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April 24, 2017April 24, 2017

A down and dirty discussion of the dissertation proposal [Part II]

In Part I, I discussed all the gobbledegook (technical term) that goes into the front matter of your dissertation proposal. In Part II, I describe the elements of the first chapter of a typical three-chapter proposal. I know what you’re thinking: What could be more fun?

The dissertation proposal: Chapter 1

Chapter 1 is the introduction to your study—you already know that much, I bet. A typical Chapter 1 contains the background, problem, purpose, research questions, maybe the significance of the study, a brief overview of your research plan, and a list of definitions of key terms.

Whew! A lot of stuff goes in Chapter 1. That makes sense. It’s an overview of your entire proposal, after all. What can go wrong? Plenty.

For best results, write Chapter 1 after you have written Chapters 2 and 3. Does anyone actually do that? I am positive many dissertations do not, judging by how what they write in Chapter 3 fails to align with what they wrote in Chapter 1. It’s like dissertation amnesia sets in somewhere in the middle of Chapter 2. Suddenly they forget they were planning a qualitative study and start waxing eloquently on the challenges of using probability methods to choose a sample size. Hooboy. Amnesia!

What elements belong in Chapter 1? Let’s briefly talk about each one, just to make sure we are on the same page.

Introduction. The first section if Chapter 1 is the introduction (duh), although according to APA style, we omit the “Introduction” heading, because I guess everyone knows the first paragraphs of a chapter constitute the introduction to the chapter. Thus, adding the heading is unnecessary. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve written that exact message in a comment box in someone’s dissertation—I can tell you, it’s a lot. This very common error is attributable to failure to read that pesky style manual. Come on, social science dissertators! Read your style manual.

The introduction to the chapter is not an overview of the study; it’s an introduction to the topic. I recommend writing the Background and Problem Statements before you write this section. The introduction is the setup. If you “preview” the main points that lead to the problem your study will address, your readers will be deeply comforted. Your reviewers will feel reassured (and more likely to approve your proposal) if your preview aligns with your background and problem statement sections.

Background. Often, the next section will have a subheading, “Background.” Write Chapter 2 first (Chapter 2 is usually your literature review); then you can copy and paste a few of the highlights here. I mean, copy a few sentences, the pithy ones that neatly summarize the situation. Don’t copy entire paragraphs! Reviewers really dislike reading the same material twice. Except for the elements that have to be consistent between chapters, I mean. Like your problem statement, your purpose statement, and your research questions. Gah! Did I just make things more confusing?

Problem statement. The problem statement should be one concise (250-300 word) paragraph stating explicitly the problem your study will address. Don’t pussyfoot around, don’t make your readers try to guess the problem from your eloquent pleading. Just say it: “The problem addressed in this study is…” Some institutions will have you state the general problem (the broad problem) and then state the specific problem YOUR study will address. For example, “The general problem addressed in this study is that dissertators cry a lot during the proposal-writing process. The specific problem addressed in this study is whether dissertators’ moods (measured on the Dissertator Mood Scale) correlate with how many times they submitted their proposals before receiving approval.”

Purpose statement. The purpose statement should clearly flow from the problem statement. Some experts recommend using the exact wording from the problem statement in the first line of the purpose statement (or as close as possible). For example, “The purpose of this study is to determine to what extent dissertators’ moods (measured on the Dissertator Mood Scale) correlate with how many times they submitted their proposals before receiving approval.”

The rest of the purpose statement should contain descriptions of the study’s implementation: the population and sample, the sample size, the recruiting method, the data collection and analysis methods, and the geographical area. Just lay it all out there. Quite often, the purpose statement is one paragraph, but generally does not exceed one page in length.

Theoretical (or conceptual) framework. For all you folks aiming at earning a Ph.D., this section is vitally important. To earn your degree, you must extend theory, not just apply it. If you are seeking some other type of doctorate, like a D.B.A. or Ed.D., you may not have to extend theory, but you still need some sort of explanation of what worldview you are using to organize your study.

