Defense, that is.
As in your thesis/project defense. It's that last major hurdle before you pay off your library fines and graduate...at last. And it can be scary. It was for me.
After all, I'd never defended a project before. I felt like I really didn't know what to expect, despite being reassured by my committee that I would merely have to provide an overview of my project and then answer a few questions. Instead, this simple response combined with 30 months of sleep deprivation, the stress of actually finishing the project, and the fear of failure led me down a path of paranoia: "What are they going to ask me? Are they going to purposely put me in the hot seat just to see me squirm? Will they make me wait outside for an hour while they determine my fate? Will I fail if I accidentally leave in my draft a sentence with the word "form" where I meant to type "from"? Will I have to recite the entire introduction to Postmodernism: or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism?"
In reality, my defense was exactly what my committee said it would be. I gave an overview of my project: how and why I decided to pursue my topic, my thesis, the practical workings of my project, etc. Then, my committee asked me a few questions about how I thought my project might fit into the greater archives community. We ended with some friendly talk about the topic that felt much more like a roundtable discussion than a dragon's den.
Your defense doesn't have to be so scary, if you're adequately prepared. Easier said than done? A little. But, if you've communicated well with your committee throughout out the thesis/project's lifespan, you will get plenty of feedback on the defense-worthiness of your culminating experience well before the defense takes place.
So, here's some advice, drawn from my personal experience, that I hope will help those of you defending in the near future gain little more confidence:
1. From the moment you begin work on your thesis/project, maintain frequent and constructive communication with your committee. I cannot stress this enough. While this is not exactly d-day advice, your success in communicating
with your committee will directly affect the success of your defense. Send them your proposal, keep them abreast of any changes or updates you wish to make to your research, and schedule regular meetings during key points in your research process (e.g., after forming a working thesis, compiling a bibliography, or completing an initial draft). Better yet, announce to them a preliminary proposal-to-defense schedule early in the game. Whatever you do, be proactive in your communication with your committee - the more invested you are in finishing your project, the more the committee members will be as well.
2. Schedule your defense for a day when you don't have to be anywhere else. Make your defense day Defense Day. Take the day off from work if at all possible. Arrange for someone else to take your kids to school (and pick them up). I chose to schedule mine for the afternoon. This worked well for my committee, but it also allowed me to spend the morning getting everything ready, from practicing my presentation one last time to making sure I didn't have runs in my pantyhose. Go ahead a schedule drinks or dinner with a friend for the evening after your defense. Knowing you have a reward coming your way will ease some of the stress of then day (even more so if you can get your friend to pay).
3. Turn in your final, pre-defense draft no later than one week before
your scheduled defense. Here's some exclusive, inside info gleaned from
my days as a GA: professors get really pissy if a student who is
scheduled to defend on Monday morning dumps a copy of her draft on their desks
on Friday afternoon. Not only does this leave an impression of your lack
of preparedness, but it also doesn't give them enough time to give your
draft the attention it deserves. Create a deadline to have your draft
done 7 days before your defense, announce this deadline to the world,
and stick to it.
4. Risk overdressing. Even though MALS is a relatively non-judgmental program when it comes to style and appearances, I think it's a good idea to don the business garb for your defense. Dressing up will make you feel like a pro, and will help remind your subconscious that you are so pro. Hence my wearing of pantyhose mentioned in tip #2.
5. Practice. Practice what you'll say. Time it. Make sure you don't end up with a two-hour monologue when your chair asked for a 20-minute presentation. Use this practice time to clarify your ideas and anticipate questions. Jot down a framework for how you'll answer such questions. This is particularly important if you've decided to include (or exclude) areas of discussion about which you and/or members of your committee have not seen eye-to-eye during prior meetings about your research.
6. Remember, your committee wants you to graduate just as much as you do. This in no way means that they will pass a thesis/project that is not ready to be passed. However, no one on your committee harbors a sadistic desire to see you fail. It's important to keep this in perspective. That said...
7. If you're truly not ready to defend, then don't schedule a defense. Just about the only students I've heard of who did not pass their defense on the first
go-round are those who really shouldn't have defended yet but insisted
upon doing so anyway. Defending prematurely won't magically make your
project complete. Completing your project will make your project
complete. Defending when you are not ready will be a (very stressful)
waste of time both for your and your committee. If you follow Tip #1 and communicate regularly with your committee, you can all but avoid this. If you are honestly unsure about
your readiness, meet with your chair in an informal, non-defense meeting and discuss your concerns.
So, there you have it. My seven tips for a good defensive strategy. For more practical information on deadlines, electronic thesis submission, and the graduation process at ETSU, check out the ETSU School of Graduate Studies Web page and the Thesis and Project Section of the MALS Writing Center Website. Best wishes to all of you soon-to-be MALS alumni!
