Writing your doctoral dissertation - part 7 doc

The stages in writing a dissertation

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Approval of the Dissertation Proposal

To progress from writing the proposal to achieving “approval” for the

proposal you are likely to accomplish several steps:

• approval by the two- or three-member dissertation committee;

• acceptance by the program faculty; and

• acceptance by an inter-departmental group of faculty.

Your primary focus in seeking approval is your committee, who have expertise

in your specific domain, and have worked with you in the formulation of your

topic and research questions. Your committee helps you in designing your study.

Your committee then has a vested interest in making sure your proposal is

“funded” or approved when it gets reviewed by a committee of the program

faculty. Thus, they are likely to be very cautious in offering their approval. Their

academic standards are open to public scrutiny in your dissertation proposal.

They will want to avoid problems with collegial and external reviewers, so their

evaluations are likely to be intense. They will look at each word carefully. They

will look to see if there is a cohesive organization. They will certainly be

concerned with the depth of your knowledge as represented in this document.

You are likely to revise your document many times in this process.

Once they have each independently approved your proposal, other faculty

are likely to review it as well. Some of these reviewers may be responsible

for the “format,” others may be concerned with protecting the “human

subjects” who may provide the data for your study, while others still may be

knowledgeable about your research design and/or research problem. These

reviews are all intended to discover potential problems prior to initiating the

major study. When recommendations are offered, you need to consult with

your committee about your next steps in modifying your proposal.

Ultimately, your proposal is sent to the Office of the Director of Graduate

Studies, which accepts the recommendations of these groups, verifying that

all the established procedures have been followed. If there are any problems,

this Graduate Director facilitates the process for resolving these concerns.

Typically, you will receive an official document stating that your dissertation

proposal has been “recorded,” much like grades are recorded on your official

transcript. This document serves as a contract between you and the university,

and it also moves you along the path to completing your dissertation. At this

stage all of the work you do is towards “writing your dissertation.”

Writing Your Dissertation

You have now entered probably the most time-intensive part of the process.

You will not only “do your research” but you will also write it up in a form

which is acceptable as a dissertation at your institution. You are responsible

for doing all the work projected in the proposal. Most of the work will be