Reverse Outlining and Thematic Analysis

by Kristin Huggins, Consultant

Photo by Kaleidico on Unsplash

Imagine, if you will, that you’ve just finished drafting your paper. You sit back with smug satisfaction, eyes flitting down to the lower left-hand corner of your Word document to repeatedly read the page and word counts, further reminders of the quasi-masterpiece that fell from your fingertips. It feels as if a monumental task akin to the likes of summiting Everest has just occurred, and you are tempted to sit and marinate in its glow now that it has been accomplished. A voice whispers to you: “It’s done. It is finished.” (Ten points to the reader who recognizes both of these quotes)

For some writers, revisions are the bane of their existence; for others, it is the Valhalla of their writing process. No matter how you feel about it, revision work demands patience, dedication, persistence, and grit. It can be painful, and rightfully so, as the word revision itself denotes the act of alteration, change, or correction. You are essentially asked to take the thing which you brought into the world – often through tears and copious amounts of caffeine – and irrevocably alter it, sometimes beyond all recognition. This is understandably difficult for creators of any kind.

For these reasons alone, many writers (even the well-seasoned, battle-hardy ones) shy away from the act of revisionary work. Even if the word “revision” does not send a chill down the spine, writers may find it challenging to transition from drafting to revision, as these two actions require very different sets of writing muscles. Therefore, instead of allowing your work to gather figurative dust on your computer desktop, warm up those muscles by asking yourself the following questions:

  1. What am I trying to communicate? What was my original purpose/thesis/argument? Has this changed? Does my draft properly convey this purpose (new or otherwise)?
  2. Does each subsection of my work follow a logical progression of flow throughout? Are there any areas that could be moved elsewhere that make more sense?
  3. Can I confidently recite the main themes of each section? Do these themes make sense together?

This is where thematic progression comes into play. Thematic progression is a writing strategy where a developed theme is repeated, repurposed, and built upon throughout the document. This strategy is used to enhance the message the writer seeks to communicate through that theme (or themes) to their primary stakeholders (i.e., the targeted audience). A theme is versatile in that it can be as simple as a topic sentence, or as complex as a thesis statement. There are also a variety of ways to organize themes as a writer: linear, categorical, ordinal, etc. I like to imagine themes as colors on a palette; when placed together, some fit quite nicely while others are an afront to the eyes!

Several scholars have spoken about the power of themes, rhemes, and thematic progression in how students approach higher-level writing and how a better understanding of these concepts leads to higher-order communication through the written word (Danes, 1974; Halliday, 1985; Hawes, 2015; Lee, 2009; Thomas, 1991; Wang, 2007). However, the purpose of this blog is not to review the literature but rather to provide you – dear reader – with practical, real-world strategies for applying thematic progression analysis to your toolbox of tricks for revision.

When applied through the lens of a master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation, writers can utilize thematic progression to identify macro-level ideas, concepts, and flow from a full text perspective. This reduces the risk of the writer getting “bogged down” in the weeds of the writing (a common experience for those completing larger works); instead the writer is placed in the stratosphere of their work with a bird’s eye view to consider whether they’ve achieved overall tonal congruency (i.e., complete alignment of their message/argument/goal).

This is especially vital when shifting from drafting to revision. At this moment, the bulk of your content is present (save for secondary rewrites/additions/removals). You have a decent preliminary idea of where your work is going, and how it will land. Now is the perfect time to go back, section by section, to determine whether each paragraph, subsection, section, and chapter supports one another and provides congruency throughout the flow of your writing. At the GWC, we refer to these as structural edits – writing concerns made with a broad stroke brush. Before you dive into copyedits, line edits, and proofreading (all arguably less stressful to tackle, yet less effective if the big-picture issues remain untouched), you must first address the structure, flow, and congruency of your work. 

Let’s put this into practice with an example exercise.

Reverse Outlining:

  1. Select a section (or subsection, if from a larger work) of your writing to review. Any section will do. If you’re faint of heart, start with your strongest one. For the adrenaline junkies out there, you know what to do.
  2. Methodically read through each paragraph and make notes elsewhere (I prefer journaling, but Notes/Word documents are also helpful tools) on the main theme/themes presented.
  3. Complete for the entire section. Make sure to list subheadings and headings where appropriate. You should now have a completed backward outline for review.

