Dissertation Phase of the NCU PhD

I realized I only have four classes left until I enter the Dissertation phase of my degree (RSH classes).

What can I expect? I can't believe it is really getting close.

 

I'm in the same boat. Including the class I'm currently enrolled in, I only have five more classes to complete before going into the dissertation phase.

We obviously have to be thinking about:

• a dissertation topic - have you mulled over any topics that are feasable for you to do?
• a dissertation committee - from what I understand, you can choose your own dissertation committee, so if you know anyone who already has a doctorate and if he impresses you, then you might consider asking him if he'll sit on your dissertation committee. I guess if you don't choose your own committee, then the committee members will be assigned to you.
• research methods - as my very last elective class, I am going to enroll in Phenomenological Qualitative Research (RSH8910-B) to try and get a grip on how best to conduct the research.

We will have to conduct our own research. I ran into a fellow who suggested that I use XXX because they have a lot of pre-formatted questions that can be used for the interviewing process. I can't remember the name of the XXX program, so I am in the process of getting it right now.

We can't begin any of the research until we get approval from our dissertation committee, so all we can do right now is chew on ideas and talk to other people about their dissertation experiences to help prepare us for ours.

I'm in the same boat as you -- it's getting closer.

 

I am currently just a few classes away from the RSH series of classes, but I've been tossing around thesis topics and have been doing research for about a year now. Here is the summary of what I have been doing.

When I first started my PhD at NSU (later switching to NCU due to schedule conflicts), I kept a piece of paper by the computer monitor that was titled "Thesis Topics". Whenever I was reading the class texts, working on projects, reading journal papers, or just sitting there worrying about the thesis, I'd write down whatever topics came to mind. I'd start with really broad topics, like "distributed processing" or "financial modelling". As I continued on with my classwork, I'd cross out the broader topics and replace them with ones far more narrow in scope. "Distributed processing" got replaced with "distributed processing using CORBA" and "parallel processing using OpenMP". "Financial models" got replaced with "GARCH models" and "derivatives models". And so on.

These days I have about 10 decent topics that are fairly narrow in scope. I've been going back through the NCU classes that I've taken and am thinking about which professors that I've had that would be good candidates for thesis committee members. I have a few hundred journal papers saved off as PDFs and a big annotated bibliography that I've been maintaining. The bibliography entries reference each PDF by filename so that I can easily grab a document and check it out quickly.

If you haven't put any heavy thought into your thesis, I'd suggest that you start brainstorming up broad topics and then narrowing them down. Grab copies of any journal papers pertaining to your topics of interest, build a bibliography, and track your research.

In addition, be sure to grab and read the papers referenced by the papers you find. Check out the "areas for future research" section towards the end of each journal paper to get topic ideas. Ideally, you'll find one very recent paper or thesis that describes an area for future research that matches up with one of your topic ideas.

As far as research methods for conducting your actual experiment, you need to have a hypothesis before you can design an experiment to test it! The hypothesis should be one small step away from a hypothesis that was proven or disproven in one of the papers you found during your research. Something like "Researcher so-and-so proved that this model is valid for data representing X over the time period of XXXX to XXXX. The model doesn't take factor X into account. My hypothesis is that factor X will be statistically significant within the model and will have an impact on the results of the model over the same time period." That way, you are building on another researcher's work, you have clearly stated what you intend to do, and you have a good basis for your idea paper. Your actual research involves modifying the model to accomidate your new variable, collecting the data needed for that new variable, and running the model to collect the data needed to build your statistical analysis. Or course, not everyone is going to use a mathematical model for their research. But, the basic idea is the same: take existing research, extend it just a little, perform an experiment, and publish the results.

If you want to get a jumpstart on those research classes (and your thesis, for that matter), start grabbing journal papers. Check out the abstracts and make a decision to toss or keep. At the beginning, keep more than you toss, since you aren't really sure what you want to do (and what is appropriate) for a thesis topic. I suspect that I will have poured through maybe 700 journal papers by the time I'm done with my thesis!

 

Expect to pass your dissertation with flying colors. Expect to walk the aisle of majestic scholars in arizona and receive your well earned degree. Congratuations randell!. You made it.

 

Thanks for the excellent advice, Hendersa.

I'm narrowing down the doctoral programs I'm interested in, and I sometimes (usually) feel overwhelmed thinking about the dissertation. Your suggestions make it seem much more manageable.

Tricia

 

Tricia:

A PhD is going to take you several years to get through. It's daunting to many people because a thesis is an awfully big chunk of work without many signposts along the way. But it's a lot like climbing a mountain... the best way to get to the top is to start climbing. Staring at the mountain isn't going to make it any smaller.

