’s word limit, but we do recommend that you stick to the 350-word maximum. To follow are some ideas that may help.

The Writing Center at University of North Carolina offers detailed tips. First, they distinguish between writing a descriptive or an informative abstract, saying that a descriptive abstract explains the work without assessing it and is very brief, virtually an outline. The UNC Writing Center tells that an informative abstract, the type most of us will write, does “more than describe” the work. This abstract stands in for one’s entire project and includes “purpose, methods, and scope,” like a descriptive one, but also has “results and conclusions” as well as “recommendations of the author.” According to UNC, “Abstracts allow readers … to quickly decide whether it is worth their time to read [a longer piece],” and we know how helpful these summations are from our own research.

The UNC site gives specific tips as to what to include for different types of abstracts and how to go about writing one. They say that all abstracts should consider the following questions: Why should a reader be interested in this work? What is the scope of the problem? What evidence or methods of study did this project utilize? What are the findings or results? And, how does this study add to the existing conversation? Check out their page for more tips, and scroll to the bottom for help in abstracting one’s own work. (FYI: at the end of that last sentence, this blog post reached 350 words in length!)

A beneficial thing to do when learning to write in any genre is to read examples. You can find all types of abstracts at Proquest Digital Dissertations (located under “Dissertation Abstracts” in the NIU Library’s list of A–Z Databases). Search any subject area, or type in a keyword and start reading abstracts!

Finally, advisors at University of Queensland in Australia offer a unique take on abstracts: they say that we should actually write abstracts as we work, calling this interim process a “useful tool” towards keeping ideas organized as well as “focusing thoughts” and “forging links” that ultimately will “unify” the final product. And don’t forget that you can come to NIU’s Thesis Office or The Writing Center at NIU for help with any part of the thesis/dissertation writing process!

Proper Document Formatting: Your Readers Want It!

Since our undergrad years we have been told to use seemingly arbitrary formatting conventions for many of the academic assignments we've turned in.  There are lab report formats, literature review formats, citation styles such as APA, MLA, and a hundred others. As an English student, I learned MLA, scoffed at what I thought was APA's fixation on dates and enshrining of other people's research, and never looked back.

But now that I teach writing, and sometimes research writing, I've had to learn how format and style is dependent on discipline.  My students use what suits them. APA makes much more sense for many of the sciences.  I, a literature student, could write many pages on a hundred year old piece of scholarship, as long as I knew what else has been said about it in 2016.  But a science student or psych student has no use for moldy old papers, beyond understanding the history of their discipline. Dates matter, and I'm glad we don't take medicine produced with ancient methods or visit hospitals built upon century-old research!  (APA helps make sure of it.)  Just as I'm glad that engineers even have their own way of documenting things (ASME, and others) that respects the research of others, so that when someone uses their findings, our bridges stay up and our cars drive straight. (I'm showing my humanities understanding of how things work now, haha!)  So, there really are reasons for these things.

But even though I know about the plenitude of research styles and the uses for them now, I see even more clearly that all the formatting of these styles, on the page, is definitely arbitrary.

So why the heck do we format?  

What's the point? I'll tell you. Because it is a convention that is absolutely necessary to keep your reader from pulling their hair out and losing their eyesight!  (Especially now that you are writing a hundred or even hundreds of pages for someone else's review). Students, especially my freshman writers, sometimes balk at this arbitrariness. But I kind of revel in it.  (After all, even language itself is arbitrary. And so are apostrophes.). Arbitrary strictness, when it comes to documents, is far and wide preferable to willy-nilly personal formatting quirks (at best), or incoherent methods of document organization that impede meaning (at worst).