Action Steps:

  1. First: consider the flow of the themes. Does this order make sense? 
  2. Second: consider the marriage of themes and headings. Do any headings need to be revised to reflect the content within them properly?
  3. Third: consider whether more than one theme was identified in a single paragraph. Is this appropriate (i.e., a secondary theme), or does this require the creation of a new paragraph?
  4. Fourth: consider your topic sentences at the beginning of each paragraph. Do the topic sentences and themes match one another?

These actions are great launchpads for the beginnings of revision! They also work beautifully when completed in order. By following this blueprint, you begin with macro-level structural concerns and drill down though smaller areas of structural issues such as topic sentences and inner-paragraph civil wars (i.e., more than one topic presented). 

Take heart, dear reader. Revision is not a linear process. However, with the use of thematic progression analysis through exercises like Reverse Outlining, you will be well on your way to diving head-first into the deep end of successful revisionist writing practices. 

Teach a Person to Fish: Proofreading Strategies for Lifelong Writing

by Kristin Huggins, Consultant

In music, there is no such thing as an insignificant note. A musician must carefully examine each musical notation and interpret it through the lens of style, story, and audience. Similarly, writing demands that we, the writer, drill down through every clause, every synonym, every semi-colon to determine how our writing will be interpreted by our readership. However, when working through larger projects (i.e., a master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation) these tiny details become blurred in the face of larger, macro-level writing issues. Where does this leave the proofreading process? Cue the green and gold smoke signal for help!

The seven tips below are a culmination of both personal habits and strategies shared by colleagues and professors over the years. While collectively these tips are not foolproof, they serve as a great way to start the proofreading process!

  1. Download Grammarly to Microsoft Word. I cannot stress enough the value of this program. Grammarly is AMAZING. Fun Fact: Word’s spell-check runs an entirely different algorithm than Grammarly when reviewing papers. This means that with the power of both, you’re more likely to catch those pesky issues hiding in the crevices of your paper. Grammarly offers both a free version and a paid premium version. I use the free version, mainly because the thought of paying for yet another subscription makes my stomach turn. But many colleagues swear by the premium. Try both for yourself!
  2. Read your work out loud. Yes, academic writing is not the same as colloquial speech. I’m well aware. However, when speaking through your paper, you’ll find moments where you pause subconsciously to consider a phrase or punctuation that doesn’t feel “quite right”. Follow that gut reaction. Question it. Determine whether it has merit and write from there. This trick is also helpful in addressing larger concerns such as flow or topic congruency.
  3. Become best friends with your Search Bar. If you open your Sidebar in Word, you will be able to Search specific phrases, letters, punctuation, or even extra spaces in your paper to see where and how often they occur. This tool has been my saving grace in finding places where I accidentally inserted two spaces after a period rather than one. I also use this feature to discover my “Word of the Week” (i.e., the adverb or adjective my brain has decided to play on loop during my drafting sessions). Searching for these repetitive words allows me the opportunity to consider whether they are truly appropriate and whether a synonym would be of better use.
  4. Do not attempt to tackle your entire work at once – especially if it is multiple chapters. This piece of advice is also applicable for writing consultations. You’re much more likely to be effective in your writing goal if you break it down into digestible chunks. The prospect of proofreading a 200-page dissertation within one sitting is inconceivable. I like to approach difficult chapters during my most productive hours of the day when I know my brain will be firing on (nearly) all cylinders.
  5. Proofread content and style separately. Many find it effective to proofread papers for academic style errors (i.e., APA, MLA, Turabian, etc.) without addressing in-text content. Some have this gift. I wish I was so blessed. Alas, I cannot rub my belly and pat my head at the same time, therefore I will assume that proofreading multiple levels of style, content, and grammar will only result in tears.
  6. Try tactile proofreading. Staring at screens for hours on end has an odd effect on how the brain processes language, at least in my personal experience. Some of my best revision work has come from printing a chapter and setting to it with a traditional red pen (or green, if you prefer soothing, positive colors). Feeling the crispness of individual pages while setting your thoughts to paper with actual ink is a very different experience than scrolling through Word document pages and adding strikethroughs. Try it once and see what happens.
  7. Use a Proofreading Checklist to help guide you. Even the seasoned scholar falls into the trap of trying to tackle all proofreading tasks at once. Experience may make the writer, but the writing process remains a fluid embodiment of evolving critical thought and creative output. This means that proofreading can never be worked into muscle memory, but must constantly be attacked at all angles methodically and carefully. The use of a checklist can be liberating, providing the writer with a strategic plan of attack. A sample proofreading checklist can be found here, provided by Southeastern University’s Writing Center.