That is why I am astounded that dissertators sometimes leave the theoretical framework section out entirely. Without some sort of theoretical or conceptual framework, your study has no bones. What would happen if your skeleton suddenly disappeared? Right. Like that. Not good.

What theory could explain why dissertators get more and more depressed as they keep submitting their proposals and receiving rejections? (I feel I can speak on this topic, having been one of those demoralized dissertators.) Maybe it’s because of attribution theory, or motivation theory, or even discomfort theory. If you have done your homework (read many articles and dissertations), then you know the theories that are relevant to your topic. You can try to debunk them, extend them, confirm them… you can even make up one of your own! But you Ph.D. wannabes gotta have a theory.

Some of you qualitative folks might not use an actual theory. Instead, your institution may require you to propose a “conceptual framework.” This kind of framework might not rise to the level of being an actual identifiable theory (although it might someday, thanks to your research), but it should offer the reader some explanation of why you think the phenomenon is happening. Are dissertators just a bunch of whiners? Could be. More likely, dissertators get discouraged when they don’t achieve their desired outcome. That could be your conceptual framework. Your research will explore, expand, confirm, or disconfirm that statement.

Research questions. Now that you know the problem, the purpose, and the theoretical framework you will use, you can write your research questions to align with those elements. Your goal is to make sure these elements are all aligned—that is, that they make sense in relation to one another, creating a logical flow, from problem, to purpose, to questions. The problem is XYZ, so my purpose will be to investigate XYZ, and therefore, my research questions will be logically aimed at resolving XYZ.

Right. Clear as mud? Well, aligning the elements of the proposal is by far the hardest part of the project. Don’t freak out—we all have to go through it. However, once you get all the pieces lined up, everything will suddenly fall into place. It’s a great feeling.

Nature of study. The nature of the study section might be a few paragraphs or several pages describing in more detail how you plan to implement your study. Specifically. I mean, truly nuts-and-bolts specific. It’s a distillation of Chapter 3—write Chapter 3 first, so you can pluck statements to describe the population and sample and explain how you plan to recruit participants. Describe your data collection and analysis plans in some detail, more than you wrote in your Purpose Statement, but much less material than you will write for Chapter 3. Don’t let this section be more detailed than your discussion in Chapter 3! That happens. Don’t do it.

Significance of study. The significance of your study rests on how well you can justify its approval. What will happen if we don’t get the benefit of the results of your study? Who will be harmed? What happens if you conduct your study? Who will be helped?

Social science dissertators seem to like to wax maudlin in their problem and purpose statements. That means they use frothy overly dramatic arguments to convince the reader that the problem they have identified is worth studying. I’m sorry to tell you, the frothy emotional appeal is not a sound justification for your study. Your best bet is to cite some previous experts in the field who recommended some future researcher (you, for instance) should study dissertators’ moods. If credible, peer-reviewed researchers say something needs to be studied, then you can feel confident you have a solid justification for your study.

Definitions of key terms. Usually, Chapter 1 closes with a list of definitions, arranged in alphabetical order, with citations. Don’t overdo it. You won’t need definitions of terms like dissertation, quantitative, or survey. Mostly, you should aim to define a key term the first time you mention it. Most of your readers won’t go back to your list of definitions to look something up—they’ll just flail along hoping it will all soon make sense. That is not what you want. Make it easy on your reader and provide all the help you can as they are reading, so they never have to stop and wonder, what the heck does that word mean?

Oh, yeah, one more thing. Whatever terms you decide to use, use them consistently throughout your paper. This isn’t creative writing, people. Take pity on your readers (and reviewers). Be consistent.

Next time, I’ll write about Chapter 2, traditionally the review of your literature. What could possibly go wrong? A few things. Stay tuned.

