The Dark Side of Advising Dissertations

I have an incredibly vague recollection of a movie about Marilyn Monroe or at least about some Marilyn Monroe-like character.  I saw it when I was a teen, I believe.  There was a scene in the movie where she is humbly thanking her agent.  He tells her that a time will come when she will resent him.  Predictably, the actress becomes hugely famous and does, in fact, have a nasty scene with the agent that fulfills his prediction. 

 

I’ve thought about that movie a good bit lately – particularly when I am at that critical point of advising a dissertation.  It’s that time when the student is ready to present – mentally and emotionally ready, that is.  He or she has worked very hard to get it done and has responded to all of my comments and suggestions.  But, then it comes down to that last push.  Inevitably the last push centers on chapter five.  Often the problem emerges because the student has summarized his findings from chapter four and has not really abstracted – hasn’t achieved higher levels of judgment, significant “so whats.”  It is most often at that time that the advisee – at times unconsciously and at other times quite explicitly – begins to resent me. She gets angry because she has internalized my comments to reflect my relationship with her.    He thinks I’m trying to create roadblocks for whatever reason.  These are hard times.  They are times when that old familiar phrase “This hurts me more than it hurts you” that our parents used on us when we were little begins to haunt me.  As a professor, I am incredibly invested in the success of my students.  I think about them often – not just about their research, but also about how they are doing, how they are handling life’s challenges, etc.  Knowing that our relationship as advisor/student has been necessarily assaulted by virtue of the circumstances at the very end of the process is painful.  Not knowing whether it will ever be reconciled is even more so. 

 

Of course, this does not always happen.  When things go well and a student pushes herself as much as I push her, it is remarkable.  When a student has the capacity to see feedback as feedback on her work, not on her, and when that same student is pushing herself to make her work even more significant, that’s when the eleventh and twelfth hours of the dissertation process become incredibly exciting for the student and for me. 

 

At this point I have no way of predicting how the advisor/student relationships will end for my students and me.  I cannot look to my advisees who are still taking classes and, like the agent in the movie, say, “You know, some day you are really going to resent me.”  I can only hope that it won’t happen.  We all know love means taking risks – and caring for our students is truly a form of love in a pedagogical and moral sense.  We don’t enter those relationships expecting the worst just as couples getting married don’t enter their relationships thinking they’ll divorce.  We begin in hope and hopefully end as friends and colleagues who honor, trust, and respect one another.

Life vs. the Doctoral Student

I just took a short break from my readings this week (understandable if you knew what I was reading - very dry org theory) to touch base with my silent students.  At this point I have 14 students who should be registered for dissertation hours.  Of those, I'm in regular contact with about half.  So where are the others?  After all, they've paid their tuition and they should be getting their money's worth, right?  In spite of the financial investment, I'm afraid many of them are consumed by their lives and pushing off their dissertation work for another day, another week, another month, and then ultimately, another semester.

Now for the sake of the fact that they can access this blog and may become upset with my assessment, I will offer a critical admission: Life gets in the way when writing a dissertation.  To offer empirical evidence, I pulled up my own unofficial transcript from GSU the other day and saw semester after semester of dissertation hours that I paid for.  During the time I was writing my dissertation I experienced a few life changes: a hellish first year as a school administrator complete with school board secret meetings against the principal, walk-outs, pickets, news crews, and ultimately "running" the school with my fellow assistant principal for several months; shifting to a second administrative position in another district; a divorce; and moving three times.  Truth be told, I also let a lot of other things get in the way as well.  I taught courses at night; I did some research for NCTAF that consumed me for an entire summer; and following the divorce, I spent way too much time engaging in retail therapy and reviving a social life.  Ultimately I had to decide that THOSE THINGS - whatever they may be and however horrible some of them were - were NOT going to steal my degree from me.  I put a new screen saver on my computer that scrolled "Get the damn thing done," and I did.  

