Procrastination Forumla

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An interesting link page.

Teaching with Electronic Technology

The World Wide Web sites collected on this page reflect the considerable variety of uses for computing and related forms of electronic technology in teaching. They are arranged in no strict order, but tend to proceed from rather general and theoretical resources to some instructive examples of specific applications of technology to teaching and learning. Like many other web sites, this one changes and grows as I find time to revise and update these links. I am grateful to those who have made suggestions, corrections, and introduced me to additional resources.

Moving away from ABD

Dissertations

What this handout is about...

Graduate school pundits often cite 50% or more as the attrition rate for ABD students. Why? This handout will not only answer this question, but will also give you good, practical advice on starting, drafting, and completing your dissertation.

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Completing the Dissertation

University of Michigan: Student Information: Rackham Workshops: Strategies for Completing Your Dissertation

Basic Principles for Completing the Dissertation:

1. Don't stop working. Find a way to work continuously on the dissertation. Sometimes your work will be garbage, sometimes it will wonderful and sometimes in-between. If you are too tired to write, work on your tables, the table of contents or the acknowledgments."It's easier to keep a big boulder moving when it is already moving than when it has stopped."

2. If you stopped working on your dissertation, get restarted. Avoid black and white thinking as in: "Since I stopped working for the last couple of days, I'm a failure." Think instead, "That I stopped working for the last couple of days only means that I did not work for a couple of days." The important lesson is that the label or meaning we attach to the behavior can become more important than the behavior itself.

3. Balance your dissertation life with your "regular" life. This does not mean you will have balance on a daily basis. Instead think of having a reasonable sense of balance overall.

4. Balance making the dissertation a personal enterprise with maintaining a distance from it. Do not become overly connected to the work.

5. The dissertation committee or your faculty advisors are not your family of origin, so try not to react to them that way. Be wary of reverting back to family issues you have when dealing with your committee members.

6. If conflict arises between committee members and you're receiving different sets of directions, turn to your greatest ally, who normally is the one you selected as your advisor. Overall, pick your battles carefully. Do not try to fight everything.

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Dissertation Research Blog

Dissertation Research

Dissertation Research

The Dissertation Research Blog is presented by Regents Center Library on the University of Kansas, Edwards Campus. The purpose of this site is to provide the graduate student with information needed to conduct a Literature Review and develop research strategies using KU Libraries' electronic collections and the Internet's research power. Your questions and comments are very welcome.

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YENZA!!! -- Do It

Yenza! - Start your research

The expansion of the Internet and the development of the World Wide Web over the past decade have had a significant impact on research. The Internet can serve as a tool for finding information, a medium for networking and conducting research, and a means for the rapid and widespread dissemination of information.

This section of Yenza! contains information about some of the online tools which can assist you in doing research in the humanities and social sciences. It is not intended as a textbook on how to do research. Rather, these pages offer resources and links to resources relating to various stages and aspects of the research journey.

Every subject has its own approaches to research and its own methods. This site includes resources which can be used to support research but you will need to use them in a way which suits your particular range of interests and the pattern of research which is typical of your topic areas. Visit the Yenza! subject specific pages for resources in individual disciplines.

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Can we teach someone to think?

Structure of a dissertation proposal - GSLISWiki

Former Playmate Anna Nicole Smith Found Dead

Rutherford story
Posted in computer by on the February 15th, 2007
Sir Ernest Rutherford, President of the Royal Academy, and recipient of the Nobel

Prize in Physics, related the following story:

Some time ago I received a call from a colleague. He was about to give a student a zero for his answer to a physics question, while the student claimed a perfect score. The instructor and the student agreed to an impartial arbiter, and I was selected. I read the examination question: “Show how it is possible to determine the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer.” The student had answered: “Take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to the street, and then bring it up, measuring the length of the rope. The length of the rope is the height of the building.” The student really had a strong case for full credit since he had really answered the question completely and correctly! On the other hand, if full credit were given, it could well contribute to a high grade in his physics course and certify competence in physics, but the answer did not confirm this. I suggested that the student have another try.