Here at the Thesis Office, we understand that many quirks about your document have to do with whether you are a biologist, or an art therapist, or a computer scientist, or a linguist, or... you get the idea. We see the marks of your discipline on the page, and we can even help you make sure you are making those marks correctly (citations, references, tables, etc.) before your committee even sees the thing.  Please, come see us!  But in addition to those formatting requirements handed down from your discipline gods, the Thesis gods have a few more.  And this is where you might really need our help.  Again, you're asking EGADS! WHY?  Because someone has to read your paper, that's why. And hopefully for your sake, many someones will read your paper. Format, and every other kind of orthography, that is, the way things look on a page, is about making yourself easy to read. Your document will go into a repository with thousands of other documents, and if it looks different, it will look funny.  And it may even look confusing. The reader has to know: Where do I find the list of tables? How is the front matter arranged and numbered? What corner are the page numbers in? What level of heading am I reading, like is this an important section or a sub-thought?  Can I put this in a binder and be sure the holes aren't going to punch right through the data sets? Etc. Standardized formatting means readers know what they're getting, and can use it easily.  Nothing we ask you to do will compromise the goals of the formatting of your discipline. But it might drive you crazy anyway.  Seriously, come see us.

A reader's experience

I have a first grader, and I commend the teacher who can read thirty little papers in thirty handwriting styles and in thirty invented spelling styles, all written in everyone's favorite crayon color. I salute you! As a teacher of philosophy and freshman English, I don't have it so bad. But I see so many papers. A few hundred every term.

While it is certainly nice to have everything typed on white paper, I also ask my students to use certain formatting, and invariably they don't take it very seriously until about mid-term.  I get papers in the default Microsoft Word font, I get papers in fonts that look very much like Times New Roman but are not Times New Roman ("TNR 12pt!" I write, in screaming teacher commentary at the top of their paper, right next to "TITLE!" because for some strange reason they don't title their work...)  I read the piles of papers, and the idiosyncrasies drive me mad. The font called Cambria makes me want to scream. OMG CAMBRIA UGH! The attempted use of 2.25 spacing to pad their papers (instead of a double-space) just makes me laugh. 1.5" margins make me put my head down on the table and take a break.  While some of these things are because of students trying to trick me (I know grad students don't do that!), some are them are out of pure carelessness.  They are not bucking against convention. They are being undisciplined and causing problems for their reader.  The students with the best grades?  The ones with good formatting.  Not because I grade them on their perfect margins!  But because they are people who pay attention to detail, and that comes out in both the content of their papers and in the presentation.  While the Thesis office won't have much to say about your content, your committee will. The presentation of it is important.

So when Carolyn at the Thesis Office finally reads your work, we don't want to hear her head thud to the table in the next room, or hear her scream "AAAACK 1.5 inch MARGINSSS!" from down the hall. We'll all want to know who did it.

You have worked so hard on this thesis.  Do it an honor and do your future readers the honor of formatting it like a pro!  Because once you pass this last "test," you are a pro.  Conventions are annoying, they take up time and brain-space, and no one can tell us exactly why they are the way they are.  But they are still important, just as important as the conventions of using a period to end a sentence or quotation marks to set off a quote. If we value our research and its products, we should do everything we can to participate in the community by keeping our reviewers', committee's, and future readers' eyes on the page and their heads off the table.

Eventually, Your Program Will End (So Plan Your Career Now!)

Some of you are in the first phases of your graduate degree program, others somewhere near the middle, and still others are fortunate to be nearing the end.  One thing we all have in common is a yearning to see what the world looks like from across the finish line, yes?

Well, below we present a voice from that hallowed spot.  Last December, Mike Yetter, one of the founding bloggers here at Project Thesis NIU, completed his doctorate in English with a dissertation on the 20th-century author John Dos Passos.  Congratulations, Mike!    

Now that I’ve graduated, what’s next?

Well, it felt like it took me forever (upon reviewing my transcripts, it did in fact take me forever), but I made it! I admit that during the graduation ceremony, I did stand a little taller, my smile was wider, and I was breathing a lot easier, having relieved myself of an immense burden of my own design. Most important, my children, my committee, my former co-workers, and my old boss – everyone who supported me through my doctoral education – were present at the ceremony, and I could tell how proud of me they were. I stood for pictures, exchanged hugs, etc. And as soon as the ceremony was over . . . BAM! I was hit over the head with a 2 x 4 with a note attached that said: “So now that you’re on the job market, what are your plans?”