We hope that you continue to hone your skills as a writer, editor, and proofreader! If you’re new to the proofreading game, these seven tips should jumpstart your proofreading process. If you’re a veteran proofreader and you have additional tips or tricks to the proofreading process, please share below!

Happy writing, dear readers.

Graduate Pathways for Success: How to Create a Poster Presentation

With both the October GPS workshop on “Conferencing Well” (October 18th, register here) and the Fall 2022 Graduate Research Showcase on the horizon (October 20th, submit your proposal here), it’s important to set yourself up for success when publicly sharing your research. One of the best ways to share your research is by submitting a poster. Whether this is for a conference or for the upcoming Graduate Research Showcase, these tips from Alicia Briançon, one of our consultants here at the Graduate Writing Center, will ensure you set yourself up for success. At the bottom of this post, you’ll find a quick guide to using the Baylor Print Center for printing your poster.

Picture this: You are preparing for your first conference as a doctoral student. Maybe, you have a conference paper under your belt and are excited to present your findings for the first time. It is a privilege to have the opportunity to present, but the butterflies kick in, and you are not sure what poster is best. Is this like the 3rd-grade science fair, where you present with a three-fold cardboard cut-out? Should you splurge on a fabric poster? Does it even matter?  

Another question you are likely asking yourself is where each section should be placed and how much text you should include.  

First, to address the presentation itself, we know that how you display information matters and maybe even more than what you are presenting. Believe it or not, there is poster presentation pedagogy (of course there is!), and here are the key tips for planning and formatting conference presentations.  

Checklist for medical presentations (Foster et al., 2019) 

  1. Conference requirements (size, layout, poster ID, number of slides)
  2. Authors
  3. Presentation requirements
  4. Contributor list
  5. Funding disclosure
  6. Conflicts of interest
  7. Supplementary information (QR codes)

Checklist for general research posters (Hardicre et al., 2007)  

  1. Title 
  2. Abstract 
  3. Introduction 
  4. Methods 
  5. Results 
  6. Discussion 
  7. Acknowledgments 

Key takeaways: Presenters report that limiting the information to include is the most difficult aspect of poster making. To avoid this challenge, use bullet points, graphs, and charts to demonstrate your points (Moore, 2001). The most commonly used font is Arial, and your poster should be easily readable at 1.5 meters away (Hardicre et al., 2007).    

A great article to help you understand what each section entails is Ten Steps to a Successful Poster Presentation (Hardicre et al., 2007). According to their research, the introduction should define your topic and have key literature to add to your rationale. The title should be easy to understand, and it is not the time to get wildly creative. Include all researchers’ names, and if it is appropriate, logos should also be included. The methods section explains what you did and how you did it; diagrams are helpful. The discussion section is where you communicate to your audience what your results or findings actually mean. Ask yourself what the greater implications or impact are related to what you found in your study. 

We are all encouraged to attend conferences. Having a polished and engaging poster is a winning strategy, but by incorporating the researched methods above, you could have the best poster of all. Remember, the point is not to include everything for your study on the poster. Focus on the key points so that the audience communicates with you to learn more about your work. Remember that poster presenting can feel awkward, and that is completely normal, so relax, be confident, and have fun. Happy Poster Making!  

Resources: 

Foster, C., Wager, E., Marchington, J., Patel, M., Banner, S., Kennard, N. C., … & Stacey, R. (2019). Good practice for conference abstracts and presentations: GPCAP. Research Integrity and Peer Review, 4(1), 1-11. 

Hardicre, J., Devitt, P., & Coad, J. (2007). Ten steps to successful poster presentation. British journal of nursing, 16(7), 398-401. 