Whatever field you might decide to pursue your PhD in, the key to actually getting that thesis done is to start early and keep grinding away at it. Keep reading journal papers. Read as many as you can find on your areas of interest. Don't try to read and fully comprehend a recent paper when you first find it. Read the abstract, get the main concept of the paper, create an annotated bibliography entry for it in your notes, and then set it aside. Chances are that you'll burn yourself out trying to understand something that, at that moment in time, is over your head. Each paper will have a set of references at the end. Try to track down the papers referenced in the abstract section of the recent paper. The papers referenced in a paper's abstract tend to be good "overview" papers that will give you the background that you need to fully comprehend more recent papers on that same topic.

It doesn't take long to build up a list of papers that you need to track down and summarize. This "busywork" can sustain you through that "I have NO idea what my thesis is going to be on" phase. Once you get a good grasp of the existing knowledge on your topics of interest, you can begin to see where incremental research is possible.

To keep perspective on the thesis, keep in mind that a thesis is little more than a research journal paper that explains every little detail of the experiment and results. Papers are, by requirement of most journals and conferences, very short. Granted, a 10 to 20 page paper might not seem all that short, but considering the details that have been omitted from the paper, you can begin to see how most papers have been chopped down considerably. Therefore, you can almost consider a good journal paper as being a short thesis without the details.

Good luck with selecting a PhD program. Searching the forums will provide you with a variety of suggestions, opinions, warnings, and encouragement pertaining to a wide variety of schools and programs. There is a wide variety of choices, and the locals here on the forums are usually very happy to help.

 

Are you telling us to write an annotated bibliography (for our own notes) on a paper that we feel may be relevant to our dissertation topic??? Is that the purpose of an annotated bibliography??? (or at least one purpose of one, two or more purposes)...

I am concerned that I haven't narrowed down a dissertation topic (yet), except that I'm looking along the lines of officer satisifaction (or keeping employees happy) in a police agency. I know that is too broad of a topic, but it's a start...

 

I don't know what to expect either, but I started RSH8951 March 1st.

Perhaps we (all) can keep in touch as we go through the research phase.

Bill Hurd

 

Re: Re: Dissertation Phase of the NCU PhD

I second that. Count me in. I am getting butterflies and am keeping my eyes open for useful tips to see us through this daunting process because it is the dissertation stage where most people quit. I don't want to be a casualty. Hopefully.

 

Essentially what you want to do is start your literature review. It's a key part of any thesis or dissertation, and you need it in order to know the current state of knowledge in the field before you start out on your reseach.

 

Well, like edowave mentioned, the literature review is an examination of the research available within an area of knowledge. It's a way to see what the current state of the art is, and also to understand the background theory pertaining to that area of knowledge. The annotated bibliography is, in this case, little more than an APA reference citation and a sentence or two of summary for each paper you've examined. Or, at least, that's the approach I've been taking. It's just a few notes on each paper and an APA reference so that I can find it again if I need to! It seems like overkill at first until you have a huge collection of papers that you've sifted through and you need to find "the one that had that really good fact" that you really need to quote. Call it an annotated biography, your personal notes, or even an informal literature review. But, I've been keeping my notes this way and it's been working out great.

(The literature review is actually a bit more formal of a process, since you're often reporting on your progress to your doctoral advisor.)

It's really not my area of expertise, but basic organizational behavior theory might be a good place to look for ideas. Most organizational behavior theory is applied sociology, so some psychology and sociology journals might be a good place to start. I'm sure that there are several folks here with a much better background in that area than I have. Ethics, compensation, and work-life balance studies might also be good areas to check out.

 

There are software programs that can help with the "collection" phase. Particularly if I'm going to be creating a annotated bibliography over a period of months or years, I'm going to use a program where I can keep my entries sorted and somewhat organized (not one of my greatest skills.)

The program I used during my master's project is called WhizNotes. I'm not necessarily recommending it, but it works for me -- it's simple and inexpensive. I'm good with APA, so I don't need a program that creates the references and citations for me, but I know there are programs that do that, too. I believe EndNotes is one of those -- I think it might be pricey. (But what's a few hundred dollars relative to the amount spent on a PhD?)

The key will be (for me) to force myself to keep up with my notes and cross-references compulsively. I'm always sure I'll be able to find something later, but then I can't.

Again, Hendersa, your description of how to approach early research works for me. That's pretty much the way I do it -- I don't expect to grasp details at first -- and you're so right that keeping systematic notes can fill the void and panic of not yet having a topic.

I'm really feeling much more excited and motivated. Thanks so much.

Tricia