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Getting Started

 

Storage is Cheap, Data Loss is Expensive

She can to the computer lab to do a little research while waiting for her computer to be repaired. What happed next changed her life.

She went to the help desk and said that she had pulled a thumb drive out of the computer she was using without "safely removing" it from the computer and that now all her files were not showing up. The lab assistant tried to help...but all the data was gone.

To make a long story short, the information on this thumb drive was two years worth of research and to make things worse it was her only backup.

Wow! Two years of work gone.

So what's the moral of the story?
Storage is cheap, data loss is expensive.

Where are you storing your research? Are you using multiple backups? Share you ideas for storage and back up with the rest of us, we can all profit from your input.

I have found that gmail is one good place to store my files. I created a gmail account just for my research. Now each time I find a new article or do some writing...I'm careful to upload a copy to my gmail account. Works for me...what's your plan?

Sternberg - Chapter 7 Review

Procrastination is the birthplace of frustration.

Sterberg spends the first part of chapter 7 warning the dissertation writer of neuroses and psychoses that may develop as a result of the dissertation writing.

Take a listen to the Chapter 7 Podcast

"Not infrequently, dissertation writers exhibit symptomatology resembling or even duplicating clinical pictures of the neuroses--such as anxiety and hysteria--and even some of the psychoses--such as depression or paranoia. ABD's deep into the thesis will often report that they feel on the verge of a nervous breakdown., or that they are "going crazy." A reader unfamiliar with dissertation course and moods, including a pre- or new ABD, may protest that I am surely exaggerating matters with talk of neuroses and or psychoses as dissertation-related or even caused. But those in the soup know differently." (Sternberg, 1981)

The writer list a few cause of these psychoses:

• Doubts about the dissertation itself
• wrong topic
• bad data
• writers block
• can't see the light at the end of the tunnel
• fear of leaving something out.
• fear that someone else has written about this
• Bewildered and Negative Feelings about Oneself
• Negatively Affecting Relationships with Others
• Reification, Alienation and the Dissertation-As-Enemy
• No one to turn to for help

Where can a dissertation writer find help?

"As I have indicated in earlier chapters, the sympathetic, interested professor--be he adviser, thesis committee member, departmental chairman or other faculty person--is an unreliable, rare, and generally highly problematic commodity in the dissertation-help stockpile." (Sternberg, 1981)

It would be a sad, sad thing if this was really true. I not sure why Sternberg has chosen such a negative view of the world around him. I understand how busy the teaching staff is at a major university but it has been my experience at U.T. that most professors and ready and will to help the student.


So...if the student believes that Sternberg is saying where is help to be found?

• Friend
• Other students
• Dissertation writing groups
  
• Support groups
• Family

If thing get really bad and you just can't handle the stress any longer you may need to spend some time with a dissertation therapist. According to Sternberg this person will help the writer sort through all the stress and return to reality. He also feels that the writer must get any problems fixed before the end of the dissertation process or the problems may follow the writer into his professional life.

He provides some guidelines for forming a dissertation-Support Group:

• The group should be leaderless
• Members should come from the same field
• Max size is 4-5
• All members must provide detailed abstracts of their work for every member
• Meeting should cover the needs of only one or two member each week.
• Member should attend ALL meetings

Sure the process is going to an up-hill climb and we will all face difficulties...but it doesn't have to be a negative experience. Life is what you make of it....so make it a good experience.

Dealaing with the Dissertation Blues

The Graduate School, Duke University - Dealing with the Dissertation Blues

Dissertations–can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em, at least if you’re a graduate student. Preparation and defense of a dissertation can be one of the most satisfying and exciting experiences of a graduate student’s life-and one of the most challenging, frightening and frustrating. The demands differ from those faced by students in their previous academic careers. Most writing projects during undergraduate school and the first two years of graduate school are relatively short-term activities that can be accomplished with a sprint to the finish.