Moore, L. W., Augspurger, P., King, M. O. B., & Proffitt, C. (2001). Insights on the poster preparation and presentation process. Applied Nursing Research, 14(2), 100-104. 

Alicia Briançon is an Ed.D candidate at Baylor in the Education department. Her research focuses on informal faculty-student contact and its impact on course retention. She teaches public speaking at the College of Southern Nevada (CSN) and is a digital media consultant with a political Super PAC striving to protect our democracy. For two years at CSN, she worked with the Prison Education Program as well. She received a master’s degree in Strategic Communication from American University in Washington, DC, and a BA from the University of Maryland in College Park. She is active with the AEJMC as a Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver Center for the Advancement of Women in Communication fellow and is a member of Kappa Delta Phi. In Las Vegas, she teaches a dance fitness class on the weekends at EOS and loves to go hiking with her partner.

When the Writing Gets Tough: Utilizing Baylor’s Graduate Writing Center Resources

by Dr. Becca Cassady, Graduate Writing Center Director

Ask almost any graduate student—almost anyone in higher ed, really—and we’ve been there: So deep in a dissertation chapter that we can’t write our way out.  Stumped by cryptic “revise and resubmit” feedback. Unable to please a grant committee comprised of academics outside of our discipline.  Intimidated by a blank Word document at the beginning of a project. Even when we’re pretty pleased with a document, sometimes we still hesitate to hit “send.”

Writing can be hard. Especially if you feel like you’re in it alone.

Enter the Graduate Writing Center (GWC). The GWC is a Graduate School service designed to aid students with their various writing projects—from class assignments to dissertation chapters to job application materials.   We help brainstorm, reorganize complex arguments, reword ambiguous or unclear sentences, and more. All of our consultants are advanced stage doctoral students with extensive writing training and experience.  We offer writing groups that you can opt into each semester, occasional workshops, and one-on-one consultations.

I’ve had students ask me, “Isn’t this mainly for people in humanities?”Absolutely not!  Our consultants are from humanities, social sciences, and STEM fields; our coordinator, Anna Beaudry, does her best to pair students with a consultant within their discipline or a closely related one.

When they’re not experts in your subject matter, consultants act as “expert outsiders”: experts in writingwho can offer a fresh perspective, ensuring that you’re communicating clearly to an outside audience.* They are trained in what questions to ask and what concerns to look for.

“That’s great and all, but what if I’m a remote or online student?” Technology is a beautiful thing!  We offer remote consultations through platforms like Zoom. Phone appointments are also an option. We want to cater to as many graduate students as possible!

Our approaches to Consultations

When we meet with you one-on-one, we aim to create meaningful writing experiences by using a variety of best practices.  I’ve listed a few of our priorities below.  (And just so you don’t have to take my word for it, I’ve included real student evaluations from our feedback surveys.)

We dedicate ample time to written and verbal feedback. We know that graduate level writing is complex and often long. (Those dissertation chapters are no joke!) Our consultants spend one to two hours with your project before your appointment to compile thoughtful written comments. This makes your one-hour in person (or online) meetings far more focused and productive.

“[My consultant] was wonderful, from communication before the meeting to the meeting itself. She also made such detailed comments on my paper that I felt I could even have sufficiently made changes without meeting to talk about it. That’s really important to me, as sometimes it’s easy to forget what is said in meetings.” (December 2021)

“[The consultant] provided feedback in a professional manner that did not make me feel dumb or incompetent. She helped walk me through the process so that I can apply what I learned to future assignments.” (December 2021)

We listen. Our goal is to help you say what you need and want to say.

“[My consultant] really ensured that she understood what I needed from her and what my assignment was so that she could help me to the best of her abilities. She continued to follow up with me to make sure I didn’t have anymore questions or concerns. [She] made me feel like I mattered and I am so grateful for her patience and knowledge.” (April 2022)

“I appreciated how unbiased the consultant was; even though he personally disagreed with my argument, was still helpful and thoughtful. As someone who is terrible at objectivity, I appreciated that.” (December 2018)

“It was so helpful and encouraging to work with [my consultant]. With English not being my native tongue, [the consultant] was able to provide me with cues that will help make my writing flow better, and further, she gave me meaningful feedback for my papers as well as general writing feedback that I will continue to use as I proceed through my program.” (April 2022)

We help students develop long-term writing strategies while working with assignments.  Much of our time is aimed at improving individual assignments sent our way: we discuss argument, content, sentence flow, wording, and more.  However, we also use those as opportunities to teach clients strategies and tools to help them in future writing projects.