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March 18, 2017March 18, 2017

A down and dirty discussion of the dissertation proposal [Part I]

Download my dissertation checklist for free

Despite the photo, I like lists. Checking things off my list gives me the sense of accomplishment that helps me keep going. In fact, I doubt if I would have finished my dissertation without my dissertation checklist.

I’ve updated my dissertation checklist, and now you can download it for free (without registering or anything!) here. Just sneak in and grab it in Word format. Customize it for your own needs. This generic checklist includes many of the elements you need in your dissertation proposal. I also preview the elements you’ll need to include in your dissertation manuscript, after you collect and analyze your data.

The dissertation proposal

A large project like a doctoral research project has many moving parts, one of which is the dissertation. In the social sciences, dissertations are typically five or six chapters, plus some front matter (title page, abstract, acknowledgments, table of contents, lists of tables and figures, maybe a list of abbreviations) and some back matter (generally just the list of references and the appendices).

The first three chapters of a typical dissertation comprise the dissertation proposal. In this and three subsequent blog posts, I describe the sections of a dissertation proposal. Part I covers the front matter of your proposal. Part II covers Chapter 1, the introduction to your study. Part III covers Chapter 2, the basis of your justification for the study, also known as the Literature Review. Part IV focuses on Chapter 3, the blueprint for your research project, usually entitled Methodology. My discussion is generic, based on what I usually see in the dissertations I edit. Not all institutions require the same format. Follow your institutional guidelines.

The dissertation proposal: the front matter

The term front matter refers to all the pages that come before the first page of Chapter 1. Different universities require different elements in the front matter. Sometimes institutional guidelines can be quite strict. Other times they are refreshingly flexible. Here are the typical elements I find in the front matter section of a dissertation proposal.

Title page. Typically, the front matter starts with a title page. At the least, the title page provides the title of the study, the author, the degree, the school, and the date. Some of you will have to add the names and titles of your committee members. Follow your institutional guidelines. They may even have a template you can paste into place and customize for your project.

Abstract. The abstract is the overview or summary of the entire study. For your proposal, include one statement to introduce the topic, followed by the research problem and purpose of the study. Don’t include your research questions—later on, you won’t have room. For your proposal, focus on the problem, purpose, participants, and methods, and keep it short: The typical Abstract in a finished dissertation manuscript is no more than 350 words.

Acknowledgments & Dedication. We all want to acknowledge the people who helped move us along our dissertation journey. You can ignore this page for your proposal—in fact, I recommend that you do. Leave a placeholder (the title and a blank page), and fill it in after you’ve finished and received approval your dissertation manuscript. Then you can thank your mother, your mentors, your spouse, whoever helped you along your journey. I love to edit acknowledgments pages—I can hear the relief, gratitude, and profound weariness in the dissertators’ voices as they thank everyone under the sun. I know the feeling. I’d like to thank my cat, Eddie. An optional Dedication page may follow the Acknowledgments page.

The Table of Contents. Next up is usually the Table of Contents. If you don’t know by now, the Table of Contents (fondly known as the TOC) is an outline of your entire paper, usually to three or four levels of subheadings, depending on how your institution treats chapter headings. Some institutions put chapter headings in a class of their own, separate from the other heading and subheadings. Other institutions treat chapter headings as level 1 headings. Whatever. It matters, but not enough to fret about now. You’ll figure it out when your Chair dings you for not having three (or four) heading levels in your TOC. Argh.

A few dissertators who aren’t afraid of Word styles have figured out that Word can insert an automatic TOC. Most dissertators would probably like that idea, but are terrified of setting up and applying Word styles to their headings, and thus resort to typing their TOCs manually. Oh the humanity. I take a look, cringe, and delete the entire thing, all those pages of spaces, tabs, raggedy page numbers—yep, all gone. Then I proceed to set styles for all those headings and subheadings. I go through the paper, tagging each heading and subheading with the appropriate style. That takes a while, depending on how hard it is to figure out the dissertator’s intentions. Then I insert a TOC, bada boom, it’s done, in about six seconds. That is how you do a TOC.