April 12, 2012
April 4, 2012
It's Your Week!
Did you know that April 2-6 is National Graduate & Professional Student Appreciation Week? I confess that I did not know until today. Let me start out by saying that I do, indeed appreciate you all, and not only because I have a job because of you MALS students, nor because I was only recently a grad student myself (although both of these circumstances do play a part).
And while this "week," ironically, is only five days long, I give you all seven full days worth of appreciation. I appreciate you because you are taking the time and resources to better yourself as a citizen of this world. In my somewhat biased opinion as a MALS alumn, I think it takes a special kind of person to pursue interdisciplinary graduate studies. Not only are you in the midst of one of the more rigorous programs on campus in terms of critical thinking, writing, and research requirements, but you are likely doing so while being misunderstood by family, friends, strangers, and colleagues. It's easy to announce that you're getting your master's in biochemistry, astrophysics, kinesiology, or something else with a flashy, if narrow, disciplinary objective. Your program of study, however, takes a little more explaining to the uninitiated. You approach your scholarship with a complex, real-world problem in mind first, recognize that a single discipline cannot adequately address this problem, and after all that go about learning not only the theories of interdisicplinary scholarship but also those associates with multiple disciplines. Impressive, I think, but try giving an elevator speech on that and you'll run out of floors far before you finish explaining the word "interdisciplinarity."
Who knows? It might take a fellow interdisciplinarian to appreciate one, especially while you're knee-deep in seminar paper drafts, style manuals, and cultural theory books, your fingers are stained with highlighter, and you can't remember your own name for lack of sleep. But know this - what you're doing is worth it, and I appreciate you for having the guts to pursue MALS.
And while this "week," ironically, is only five days long, I give you all seven full days worth of appreciation. I appreciate you because you are taking the time and resources to better yourself as a citizen of this world. In my somewhat biased opinion as a MALS alumn, I think it takes a special kind of person to pursue interdisciplinary graduate studies. Not only are you in the midst of one of the more rigorous programs on campus in terms of critical thinking, writing, and research requirements, but you are likely doing so while being misunderstood by family, friends, strangers, and colleagues. It's easy to announce that you're getting your master's in biochemistry, astrophysics, kinesiology, or something else with a flashy, if narrow, disciplinary objective. Your program of study, however, takes a little more explaining to the uninitiated. You approach your scholarship with a complex, real-world problem in mind first, recognize that a single discipline cannot adequately address this problem, and after all that go about learning not only the theories of interdisicplinary scholarship but also those associates with multiple disciplines. Impressive, I think, but try giving an elevator speech on that and you'll run out of floors far before you finish explaining the word "interdisciplinarity."
Who knows? It might take a fellow interdisciplinarian to appreciate one, especially while you're knee-deep in seminar paper drafts, style manuals, and cultural theory books, your fingers are stained with highlighter, and you can't remember your own name for lack of sleep. But know this - what you're doing is worth it, and I appreciate you for having the guts to pursue MALS.
March 22, 2012
The EnTITLEment Process
I've found that writers vary in their attitudes toward titles. Some, like me, find the title to be one of the most enjoyable parts of the paper to write. I savor the process of coming up with that attractive, two or three line statement that encapsulates the essence of a paper over which I have toiled for weeks or months. Others are rather ambivalent toward titles. They see them as a necessary part of a paper, but treat it as little more than an afterthought to be slapped on the cover page just before the final printing.
Regardless of your feelings about titles, you need one. Moreover, you need a title that really works for your paper and offers the reader an accurate and concise first impression of your argument. In this respect, I urge you to get in the habit of treating the title as an integral part of the paper instead of as a piece of metadata. By this, I mean that your title should both introduce and reinforce the crux of your argument and not simply provide a few simple terms that you might put into a search engine. Lets look at an example:
Title 1: Bicycle Commuting and Gas Prices
Title 2: A Push to Pedal: Rethinking the Bicycle as a Commuter Vehicle in an Era of Rising Gasoline Prices
While the first title gives us a general idea of what the paper will cover, it's really too vague. There's not even a hint of what direction the author's argument will take. We only know that the paper will probably explore some relationship between bicycle commuting and gas prices. Title #2 gives us much more vivid insight into this paper's thesis. We know that we are going to read about a movement to increase the use of bicycles for transportation, within the context of a current economic environment of rising fuel costs.
In your Turabian manual, Booth, et al. state that your title should be the "last thing you write" for your paper (108). Why? Because it's only after your paper is finished (or getting pretty close) when you will have a complete picture of your argument and know how to best shape your title. And, when you complete this last element of your paper, think about the key and phrases and concepts throughout your paper that best state the essence of your argument. Most likely, you'll find such phrases in your introduction (particularly in your thesis statement) and/or in your conclusion, two sections that are dedicated to packaging your overall argument.