I had a huge advantage: I knew I wanted to be a university professor and I knew that the only way that was going to happen was if I finished my degree.  By August of 1999 I was applying for university positions for the following year.  By October/November of that year I knew I had a job waiting for me at ISU, with one caveat: I HAD to be finished with my degree.  It was hard enough finishing under those circumstances.  For individuals who do not have such a major and absolute deadline looming, I imagine the struggle is even greater.  That's why graduation rates are so abysmal when it comes to Ph.D.s.  People are shocked when they hear the percentages of students who stay A.B.D., but when the alternative is to set your own deadlines and meet them, it is understandable.

Horrible things happen in life - things that can send us reeling and cause us to feel that just getting up in the morning and staying vertical most of the day is a huge feat.  Life-altering events such as divorce, etc. are also more likely to happen at this point in a person's program.  As in my own situation, you can no longer hide in classes from whatever problems that may have existed at home.  When you go back home in the evenings those tensions and problems become even more pronounced.  In many traditional families, the wife and/or mother who "was" somehow changed during the course of eighty or ninety hours of graduate work, and this strong, thinking person has to leave a situation (or is left in one).  Sometimes graduate students finally have those medical check-ups they put off while in classes only to find out they have some sort of medical issues to deal with.  At other times "life" just happens, and it has nothing to do with everything a student has done to try to earn a degree prior.  

It takes an incredibly strong person to move ahead with a dissertation - to find ways to clear his or her mind of all life's clutter in order to develop a line of inquiry, pursue it, and then render meaningful and defensible judgments regarding it.  For individuals suffering, the task is monumental.  For those who have given up so much time, energy, and money for years of coursework because they really want something, the challenge "How badly do you want this thing?" can haunt and disable when faced with a dissertation.  

As for my silent seven, I will continue to poke and prod.  I will keep them in my thoughts and prayers knowing that many of them are struggling with things that have nothing to do with leadership theory, John Dewey, or whether they should pursue case study research or a straight qualitative study with phenomenological elements.  In the battle of life vs. doctoral student, I will be forever faithful in cheering on and lifting up hopes for the latter.   

Dissertation Demons

Dissertation Demons

Being a doctoral student writing a dissertation is very, very different from being a doctoral student in classes.  In addition to the work being different, how you respond to this new stage is critical. If there were issues while you were a “student” taking classes, those issues may not only remain, but may haunt you in new ways now that you are working on the dissertation. For example, if you struggled with your own intellectual self-esteem in classes, then you will struggle much more at this point when boundaries are pushed and expectations are higher. If you struggled with reconciling your life/professional condition with those around you (others who appear to have more time to write, etc.) then you will find those struggles even greater as you work on your dissertation. If comparing yourself to others either helped or hindered your efforts in coursework, doing that now will, in all likelihood, become a major obstacle for your success.

While it may be a bit of motherly advice, here are some thoughts I want to share regarding these potential demons:

1. Do not compare yourself to others. In all likelihood, student around you are and will continue to be further along than you are. In time, some will probably finish before you finish. If you let this bother you it will become an obstacle that will be difficult if not impossible to overcome.

2. Do not beat yourself up. When I was a doctoral student, I had one of those great lists of “You know you’re a doctoral student if. . . “ One of my favorite items on the list (other than having more copy cards than credit cards) was that guilt is an inherent part of everything you do. Set boundaries for working on this, your personal life, professional life, etc. Otherwise, you will constantly feel like you should be working on the dissertation. Give yourself permission to take time away from it as long as it’s a reasonable amount of time and you know when you will return to it. In other words, taking a weekend away to spend time with family will help this process in the long run.Taking 6 months off to start a new job or redo your house will definitely impede and possibly undo your efforts.

3. Listen, listen, listen. For the most part, those advising you are giving you advice to help you succeed. This is not about power or control. If I ask you to rethink something, revise something, shift a direction, etc., it is because I am trying to help you create something of quality that you will be able to defend. Taking it personally or getting angry will be self-defeating.

