Whose Dissertation is it Anyway?
When I was in a prospectus writing class back in 2017, my instructor doled out some very practical topic-selection advice:
“Pick a topic that you care about deeply, but not so deeply that you won’t be able to separate yourself from it.”
In saying the above, the instructor was keying into a very clear tension that many novice researchers face. In the process of writing, refining, and getting a dissertation through committee, researchers may feel like their research gets lost along the way. And when that research springs from something that they are passionate about (as it quite often does), it’s easy for the doc student to lose not only a sense of ownership over their dissertation but a sense of themselves as a viable scholar.
Add in doc students’ common fears about being an imposter, regular life stressors and a skosh of pandemic-laden concerns and you have a recipe for a researcher feeling less like an emerging scholar and more like a poodle dog paddling through the breakers. Can I get a yelping amen?
Side note: I have a hypothesis that research-minded people are more apt to spin out on pandemic over-analysis. If you find yourself constantly trying to gather new information, categorize it, make decisions, and feeling frustrated that “the data just isn’t in yet,” join the crowd. One of your greatest strengths may be causing you some undue mental duress (and keeping you from writing your dissertation). I’m not saying to turn it all off completely. Believe me. I know you. I am you, and that would be asking waaaaay too much of your brain, but do kindly close all Web MD, etc. tabs when you are writing. I promise you, unfortunately, that it will all be just a click or two away, and your attempts to control the internet via the comments section will await you in spades.
What you can do in your attempt to accept the things you can’t change and change the things you can’t accept is stare down your dissertation and ask yourself, “Where am I in all this research?” In other words, “Whose dissertation is this anyway?”
If the answer is not, “mine” but “Dr. ______,” then perhaps employing a few of these strategies can help. I can hear my strategy people thinking, “Finally, the bullet points are coming.” Yep. Here they are. I was going to write them as a sonnet, but neither of us has time for that today, so here goes.
- Return to why you want to study the topic in the first place. Out of all the topics you could have chosen, why this one? You either wrote or will write a significance section to your dissertation proposal and maybe what you think about here will inform that section. Maybe it won’t, but why your dissertation matters — to you — is really, really important. Hint: if something pissed you off or triggered your “that ain’t right” injustice meter, then it is likely tied to a larger societal issue that your social justice/research warrior wants addressed. Now. You need to keep that fire burning as you move forward. There is some discomfort involved in writing, re-writing, trying to figure out what the heck some reviewer’s comment actually means (even mine, though I do try to avoid common feedback pitfalls). Returning to your why can help you stay true to your purpose as you navigate through all the voices who weigh in on your dissertation.
- Ask yourself what you really want to know. Oftentimes when I am coaching researchers, I start with the research problem they want their research to address. But if a student is having trouble articulating that problem, I will ask them, “What do you really want to know?” If a client says, “I want to know what it’s like to be a first-year teacher navigating remote learning in the middle of a pandemic,” then I can help that student backtrack to what the research problem actually is. Moreover, when you the student are able to make the case for why what you want to know really needs to be known, then you are well on your way from conducting “me-search” to research. And if you get feedback that is confusing, or you hit a roadblock of some other sort, you can ask, “Will implementing this change to my dissertation keep me from getting to know what I want to know?” If the answer to that question is no, then make your peace with not being able to use first person, or having to change theories, etc. While every change you make to your writing does affect the organism of your dissertation, those changes should be setting you up to scratch that “I need to know this” itch. If they aren’t, then it’s time to go to bat for yourself and your research agenda.
- Educate yourself about the methodology/methods you might use. It is easy to feel like you don’t own a process that you don’t understand. Doctoral living can be incredibly stressful. (Heck, I find going to the grocery store stressful these days), and there is no way to glean all you need to know about how to conduct doctoral-level research from a couple of research methods courses. These courses are often survey-like in nature. They are meant to introduce you to the process, but they are not enough. If you are leaning towards a particular approach, and especially if the gaps in knowledge you have identified about your research problem are pointing in a specific methodological direction, you need to step back and read, read, read. Your quant/qual textbook needs to live on your bedside table. And beyond those texts, you need to read the people who are swimming in the stream of the type of study you want to conduct. If you are using these texts to pull a quote to shore up your chapter 3, but you haven’t really immersed yourself in them, then you will feel like an imposter, and you won’t be able to write about your methods in enough detail to bring your chapter to life. Read, read, and read some more.
- Be proactive in your communication. Many times doctoral students write, receive feedback, and sit with their confusion — all the while feeling like something is wrong with them for failing to write the perfect chapter X. Newsflash: hardly anyone writes the perfect chapter X the first time. This news can be particularly hard to swallow if you have been flying through your program with papers that receive As and very little feedback. Many times my first step in coaching a client is to help them gain clarity around what they are trying to accomplish in a given chapter/chapter section. But I also spend a reasonable amount of time asking clients to write a quick email asking their reviewer for clarification. The reviewer may have thought they were being clear, and usually a quick email will help you decrease your angst quotient and get on with working through what you need to work through.
At the end of the day, semester, etc., this is your work, and while it is collaborative and you have gatekeepers for your work, the research should still feel like yours. Especially if you are a first-generation doctoral student or have been having a particularly rough go of it, it can be tempting to simply cave or to feel like the process isn’t serving you. Ideally, it is, even if some of the tasks and skills you are gaining can make you feel like your brain is training for an ultra-marathon during August in Arizona.
(People, it kinda is).
This is your dissertation, and while that truth comes with a great deal of academic and ethical responsibility, keeping that truth at the forefront of your mind can help you stay the course.