“[My consultant] is amazing! She takes the time to teach me writing skills…[S]he doesn’t just help me correct mistakes. I have learned so much from her this year.” (May 2019)

We see our student colleagues first and foremost as people, not assignments.Sometimes what you need in graduate school is encouragement. Our consultants speak not only from a place of expertise but also from a place of understanding.  We have been and currently are experiencing the demands of academia right alongside you. You can be sure we’re rooting for you.

“Encouraging and constructive feedback that was sufficiently detailed without feeling overwhelming.” (December 2018)

In using these approaches, it’s my hope that you walk away with a stronger paper and clarity about recommended revisions and future projects.

Finally, I want to correct two common misconceptions about the Graduate Writing Center:

  1. “GWC consultants are proofreaders.” We believe our most helpful resource is our consultants’ position as writing experts or “expert outsiders.”  We want your time with the consultant to be spent talking through what we call “higher order concerns” – things like argument, structure, flow, and clarity—rather than punctuation or formatting.  We are not proofreaders and therefore we do not dedicate appointments to merely editing papers or checking formatting. We will never correct a paper and send it back without a meeting.  Almost anyone can double-check the use of italics or commas, but we value our consultants’ writing and content expertise and hope you will, too!
  1. “GWC consultants will perfect my paper.”We can’t guarantee perfection. (Wouldn’t that be grand if we could?!) From applications to class assignments, there are many factors that go into a project’s evaluation that are beyond our control. However, our consultants aim to get to know the project’s audience and context before providing feedback to help you craft a document that is clearer, more readable, better organized, etc.

I hope you’ll give us the opportunity to work with you on your upcoming projects.  Submit an appointment request form here, and you’ll have taken your first step towards what I hope will be an encouraging and helpful consultation!

*Adler-Kassner, Linda and Elizabeth Wardle, eds. Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing. UP of Colorado, 2016.

This article originally appeared on Baylor’s BearTracks Graduate Blog and can be read here. It has been modified and updated for republication.

If You’re a Researcher, You’re a Writer

By Becca Cassady, Coordinator/Consultant

I heard a proverb recently that struck me as quite relevant to my work as a writing scholar: “There is no tale so great that it can’t be spoiled in the telling.” I thought about the dissertation writing and article collaborations that we, as researchers, are engaged in daily. We can conduct the best research, collect the best data, and make the most interesting connections, but at the end of the day, if we can’t effectively communicate our ideas, the impact of our work is greatly diminished—even misunderstood.

That’s why from chemists to historians, from psychologists to sociologists, all researchers are writers. When you reach a certain point in academia, writing is practically your job. Publications, conference papers, grant writing, and even syllabi all help establish you within your discipline and convey the important work that you’re doing. A great deal of your scholarly identity and career progress is connected to your writing.

Moreover, all researchers are storytellers. You may not think of storytelling as something that goes down in the lab or in the field or even in the university library, but your data and research are telling a story, forming a narrative. You, as a writer-research, must shape that narrative so that your readers leave blown away by—or at least thinking about—your discovery/intervention/argument.

Investing in your writing practices and rhetorical knowledge as you progress through graduate school will position you well not only for the dissertation stage but also for other publications and presentations in and beyond grad school. You’ll be prepared to effectively engage other scholars, potential collaborators, and even lay readers and build your scholarly identity in the process.

Sounds like a good plan. But how?

Shaping your Narrative

As you think about translating your research into a written document, keep in mind the following rhetorical considerations that can help you engage your readers effectively.

1. What story is the study/data/research telling?

Once you know what you want to say, all of your writing choices should serve to highlight and support that goal and point readers back to your argument. Don’t let yourself get distracted by other findings or “plot lines.” Save those for another piece and tell one story well. Your reader should leave able to clearly re-state your argument.