4. Give up 20/20 hindsight. Do not spend a minute lamenting the fact that you did not start your topic two years ago. In all likelihood, you wouldn’t be as far ahead as you may think right now. I stand by what I shave said to many of you, “It does not pay to tether one’s self to the pole of utse with too short a rope.” Your lines of inquiry throughout your program have helped you to develop dispositions and understandings that you would not have had if you had narrowly relegated yourself to one topic.  Some of you have managed to integrate ideas throughout the classes – and often used a theoretical perspective in order to do this and thus helped to enlarge your vision of the things that matter to you. That’s different, and it did not nor would it happen to everyone. It has as much to do with how you see the world as it does the conscious choices you make as a student.

5. Defend your directions and choices. Believe it or not, this point does not necessarily contradict #3. You do not just defend your dissertation at the end. You defend your directions, methods, etc. throughout the entire process. Do not come to your advisor or your committee timid or unknowing. Come with well thought-out ideas justified in your mind and on paper and then defend those directions. Many have heard my horror stories of my own experience. Had I stood up to my advisor at the time, things may have been different. True, it is a tender negotiation because we do know something about the process and while we may not be experts in your topic, we are “experts” in the inquiry process per se. So, know when and how to pick your battles and prepare for those intellectual battles. Further, document what we say to you so you can refer to it if we later forget or change the direction.

There are many more demons that will emerge throughout the process.  This is just the first ones that come to mind.  Feel free to add your own in the discussion.

Chapter Two: Literature Review

Literature Reviews: The Art of Letting Go 
So, you have your topic secured for your dissertation, and it is a topic you’ve explored in a variety of ways in your classes. At some point in your program, you probably figured out a general area of focus, and then you started “working smarter” by writing papers that you envisioned forming a lot of your dissertation. Perhaps this is the case. Just keep in mind that you are going to have to let go of some of your work in order to make sure your chapter two is designed specifically to support your research question – not just something that takes up a lot of space with a whole lot of references that you’ll have at the end of this thing. 
It is very ,very rare when a student goes through his or her prospectus defense and isn’t instructed to revise – whether slightly or substantially – his or her literature review. Why? After all, this is what you’ve done up to this point. You’ve written papers – lots of papers. Why should it be so difficult to write a good literature review for your dissertation? While not exhaustive, here are some of the common errors I have encountered in the dissertations I’ve reviewed:

1. Incoherence – This is the primary problem I have seen with literature reviews. It is the plight of the cutting and pasting from previous papers. It shows. Often students have seen their work so many times that they do not realize they have pasted elements together poorly. They also run the risk of repeating sentences of whole sections by virtue of cutting and pasting. To avoid this I would challenge you to cut and paste nothing. This doesn’t mean that you cannot use work you have done in the past, but you need to make sure you are deliberate in what you choose to use.

2. Distractions – Typically research papers cover a great deal of ground, and if you have written a number of papers in your program somewhat related, then you may have a very wide range of “stuff” you have written regarding your paper. The natural (albeit wrong) tendency for the doctoral candidate writing a dissertation is to include it all. After all, it’s your dissertation. It’s supposed to be long, so put EVERYTHING in there. The result is a chapter that is a mile wide, an inch deep, and downright painful to read. One of the most difficult things you will have to do in your writing process is to delete chunks of text from your dissertation. Whatever you include should be essential. It should serve a critical purpose in proportion to a need.

3. Letting the sources drive the organization of the chapter
When you are working on your literature review, you are surrounded by sources – articles, books, web sites, etc. When your world is surrounded by sources, it is easy to become driven by those sources. After all, if you are taking notes as you read, those notes are typically organized according to the sources. Unfortunately, some students then write their literature reviews as if they are a series of sources – not an organized body of information written in a way to serve a purpose. These papers start with important work, “Smith, Jones, and Campbell (1999) state. . . . “ and then moves from that study to another and another. Often these literature reviews read more like annotated bibliographies than papers. The ideas – the reason why the student is writing – is lost in the midst of the sources.

4. Lack of growth and development
This concern is related to the third concern, but it involves more than merely organizing according to sources. Some students can move beyond the sources and organize according to ideas, but those ideas serve no purpose in relation to one another. They are just categories – chunks – a way to put in a lot of stuff from all those old papers. Before, during, and after you write your literature review, you need to outline it and justify the categories and their relationships with one another. If there isn’t a deliberate rationale for what is included, what is excluded, and why things are written in the order in which they are, then you have not developed an acceptable literature review.