Every now and then I will edit a paper from some harried dissertator whose institutional guidelines seem hell bent on making it impossible for anyone to get approval. Things in the TOC must line up just so, the k under the j, and indented just this amount, no more and no less. In those rare cases, Word’s automatic TOC feature will only get us partway to the goal. Annoying, but what can we do? I guess we could do some programming in Word, but that’s above my paygrade. Feel free. If the TOC has minute formatting requirements, I insert the TOC, convert it to plain text, and then format it as required, hoping that the dissertator won’t move stuff around and mess up the pagination. That’s a different subject for another day.

To update your TOC, click anywhere in it and press F9 on your function key row, or right-click and choose Update Field. You can update the entire table or just the page numbers.

Lists of Tables and Figures. The Table of Contents is usually followed by the List of Tables and the List of Figures (starting on separate pages). Usually the List of Tables comes first, but actually, I believe the List that should come first is the one that is the longest. Follow your institution’s template.

The magical trick of creating these lists is to use Word’s INSERT CAPTION function. You can insert labels above each table (e.g., Table 1) and below each figure (e.g., Figure 1). Word will generate accurate lists of each. You won’t have to type anything except the table titles and the figure captions. Bada bing. Magic. On rare occasions, I like Word. Making these lists is one of them. To update your list, click anywhere in it and press F9 on your function key row, or right-click and choose Update Field.

List of Abbreviations. Most dissertators don’t include a list of abbreviations, unless they are in the military. Dissertators who are or were in the military usually present an extensive list of acronyms, because that is their common language. If you have a list of abbreviations or acronyms, present it simply and concisely, without definitions. You’ll have a section in Chapter 1 to present your definitions of key terms.

The end of the front matter

When I see the term front matter, for some reason I think of gray matter and then wonder, do I have any left? Uh-oh. Then I think, front matter doesn’t matter, which is just silly—of course, front matter matters, if you are writing a dissertation proposal. How your front matter looks is a huge clue to the quality of the rest of your proposal. For example, if I see that you’ve manually typed your Table of Contents, I know that your comfort level with Word is low. That means I will be on the lookout for other formatting errors, and I will find them. Front matter matters in the sense that this section sets the level of expectation for the three chapters that follow.

The final page of the front matter marks the transition between the preliminary gobble-de-gook (technical term for all that stuff I’ve been talking about) and your actual paper. The front matter prepares your reader (or reviewer) for the proposal that follows. That means you need a dividing line between the two sections. We accomplish this in Word using a section break.

That means, at the end of the final page in your front matter, there should be a NEXT PAGE SECTION BREAK. This is the crucial section break in most dissertations. You can have more, and you may be required to have more, but if the pagination of the front matter changes on page 1 of Chapter 1, you’ll need at least this one section break or you’re a goner. You’ll find this essential section break in the little section break boutique under the PAGE LAYOUT Ribbon.

The section break tells Word that the formatting in section 2 can be different from the formatting in section 1. That’s great, because quite often the page number format changes from lowercase Roman numerals to Arabic numerals, don’t ask me why. If you ever accidentally deleted a section break and cried out in horror as your margins, page numbers, headers, and footers went wonky, you know what I am talking about. Quick, CONTROL Z!

If you can’t see your section breaks, it’s not your eyes. Turn on the “nonprinting characters” by clicking the SHOW/HIDE button on your Home Ribbon. Voila! Suddenly the extent of your crappy keyboarding ability becomes apparent. Yikes! Where did all those extra spaces and tabs come from? Yep. You tried to align things using spaces, didn’t you? Whoopsy.

In the next blog post, I dig deep under the hood of Chapter 1 to reveal the surprising number of essential elements, all of which you will need if you want to get your proposal approved.