Michael K. Yetter (far right) being hooded at the Graduate School Commencement, December 2016

This has inspired the following guest blog to pass on some important advice: Before you finish your master’s or doctoral program, sit down and speak with someone in your department about your future outside of graduate school, because it will come to an end. There were times when I was convinced that I was never going to graduate, and that the English department and NIU were conspiring to keep me in graduate school forever, but that really is not the case. The only person keeping you from finishing that all-important thesis or dissertation is you. Once you do finish the work (and with the help of the Thesis Office, you will finish the work), you need to know what it is you want to be now that you’re all grown up.

Before you get to this point, plot out what will come next for you. 

I’ve always gone from job to job. I never sat down to give serious thought to a capital C career. Not to mention, I thought the point of graduate school was to avoid such a tedious subject. Now I am in the position where it is time for me to think about the dreaded word. It turns out that I am not the only person in this boat. Some graduate students already know what they want to be when they grow up. Many, though, aren’t entirely sure what they want to do with their degree or their lives after school.

Awhile back, I attended a seminar on jobs in the publishing field. Never did I dream that I had the background, education, or experience for such a career. After speaking with the people who ran the seminar, it turns out that I do. I’ve been an English instructor for so long, life outside of academia never occurred to me. I never planned on being an English professor; I just happened into it. Over the past decade, I’ve discovered that I really enjoy teaching, I’m pretty good at it, and I’m getting better. I know now that I want to remain in the world of academia.

My point is this: because I took the time to attend that seminar, I learned that there are other opportunities available to me career-wise that I never before considered. It reminded me of some of the things that came up in numerous conversations I had with professors, my committee, or dissertation director: “Hey, why didn’t you apply for such-and-such fellowship?” Well, I didn’t know I was qualified or eligible for such-and-such fellowship. Why didn’t you tell me?

I realize now that I should have made more of an effort to think about my ideal career; I should have taken the time to speak with a career-guidance counselor; I should have set aside time to sit with my director, have a cup of coffee, and discuss career prospects.

Is this a conversation you should have the first day of your graduate school journey? No. But it is an important conversation that you need to have at some point, with someone whose opinion you respect, preferably BEFORE you write your thesis or dissertation. Believe it or not, knowing the answer to this all-important question just might influence your choice of graduate courses, not to mention your topic for your thesis or dissertation.

Interesting Reading

It's been awhile since I've put up a post on recent-ish articles having to do with graduate school, graduate students, or having to write your thesis or dissertation.  I recently came across a couple of pieces that I found to be good reads, so I decided to share them with you.

"The No-Fail Secret to Writing a Dissertation" by Theresa MacPhail

MacPhail tells us that the secret to writing and finishing your dissertation is -- get this -- to sit down and write. She offers essentially the same advice that I wrote about in an earlier post on writing groups:

"Sit your butt down in a chair, preferably in a quiet and distraction-free room. Disable your internet and turn your phone on silent. Come into your writing space having already done the research you need for that day's writing task. You will not be researching or looking anything up during your writing time (researching and editing are discrete tasks, believe it or not, and should be done in separate blocks)."

She recommends writing every day, five days a week, 50 minutes a day. Don't write in ten minute chunks. Such a strategy does not accommodate deep thinking when writing.

Her style is conversational, making it a quick and easy read. I like a lot of what she has to tell her audience, such as: "[T]he dissertation is best thought of as the lousy first draft of an eventual book. No one but you expects your dissertation to be perfect." My director, my boss, and my committee have all told me this exact same thing. For some reason, it sinks in when I read it in MacPhail's piece.


"Your Dissertation Begins in Your First Seminar" by Rebecca Schuman

Schuman tells us that writing a dissertation is no different than writing the all-too-familiar 20-page essay for one of your seminar courses. She outlines strategies -- researching, writing, revising -- graduate students should be using to write an essay for a seminar class, as opposed to throwing something together a couple of days before the paper is due. I don't know anyone who would -- wait a second . . . oh yeah. I may have committed this egregious sin. It is actually good advice, and it reminded me that a couple of my peers in the English department expanded some of their own seminar papers into master's theses and dissertations.