5. Lack of voice/authority
You may manage to read a lot of relevant research and you may have even developed an effective organization that helps your idea grow and develop, and yet something is still missing. Often when students work on their literature reviews, they are trying to include as much as possible and do it in a short timeframe so they can get to the real work of collecting data and getting done. Just as you have to be versed in any theory you use, you must also be grounded in the research. You have to know it well enough to represent the work with confidence and authority. Voice in writing is an achievement. You have to determine how you will “know” the research you are using. Typically, the faster and the shorter distance between your reading/note taking and your writing of your paper the less voice you achieve. You need to think about the work, think about it in relation to other work you are reading, and then think about it in relation to your line of inquiry. How can you create that space in which the work resonates and congeals in your mind? It may be a physical process as well as a mental one. For example, when I am developing the literature review for a new line of inquiry, I will shift from note-taking on the computer to using a fountain pen and composition notebooks to explore the nuances and connections between the work. It physically changes how I manipulate the information and this also pushes how I intellectually wrestle with the work. 

Grounding and Organization are Key 
Having a strong sense of your line of inquiry will help you narrow your scope for your literature review. One way to see that you are keeping your literature on target is to develop a diagram with the problem/question in the center and show how the literature review relates to it. Further, you can visually represent the degree of attention given to each sub-topic to see that it is an appropriate proportion – not just “big” because you had a lot of “stuff” related to it. Before you submit your chapter two, you need to go back and write an outline based on what is there, and make sure you can justify that organization.

Theoretical Frameworks

Theoretical Framework as Contextual Background 
For some of you, the need to use theory will focus largely on understanding the context for which you are solving a problem. Whatever your research question may be, it involves assumptions about leadership, learning, education, or some other construct. Those assumptions are based upon theory – however subtle it may seem. By virtue of choosing the question or questions you choose, wording them in one way versus another, and the manner in which you support your work through your rationale and literature review all hinge upon theory to one degree or another. So, to what degree do you need to acknowledge the theory behind your work? Answer – it depends. Here are some questions that may help you determine whether you need to clearly articulate the theory behind your work:

1. Does your work focus on ideas that have been or could be easily contested by other scholars and researchers? Is there a body of work out there that pursues your problems or questions from another perspective? If so, articulating your theoretical framework will help you to distinguish the work you are doing from other work being done.
2. Does your work attempt to address complex issues that are likely to require equally complex analysis of data? If so, would an articulation of a theoretical framework give you the support and ideological scaffolding that you will need to engage in such analysis?
3. Does your work address complex concepts that need to be recognized as complex and not merely accepted as “givens”? 
4. Would introducing a theoretical framework or construct distract you from the problem you are solving? While a framework may exist and be interesting, if it does not enlarge the potential for greater understanding for yourself and any readers of your dissertation, then it may, in fact, distract and undermine your larger purpose.

Theoretical Framework as a Structure for Analysis 
For some of you, a theoretical framework will be a critical element in how you frame your research question, how you design your study, and how you analyze your data. In this sort of situation, the theory is an integral part of the problem you are trying to solve. As such, it should play a prominent role in your prospectus and your dissertation.This means you must be utterly grounded in the theory you are using.

Theoretical Framework as a Tool for Abstraction 
Some of you may begin your work with no strong theoretical framework guiding your efforts. This is often the case in qualitative research where you are expected to enter the inquiry process open to what you will see. After gathering data, however, you may see trends or themes that point in particular directions that challenge the way you see the problem. In these instances, it may be necessary to take on or adopt a theoretical framework AFTER you have collected data to help you draw more meaningful conclusions about that data. For example, I once had a student who examined the manner in which principals developed relationships with the Hispanic families in their schools. After gathering data and analyzing it for themes, she noticed some disturbing trends where the principals “took care” of the families and treated them as if they knew less about raising their children or about positive school behaviors than the non-Hispanic families in their schools. This student was not well versed in critical theory. In order to write a meaningful “chapter five” and actually draw meaningful conclusions, she had to stop what she was doing and read a great deal of Giroux, Freire, Apple, and others who have written about issues of power and control in schools. After becoming comfortable with such concepts as “banking metaphor of education” and “patriarchy,” this student was able to return to her data and draw more meaningful conclusions about what she found. 