While I agree that finalizing your title is best left as the last act of paper-writing, there's no reason why you shouldn't start jotting down title ideas earlier in the writing process. I believe that the process of articulating a title helps you think more critically about your paper as a whole. If you have a hard time coming up with a title that is any more specific than one or two nouns (like Title #1 in the above example), you might want to ask yourself why? Could it be that you yourself are unsure of how to articulate your thesis statement? Early in the writing process, this is probably fine. But, by keeping a "working title" alongside your "working thesis," you can use these two critical elements of your paper to help you shape (and reshape) your content. By letting the working title and working thesis really work, you have a built-in mechanism to monitor your clarity, organization, and depth of analysis.
While at the end of a long, arduous research and writing process, you may be tempted to throw down a couple of words that serve as a catch-all for your paper, please don't. Your hard work deserves an interesting title, so spend a little extra time on the first part of a paper anyone reads. The last thing you want is for the title to become the only part anyone reads.
PS> I didn't come up for a title for this post until after I finished writing (and rewriting) all of the above.
Regardless of your feelings about titles, you need one. Moreover, you need a title that really works for your paper and offers the reader an accurate and concise first impression of your argument. In this respect, I urge you to get in the habit of treating the title as an integral part of the paper instead of as a piece of metadata. By this, I mean that your title should both introduce and reinforce the crux of your argument and not simply provide a few simple terms that you might put into a search engine. Lets look at an example:
Title 1: Bicycle Commuting and Gas Prices
Title 2: A Push to Pedal: Rethinking the Bicycle as a Commuter Vehicle in an Era of Rising Gasoline Prices
While the first title gives us a general idea of what the paper will cover, it's really too vague. There's not even a hint of what direction the author's argument will take. We only know that the paper will probably explore some relationship between bicycle commuting and gas prices. Title #2 gives us much more vivid insight into this paper's thesis. We know that we are going to read about a movement to increase the use of bicycles for transportation, within the context of a current economic environment of rising fuel costs.
In your Turabian manual, Booth, et al. state that your title should be the "last thing you write" for your paper (108). Why? Because it's only after your paper is finished (or getting pretty close) when you will have a complete picture of your argument and know how to best shape your title. And, when you complete this last element of your paper, think about the key and phrases and concepts throughout your paper that best state the essence of your argument. Most likely, you'll find such phrases in your introduction (particularly in your thesis statement) and/or in your conclusion, two sections that are dedicated to packaging your overall argument.
While I agree that finalizing your title is best left as the last act of paper-writing, there's no reason why you shouldn't start jotting down title ideas earlier in the writing process. I believe that the process of articulating a title helps you think more critically about your paper as a whole. If you have a hard time coming up with a title that is any more specific than one or two nouns (like Title #1 in the above example), you might want to ask yourself why? Could it be that you yourself are unsure of how to articulate your thesis statement? Early in the writing process, this is probably fine. But, by keeping a "working title" alongside your "working thesis," you can use these two critical elements of your paper to help you shape (and reshape) your content. By letting the working title and working thesis really work, you have a built-in mechanism to monitor your clarity, organization, and depth of analysis.
While at the end of a long, arduous research and writing process, you may be tempted to throw down a couple of words that serve as a catch-all for your paper, please don't. Your hard work deserves an interesting title, so spend a little extra time on the first part of a paper anyone reads. The last thing you want is for the title to become the only part anyone reads.
PS> I didn't come up for a title for this post until after I finished writing (and rewriting) all of the above.
February 27, 2012
It Must be Conference Season....
Conferences seem to have taken over much of my February. Last week, I attended the Southeastern Writing Center Association Conference at Eastern Kentucky University. I have been helping coordinate personnel for the upcoming Regional Graduate Liberal Studies Conference that the MALS program will host here at ETSU. And, several MALS students and faculty are submitting proposals or making plans to attend conferences around the nation and abroad.
If I am this busy with conference-related tasks, I can imagine that many of you will soon be writing abstracts, submitting proposals, and possibly even looking for travel funds to present your research at a conference. If you've never thought about attending an academic conference, must less presenting, I encourage you to change your mind. Presenting your research is a wonderful experience. Not only do you get to share your scholarly interests with like-minded students and professionals, but you get a prime opportunity to network with potential research partners, future employers, and new friends.
If you haven't submitted a proposal to present at a conference because you're not sure where to begin, here are a few links to some of my favorite resources about all-things conference. These will give you ideas on how to prepare a proposal, where to find travel funds, and what to expect before, during, and after your presentation. Enjoy!