Schuman's essay is a quick read, reeks of common sense, and I like her approach to the topic -- i.e. the dissertation is not some holier than thou document; it's just a longform version of a seminar paper. It made me wish I had read this back when I first started out in the graduate program.


"Master's Degree Programs Specialize to Keep Their Sheen" by Jennifer Howard

Howard's article focuses on graduate schools and how "master’s-level programs have had to adapt to keep up with students who seek an educational experience customized to their particular goals, and who put a premium on skills and experience that prospective employers will find valuable." 

According to the Department of Education, 751,000 master's degrees were awarded during the 2012/2013 academic year. Approximately half of these degrees were in health and education. While students continue to pursue higher degrees in fields like Math, computer science, and engineering, fewer students are pursuing master's degrees in subjects like education. There are a number of reasons for this drop in enrollment.

What Howard notes is that this generation of graduate students desire more specialized degrees that will be appealing to potential employers and to be taught a diverse skill set that will enable them to have an impact on the community. This is being attributed to an "activist air" among grad students. Because they want more from their higher education, graduate school programs are readjusting in order to be more appealing to future students.  
It is a fascinating read.

One last thing:

I want to remind everyone that the next session of Write Place, Write Time is coming up -- Thursday, April 14, 2016. Once again we will be meeting at 6pm in Founder's Library. Be there or be a dodecahedron. If you are still a bit confused about the group, you can read up on it by clicking here.

As always, please feel free to share your comments, concerns, random thoughts, hopes for the future, jokes of the day, etc. on our Facebook group page, or feel free to post in the comments box below.

Guest Blog -- Connections Matter

Part of the mission of Project Thesis is to update you on valuable information relating to the researching, organizing, writing, documenting, revising, defending, and publishing of a thesis or dissertation.

At the same time, the blog was designed to describe the experiences of graduate students, traditional and non-traditional, struggling with starting and completing their thesis or dissertation. We want you to realize that many of your peers across departments are dealing with similar issues, and, most importantly, that you are not alone in this. 

In an effort to bolster this sense of community, from time to time our office will be asking guest bloggers to contribute to Project Thesis on a number of topics relevant to graduate students today. 

It is our hope that you, too, will contribute to this ongoing discussion by posting questions and comments to the blog or on our office Facebook group. 

And with that, the NIU Thesis and Dissertation office is proud to present our inaugural guest blog by Paula Howard.

What do I wish I had known when I started writing my thesis? Connections matter. 

As part of my degree requirements I wrote a thesis titled The Use of Facebook by Older Adults. I learned a lot in the process, about the subject and about myself. One crucial lesson, which I wish I had learned early on, was that I made it harder for myself by going it alone. I had no idea how vital connections are. 

Not just connections to various university personnel who shepherded me and my paperwork through the system. I mean connections to people like my professors, advisors, and colleagues. I don’t mean to diminish the importance of my family and friends throughout the process. They all cheered me on faithfully and put up with a fair amount of flakiness on my part. But when it came to writing my thesis, I would have benefitted from being connected to more people who understood what I was going through. And that’s on me. 

I’ve always had a tendency to assume I have to do things myself, but I should have abandoned that conceit early on. Meeting with my thesis advisor or committee would tie me up in anxious knots. What I can see now is that I didn’t need to dread those meetings. I always came away from those encounters feeling better about my research, my thesis, and my ability to get it all done. I would have been much better off embracing them as a chance to have in-depth conversations about my research, to get feedback and advice, to gather up words of encouragement for those dark nights of a grad student’s soul. 

I also wish I had sought out the camaraderie of my fellow thesis writers. While I was completing my coursework I enjoyed hanging out with other grad students, but once I finished my classes I saw them very little. Working with a writing buddy, or buddies, would have given me the connection I missed. Going to the University Writing Center or attending a Graduate School workshop or presentation would have helped, too. 

Don’t get me wrong. Writing my thesis was a very positive experience, and I’m proud of that accomplishment. But take my word for it: Connection helps. Reading a blog about getting through your thesis can cheer you up for a while, but it’s no substitute for real-world connections.