Theoretical Frameworks: What is gained? What is lost? 
Personally, I love theoretical frameworks – because I love theory. It’s how I’m wired – the way I see the world. For some of you, a good and explicit theoretical framework will help guide your efforts and provide clarity throughout the process. For others – particularly if you do not typically see the world theoretically - taking on an obligatory, inauthentic framework merely because someone tells you that you must have one will only distract you from your efforts. Do not let “theory” for its own sake take you off course. If you don’t see the world that way, you will be far more likely to put off writing your first chapter. You will stick it in there, and it will make your chapter piecemeal.Do not sacrifice ownership of your line of inquiry and coherence of your work for the sake of some superficial genuflection to theory. 

That said – know what you are up against when you attempt doctoral scholarship without a theory. Theory is the best platform/springboard from which you will be able to achieve significance in your findings and conclusions. It is the stuff from which abstraction is achieved. Without it, you must seek complexity in other ways, and you must seek significance within your findings. In short, description and analysis rarely if ever achieve much significance. Know that if you are going into a largely descriptive dissertation. You run the risk of not having “enough” to say in order to pass your defense. Of course, having a poor or inappropriate theoretical framework is just as bad or even worse. As Kliebard once noted, a good theory, like a good lens, clarifies what you are seeing. A bad one distorts. If you choose to use a theory that does not fit or one you don’t really know, you will find yourself will a lot of “stuff” in your dissertation that you cannot really defend – not just the findings and the conclusions, but the very assumptions you are articulating in relation to the findings and conclusions.

Theory and Your Dissertation: Proportion is Key 
So, based on the very limited introduction here, you may have some sense of the role theory or a theoretical framework should play in your dissertation. Keep in mind, that the degree of importance of the theory or theoretical framework should be reflected in the degree of attention you give it in your prospectus and dissertation. If the theory is a key part of your work – shapes your very questions and drives you inquiry – then by all means it should have a prominent role in your prospectus and dissertation. In other words – write a lot about it. If, on the other hand, the theory is merely background to what you are doing – important but in some ways implicit in what you are doing and what has been done by others, then you should not give as much attention to it in your prospectus and dissertation. Said differently, the more you write about it, the more important it must be to you and your work.

Theoretical Survival Test: Being Grounded is a Prerequisite
Last summer I spent a lot of  “quality time” with my girls at the local pool. I noticed a number of young – upper elementary to middle grades – children unaccompanied by parents. When I questioned a friend who has been going to the pool for a couple of years, she told me that the children had passed a water survival test.Each of them had swum the length of the pool independently, and so they were able to come to the pool unaccompanied. This got me thinking. If you feel that you should use a theoretical framework in your dissertation, then I will expect you to pass my “theoretical survival test.” Whatever the theory may be that you want to use – whether its distributive leadership, Dewey’s theory of inquiry, or Foucault’s pastoral power, you must be able to do one of two things (or preferably both): either sit with me at a coffee shop for a minimum of one hour discussing it accurately and with animated spirit without notes or books in front of you or be able to sit down in an hour to an hour and a half and write a clear, coherent, and accurate essay about the idea without any notes or other resources to assist you. If you cannot do this, you cannot use the theory. No exceptions. 

Finding Time and Space to Write

This topic may seem incredibly pedantic, but you would be surprised how important it is to plan for your dissertation to work. Where do you work best? When do you work best? What is your significant other(s) going to tolerate in terms of your work? Where are you going to keep all your "stuff" while you work? I know when I was working on my dissertation I had the luxury of being alone. I got rid of my t.v. during that time and I was able to work at odd hours and have all my "stuff" out all over my apartment at the time. I know most if not all of you are not at a point in life when you can do that. So, you've got to figure out how to fit this into your life in a way that won't overwhelm you with guilt or consume your relationships - a tall order.

