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Dissecting The Literature Review

Dissecting The Literature Review

The foundation of a dissertation is a thorough review of the current literature related to the problem so you can develop a plan for further investigation. Reviewing the literature should start early in doctoral studies, expand during coursework, and continue until you defend the dissertation. All the chapters in the dissertation depend on a solid grasp of the literature. Even writing a problem statement is difficult to do without understanding what is already known about the topic. The literature review…

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Looking for a way to quickly develop outlines for your writing?

Looking for a way to quickly develop outlines for your writing?

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We all have great ideas but sometimes can’t get them on paper. Start With Brainstorming to Get Those Ideas Out! Brainstorming has different meanings for different people. For me, I take the term literally. It is a storm in my brain and storms aren’t really controllable. That meshes with the purpose of brainstorming, to record as many thoughts as possible without any analysis or screening. That comes later. What will I miss if I stop and try to categorize everything…

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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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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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Ever Feel Like the Only Clown in a 3-Ring Circus??

Ever Feel Like the Only Clown in a 3-Ring Circus??

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This is probably one of the most accurate analogies for you as you move through your dissertation. I imagine that you have felt that way many times if you are focused on completing your dissertation or thesis. So many things need to be done and of course, all at once! The dissertation process can overwhelm many students because it is so different from traditional coursework. It requires careful long-term planning and short-term planning besides setting a good solid work schedule….

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Evernote As an Indispensable Research and Writing Tool

Evernote As an Indispensable Research and Writing Tool

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Evernote is one of those applications that just keeps evolving as the need arises. It would be impossible to describe all of its features in a single review and some of the material would be outdated by the time I finished. In my previous post about Evernote, I mentioned several features but in this post, will focus on the app’s value in research and writing. What Evernote Can Do? Where do I begin? For saving data, Evernote does almost anything…

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Starting To Think Like a Scholar

Starting To Think Like a Scholar

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  Want to speed up your dissertation process? Want to make your committee members happier? Want to look more like a professional scholar? If you answered yes to any of those three questions, continue to read this post. Some things to remember You are learning to become an independent scholar by completing a research proposal conducting research, analyzing the data, and finally reporting it in the form of a manuscript and defending it in a presentation. Don’t forget that -A…

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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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