A related consideration is the scope of your document. Don’t try to save the world in one article, one chapter, even one book. Be realistic about the content and findings that you can cover and don’t be afraid to go deep and not wide. (Although sometimes broad is more appropriate—e.g. this blogpost!)

2. Who is your audience?

Consider who your audience is. Does your work have implications for multiple fields? If so, which field are you targeting with this piece? Different scholars will have different levels of knowledge and background—even different vocabularies—so identifying this beforehand will help you keep in mind what your audience already knows and what they need to know (and therefore what you’re responsible for explaining to them.)

On a broader scale, if this is a publication, what is your venue? Different journals, for example, have different expectations for both content and style. If you’re new to publishing, I would suggest identifying the top-tier journals in your field (through your own research or by asking a mentor) and reading the articles in those journals. You’ll get a sense of what they’re looking for, what kinds of critical approaches or methodologies their pieces often use, and what content they’ve published recently. In some fields, reaching out to journal editors can also help you (or them) decide if your work is a good fit for the journal.

3. How are you intervening in the scholarly conversation?

Your work should be engaging relevant scholarship. That doesn’t mean you have to read every piece on your topic since 1900. But it does mean you need to be aware of what scholars are saying. You also need to be aware of what they’re not saying, thus identifying gaps in scholarship. This is how you justify the need for this amazing new research you’re doing. Build on other people’s work; don’t be afraid to show connections or, when necessary, contradictions. If you’re not engaging the scholarship within your field, you’re essentially screaming into an empty echo chamber. And that’s just not a productive (or publishable) place to be.

While there are many rhetorical considerations that should guide your writing, these are just a few that I find helpful as I try to shape my own data into a narrative. I hope you find them helpful, too. And if you ever need someone to read your story, the Graduate Writing Center is happy to help.

 

Becca Cassady is a PhD Candidate in English whose research focuses on writing center studies and learning transfer. She serves as the Graduate Writing Center Coordinator as well as a Doctoral Administrative Fellow for the Baylor Graduate School.

Assistantship Opportunities Now Available

The GWC takes a lot of pride in the work that we do and the resources we provide for our students. Our team is a collaborative one that values a wide range of experiences and knowledge, and we are looking for a few new consultants to join our team for the 2021-2022 academic year.  If you’re a PhD student, preferably past coursework, you are invited to apply for one of these 6 or 10 hour assistantships.

If interested, please read the full description position below and email Becca Cassady including a writing sample, C.V., and letter of reference from your Graduate Program Director, PI, or supervising faculty.

______________________________________

Job Description             

Graduate Writing Consultants help graduate students with any writing project at any stage of the composition process—generating ideas, organizing, revising, etc. Their primary work is to hold one-on-one conferences with graduate students regarding their writing. (They will not proofread papers for students.) Additionally, consultants design presentations and conduct writing workshops and research current trends in composition scholarship to find useful tools for working with graduate students. 6 hour per week and 10 hour per week assistantships available.

Benefits of being a Consultant include

  • Interdisciplinary experience
  • Regular contact with academic writing and writing across the disciplines
  • Ongoing professional development in writing pedagogy
  • Inclusion in conversations related to the needs of Baylor graduate students
  • Paid training and opportunities to work during the summer terms
  • Diversify your CV

Former Graduate Writing Consultants have gone on to direct writing centers at other colleges and universities, publish peer-reviewed articles about writing consulting, work as freelance editors and writing consultants, compete for academic jobs that require interdisciplinary teaching or teaching graduate students, and more.

Responsibilities

Here are some guidelines for being a Graduate Writing Center consultant:

  • Attend a 2-day training in August before the Fall semester begins.
  • Hold 3 to 4 conferences per week—sometimes more, sometimes less– depending on your assistantship hours.
  • Meet with the Coordinator and other Consultants bi-weekly.
  • Present strategies for working within your disciplines to the Coordinator and other Consultants as needed. Actively learn about other disciplines in order to add to your knowledge about writing across the disciplines.
  • Design and lead a workshop/ writing event once per semester.
  • Develop and maintain relationships with your clients and departments. Make sure your communities know about your services. Form new relationships and partnerships. Seek out opportunities to support Baylor graduate student writers.
  • With any unfilled hours beyond scheduled appointments, you will:
    1. Add to our working annotated bibliography (research about Writing Centers, resources for graduate students, academic writing in your specific field). This research may be shared at monthly meetings.
    2. Produce content for our blog in the form of book reviews, blog posts, tutorial videos, etc.