(And P.S.> Make sure you submit your proposal to present at the Regional Graduate Liberal Studies Conference by midnight on March 15, 2012!)
Academic Conferences: an FAQ This is a great online presentation by Dr. Inger Mewbern from RMIT University in Australia. She walks you through the proposal process, the networking aspect of conferences, and the presentation event itself. Some of her advice (such as that about travel funds) is specific to Australia, but she gives a good overview of the conference experience from start to finish.
Writing the Academic Conference Proposal from the blog GradHacker. This post discusses the first step to presenting at a conference - submitting a proposal. While the author mentions the importance of your proposal fitting into a larger disciplinary picture, much of the advice in this post can apply to liberal studies graduate students as well, as it's just important for us to emphasize how our research contributes to a scholarly, interdisciplinary conversation.
Writing for a Presentation, from the Explorations of Style blog. This post highlights the need to tailor your paper to a "read-aloud" format, as you will need to vary your presentation paper to best connect to a listening audience as opposed to a reading audience. The author provides some more links on the conference presentation at the end of her post.
Travel Funds from ETSU's School of Graduate Studies Did you know that you can be eligible to receive travel stipends from our own university? You must be a member of the Graduate & Professional Student Association (GPSA) for these funds, but any ETSU graduate student can join this organization. You've got nothing to lose by trying!
Good luck, and I hope to hear some of you present your interdisciplinary research soon!
If I am this busy with conference-related tasks, I can imagine that many of you will soon be writing abstracts, submitting proposals, and possibly even looking for travel funds to present your research at a conference. If you've never thought about attending an academic conference, must less presenting, I encourage you to change your mind. Presenting your research is a wonderful experience. Not only do you get to share your scholarly interests with like-minded students and professionals, but you get a prime opportunity to network with potential research partners, future employers, and new friends.
If you haven't submitted a proposal to present at a conference because you're not sure where to begin, here are a few links to some of my favorite resources about all-things conference. These will give you ideas on how to prepare a proposal, where to find travel funds, and what to expect before, during, and after your presentation. Enjoy!
(And P.S.> Make sure you submit your proposal to present at the Regional Graduate Liberal Studies Conference by midnight on March 15, 2012!)
Academic Conferences: an FAQ This is a great online presentation by Dr. Inger Mewbern from RMIT University in Australia. She walks you through the proposal process, the networking aspect of conferences, and the presentation event itself. Some of her advice (such as that about travel funds) is specific to Australia, but she gives a good overview of the conference experience from start to finish.
Writing the Academic Conference Proposal from the blog GradHacker. This post discusses the first step to presenting at a conference - submitting a proposal. While the author mentions the importance of your proposal fitting into a larger disciplinary picture, much of the advice in this post can apply to liberal studies graduate students as well, as it's just important for us to emphasize how our research contributes to a scholarly, interdisciplinary conversation.
Writing for a Presentation, from the Explorations of Style blog. This post highlights the need to tailor your paper to a "read-aloud" format, as you will need to vary your presentation paper to best connect to a listening audience as opposed to a reading audience. The author provides some more links on the conference presentation at the end of her post.
Travel Funds from ETSU's School of Graduate Studies Did you know that you can be eligible to receive travel stipends from our own university? You must be a member of the Graduate & Professional Student Association (GPSA) for these funds, but any ETSU graduate student can join this organization. You've got nothing to lose by trying!
Good luck, and I hope to hear some of you present your interdisciplinary research soon!
February 7, 2012
Eschew Perfectionism; Make Improvement Quotidian
Every now and then, I employ the wonders of social media in an effort to find insights and perspectives on writing that I think may be useful to MALS students. Today I found a shared link to the New York Times blog After Deadline in my Facebook news feed. Today's post, "Words We Love Too Much" by Philip B. Corbett, highlights some of the words that Times' writers have been guilty of overusing in an effort to eschew sounding too plain. The result is that the once punchy words flatten into expected (and slightly obnoxious), um, quotidian prose.
While I feel oddly vindicated as a scholarly writer when I read about these writers' overindulgence in "fancy" words, I also see two important, if unintended, lessons to take from this post.
While I feel oddly vindicated as a scholarly writer when I read about these writers' overindulgence in "fancy" words, I also see two important, if unintended, lessons to take from this post.
- Even the pros make mistakes in their writing. The folks who commit these errors write for a living, and their work is published by one of the most well-known newspapers in the country. Even after proofreading, imperfect writing occasionally makes its way into the final copy.
- The pros review their work and learn from their mistakes. The very existence of this blog indicates that someone at the Times is seeking out constructive criticism from colleagues and readers and is presumably using that criticism to improve their writing skills.
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