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February 14, 2017February 14, 2017

Why I wrote a book to help you get your dissertation proposal approved

Hi. My name is Carol Booton, sometimes known as Dr. Carol. I was 50 years old when I started my doctoral program at a for-profit online university in December 2005. After eight long years, I earned my doctorate in Business Administration in December 2013. One doctorate doesn’t make me an expert, I know. (How many would, I wonder?) However, I remember the problems I faced trying to get my proposal approved. Now, as an academic editor, I edit other people’s proposals and dissertations and I see the same problems in their proposals that I encountered in mine.

So I wrote a book to help dissertators avoid some of the hurdles I had to overcome. It’s called Resubmit: 28 ½ reasons why you can’t get your dissertation proposal approved. It was published by Crossline Press and you can find it on Amazon. I also have a companion website for the book, at LoveYourDissertation.com, where you can download templates and worksheets in pdf format for free right now. Find out how to get 20% off the book price at the end of this post.

Does it feel like you are all alone?

I attended a doctoral program that was offered completely online. It was convenient, but I had next to no interaction with others in my program. I was alone in my cave the entire time. I had no peers to bounce ideas off of, nobody to puzzle things out with. Even my mentors were not easily accessible or willing to help when I needed feedback. I felt very much alone, especially when I was working on my dissertation proposal.

I spent a long time stuck on my proposal because I didn’t have answers to some basic questions: Should I choose qualitative or quantitative (which one will get me done faster?) How do I choose a theory? What does it mean that my proposal elements are not “aligned”? When should I cite a source? Why does it seem like Microsoft Word is trying to kill me?

Since 2014, in between editing other people’s proposals and dissertations, I’ve had time to ruminate on my doctoral journey and ponder what I could have done differently to make it flow more smoothly (and end sooner). The result of my rumination was this book.

You are alone, but there is help

I’ve written the book I wished I had had when I was sweating over my proposal, watching the clock ticking and thinking, hmmmm, failure is apparently an option after all. I wanted simple, practical advice from someone who had been in my shoes, someone who didn’t throw more academic jargon at me, but shared real stories to give me insight into the obstacles that were holding me back. I wrote the book I didn’t have when I could have really used the help.

Traditional books don’t always help

You probably bought some books when you embarked upon your dissertation journey. Me, too. I needed help to understand the dissertation process and get a sense of the nature of the journey. I wanted to know, was I in for smooth sailing or a raging whirlpool of confusion? The books I found were written for dissertators who attended traditional doctoral programs at traditional universities—none of the advice seemed to apply to my own situation as a nontraditional dissertator.

I also bought books to help me learn how to apply certain research methods. Many of the books I bought are still sitting unread on my shelf. I like to read, but some seemed like gibberish to me—I admit, I’m not a natural mathematical genius. I love statistics, sort of in the way I love rainbows and unicorns. I needed a book written by a real person in language I could understand. I wanted a book that sounded like a good friend wrote it.

You need a nontraditional book

I wrote this book to resemble a conversation, from someone who made it to the top of the mountain and is reaching back to help others make it to the top, too. A conversation, like I’m talking to you right now. The chapters are brief, easy to read, and loaded with tips—useful things I learned along the way that you might be able to use. Many chapters provide examples and simple illustrations of how to accomplish tasks, step by step.

The chapters of this book are arranged by issues that might be holding you back, okay, call them problems. Obstacles. Whatever. I am referring to the reasons that may be holding you back from getting your proposal approved, whether it’s how to use Word to set up a Table of Contents or how to choose your theoretical foundation. You can find specific guidance and direction in each “Reason,” aimed directly at helping you solve that problem so you can get on with writing and submitting your proposal.

Before you know it, you’ll have your approval and be moving on to the fun adventure of collecting data!

The book is called Resubmit: 28 ½ reasons why you can’t get your dissertation proposal approved and you can find it on Amazon for $29.99. The Kindle version is $9.99.

To purchase the print book and receive 20% off your order,
visit the Amazon CreateSpace estore
use discount code J49BZ39R

This discount is good through March 1, 2017