Applicant Criteria

  • Doctoral student
  • Demonstrated writing proficiency within their academic field
  • Experience with the academic publishing process
  • Strong verbal and written communication skills
  • Strong organizational skills
  • Self-starter

Writing Genres: The Dissertation

By Jonathan Kanary, GWC Consultant

When I started working on my dissertation, I thought I knew how to write. After all, I had successfully completed seminar papers. I had prepared and delivered talks for conferences. I had even placed a couple of scholarly articles. Surely I had the hang of this academic writing thing by now, right?

Then I got my director’s feedback on a draft chapter. He was gracious, and he liked a lot of what I was doing. But he also made it clear that my work needed a lot of revision. I started to think, “maybe I don’t know what I’m doing after all.”

The Problem

Almost no one who begins writing a dissertation has ever written a dissertation before. You might have written a master’s thesis, and that helps. But you’re also new to this.

The good news is that if you’ve gotten this far, you’ve done a lot of writing. You have most of the skills you need to complete the task.

The challenge is that it isn’t exactly the same task. If you want to master the dissertation, you have to understand what kind of thing it is: its genre.

In this post, I want to break the dissertation’s genre into three parts: the purpose, the audience, and the format.

The Purpose

What is a dissertation for? This might seem like an obvious question: you’re making a scholarly argument. If you’re in STEM or the Social Sciences, the basis for your argument is probably a study, or a series of studies. If you’re in the Humanities, the material for your argument will likely include evidence you have gathered from books and articles. Your task is to make this argument and make it well.

True—but incomplete. Your dissertation has a second major purpose: showing that you’ve done your work. In today’s world, a graduate degree is a kind of credential. It’s a stamp of approval that you have the competencies those letters after your name represent. Your dissertation tells your committee that they don’t have to feel bad about giving you that stamp of approval. They can release you into the world with a reasonable hope that you know how to do the sorts of things that people with advanced degrees in your field do. This means that you need to demonstrate the thoroughness of your research. And you have to explain—maybe more fully than you would in other kinds of academic writing—exactly how your argument relates to other scholars’ work.

The Audience

Who is the dissertation for? Again, this initially seems obvious: you write for your committee. But have you thought about what that means? Your director may or may not have a high degree of expertise in the specific area of your project. Other members of your committee have relevant expertise; but they almost certainly don’t all work in your exact area. If you have an “outside reader” from another department, or someone from your own department who does a very different kind of research, they may not know all the technical terminology you’re using. They may lack historical context. When you reference a scholarly work that has defined your area, they may not know why it’s such a big deal.

Ask yourself, “What might someone on my committee need to know for this argument to make sense?” And then figure out how to include that information.

Although the primary audience for a dissertation is your committee, you could end up having a secondary audience: other scholars working in your area. I am citing several dissertations as I write my own. However, if you do a good job providing background for everyone on your committee, it will likely be enough for secondary readers as well.

The Format

So how the heck do I put together this dissertation?

Here, I have good news: the Graduate School has lots of resources to help you format your dissertation properly. (Hint: If you go ahead and put your draft into this format to begin with, it will save you a lot of time later.)

But you might also want to ask your director if he or she can point you to an earlier dissertation that proved successful. Sometimes seeing what an acceptable entry in the genre looks like can help you imagine your own.

Getting Done

Notice, I said an “acceptable” entry, not a “brilliant” or “ground-breaking” one. More than one faculty member has told me, “A good dissertation is a done dissertation.” It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. This isn’t the last thing you get to write. You will have plenty of time to revise before it becomes a book or a series of articles. Just keep your purpose in mind, pursue it in a way that will make sense to your audience, and follow the basic format.

You can do this.

 

Jonathan Kanary is a PhD candidate in English at Baylor, where he serves as a consultant for the Graduate Writing Center and teaches for the Great Texts department. His research focuses on the intersection of literature and spirituality, with a particular interest in the Middle Ages and 19th-20th century British literatures.