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So You Want to Finish Your Dissertation?

So You Want to Finish Your Dissertation?

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How to Get Your Dissertation Rolling Doctoral programs end with a dissertation but almost half of students who do the coursework never finish the dissertation. Why do you want to complete a dissertation? I wonder sometimes if students entering the process ever really ponder this question. Why is it important to know your reasons? Simply put, the more motivated you are, the more likely you are to make the sacrifices needed to succeed. Reasons like, “my friend decided to do…

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Finding Time

Finding Time

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One of the concerns I frequently hear in a graduate program is not having enough time to get all the research, reading, and writing done. Students working full-time jobs, having family responsibilities, and taking classes experience high-stress levels at best and at worst, will drop out of their online education programs because of it. How many hours each week does it take to do quality academic work? That may seem like a loaded question but really, how much time does…

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Population and Sampling

Population and Sampling

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Population and Sampling What Do I Need To Know About Getting The Data For My Research? As a graduate student, what do you need to know about collecting your data? How will you determine where to look, who or what to use for the data sources, and what you can expect to do with the collected data. Doing all of these things correctly can determine whether you will have quality scholarly work or just another worthless paper; the latter also…

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The Dissertation Process- Seeing the Big Picture

The Dissertation Process- Seeing the Big Picture

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Do you want to maximize your time and hard work completing your dissertation? That will take some planning but it is difficult to plan without understanding some things about dissertation activities and how they overlap. The dissertation process can be overwhelming to many students – actually to most students – because it is such a different process than anything else that has been done in coursework. It is a longer-term process and requires careful long-term planning and short-term planning besides…

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Are You Interested in Finishing Your Dissertation?

Are You Interested in Finishing Your Dissertation?

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  I love birding (most people call it bird watching). For me, there is nothing equal to an afternoon sitting around feeders or walking in the open spaces to see what species are there. I can identify many birds by their calls and flight patterns. Each species has its peculiar behaviors that persist even when at a feeding station. A nuthatch will land on a pole and skitter down it to get a seed from the feeder, then go back up only…

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Academic Roadblocks: Quality Writing

Academic Roadblocks: Quality Writing

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Writing is a daunting task for many students. You may be good at planning a task, listing and organizing the steps needed to complete it but when it is time to write the paper, things seem to fall apart. Whether it is a weekly reflection paper or a dissertation, putting ideas and concepts into words so a reader can understand them is critical. When students have poor writing skills, the results are often disappointment and failure. What I Should Have Learned Primary and secondary education teaches basic writing skills and post secondary work is supposed to sharpen them. However, the…

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Why Use Cloud Storage?

Why Use Cloud Storage?

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Has This Ever Happened to You? (If it hasn’t yet, it most likely will!) You just spent six hours working on a chapter revision and feel really good about it. The creative juices were really flowing and you were in the zone with lots of great ideas. Not wanting to lose any revisions, you religiously did backups every 15 minutes to make sure to safeguard those thoughts. The next day, you decide to make other revisions but when you turn…

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You Have Arrived!

You Have Arrived!

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You have finished your coursework and are ready to begin your dissertation! You have waited a long time for this moment, the point at which you can now use the skills that you have learned and pursue your own contributing work. It is an exciting time in your doctoral education and one that will have many surprises. How the Dissertation Process Is Different What makes the dissertation process different from your doctoral coursework? What can you expect when successfully completing…

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The Weak Link in the Research Process…and how to fix it.

The Weak Link in the Research Process…and how to fix it.

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To be successful in a graduate program, students must be able to write a clear, concise literature review with a logical flow that provides a convincing rationale for conducting the proposed research. The literature review is the foundation for identifying a research problem/question and creating the plan to address it. There are good online tutorials that explain how a thorough knowledge of the literature allows students to go from a broad perspective of a topic to that minuscule slice that…

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Making the Most of Your Doctoral Experience

Making the Most of Your Doctoral Experience

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How would you like to get an edge on others in your field? Do you want to move to the top of your profession? There are many ways that you can enrich your doctoral experience. Making contacts- online networking Your doctoral experience is different in many ways. One important activity should be to make connections with others in your field of study. While reading the current literature is critical to your success, it is also important to know what is…

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