Here are some suggestions I've known from others - whether working on their theses, dissertations, or just writing prolifically as professors:

Marathon Saturdays

One woman who finished when I did took every Saturday - all day from very early to very late - and worked on her dissertation. She was married and had young children. She was tired of feeling guilty every time she did something with her family in the evenings or on Sundays, so she determined that one day a week would be devoted to her dissertation and the rest of the week was devoted to her family. Her husband supported her and made Saturdays "daddy days" with their girls. It took her a bit longer to get done working just one day a week, but she got done, didn't lose quality time with her family, and stayed relatively sane throughout the process.

"Class Night" Equivalents

Several of my master's students who had to write their theses in two semesters, took the same night or two nights a week they had previously been in class and stayed away from home the same number of hours to work on their theses. Since their families had become used to them being gone during that time they didn't notice the difference. That way these students didn't feel guilty not working on their theses at other times.

Early Risers

Most of my most productive writing was early in the morning. When it wasn't crunch time, I would usually allow myself an hour or two in the morning before work. That way, I didn't have to retool my brain after a day of suspending seventh graders, etc. When it was crunch time (remember - I was alone and I wouldn't recommend this if you have to be human toward others in your home), I would leave work, go to the gym, go home and eat dinner, and then go directly to bed (7:30ish). I would get up at 3:00 (or even earlier when it was that last dash to the end - typically before Starbucks closed at midnight), and write until time to leave for work. I was trying to mazimize the use of my brain not on assistant principal "stuff" like it always was at the end of the day. Plus, I knew that morning time was always my best time to write and think.

Every Day

If any of you have Googled or search engined Henry Giroux, you know the man has written more than should be humanly possible. From what I've heard, he writes something every day - even if it is just a page. It keeps it churning in his head so any "down time" he may have during the day can be used thinking about what he is writing.

Regular Writing Retreats

Another scholar who has been prolific throughout his career is Jesse Goodman. He told me that he has a country house (little more than a trailer) about an hour or so from Bloomington, IN, where he lives with his wife and two kids. He would leave home Thursday mornings, go and write at that house until Friday or Saturday evening, and then come home. The rest of the week he focused on teaching and being with his kids. Granted, this took an understanding wife, but I suppose she thought it was better to be a single parent a couple days a week and get his relatively undivided support at home the rest of the week. While this may be too much to think about - perhaps one long weekend a month - where you take a Friday off (yes, that could get expensive if you end up doing it a few times without pay but it may be money well invested) to go and write somewhere for three straight days.

Roald Dahl's Advice

While this isn't necessarily about a specific time, I once say a video of Dahl talking about writing. He had a gypsy caravan in his back yard (like in one of his books) and he would go there every day to write. His greatest advice was to never leave what you are doing unless you know exactly what you are going to write when you return. If you do, then you will be reluctant to return and will struggle getting started when you return. I always try to do this myself - and it makes an incredible difference.

What can you give up?

As I mentioned above, I put my television in the closet during the entire time I worked on my dissertation. I never watched it that much, but since I was recently divorced, I realized how often I would turn it on to fill the room with noise when I came home and how that would sometimes distract me from working on the dissertation ( I can't recall how many times I would mysteriously be drawn into a rerun of some dumb sitcom on TBS instead of writing). Plus, living in basically a one-room apartment in Buckhead, it would have been right there all the time - tempting me. Are there things that fill your days/nights - however innocently? I know I'm now "addicted" to the AJC in the mornings - spending at least 30 minutes scanning it while drinking coffee. When I'm on a tight deadline, I give that up. There may be something that you feel you can give up just while you are working on the dissertation that wouldn't affect you or your family too much. It might be a "fun" way (o.k., a stretch here) for your family to support you - to turn off the t.v. for one night a week or for a couple hours a night to create that time for you to work and for them to do something else.