Destination Dissertation: Practical Strategies for Writing the Thesis or Dissertation

Drs. William Waters and Sonja Foss

Designed for master's and doctoral students, this workshop, by Dr. Sonja Foss, a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado, and Dr. William Waters, coordinator of composition, director of the Writing Center, and an assistant professor in the English Department at Northwest Missouri State University, facilitates your progress on the journey that is the dissertation or thesis. In the workshop, writing a dissertation or thesis is presented as taking a trip—you are on vacation from normal routine for a fixed amount of time, you discover exciting things and develop new skills, and you know you'll be able to deal with whatever comes your way. The workshop focuses on those places where you tend to get delayed on your dissertation or thesis journey and provides practical and concrete processes for managing potential difficulties with ease. The topics covered in the workshop include:

• Preparing to go: Conceptualizing the dissertation as a trip and learning what qualities to pack to make the journey a more efficient and enjoyable one
• Planning the trip: Discovering the topic through a conceptual conversation that leads to the development of a pre-proposal
• Advice from other travelers: Learning how to manage all that literature and develop a conceptual schema for the literature review through efficient coding and categorizing
• Things to see and do: Coding data efficiently and developing an original and sophisticated explanatory schema from the data
• Useful phrases: Using fast writing and slow revising to make the writing and editing processes efficient and effective
• Avoiding delays and annoyances: Avoiding the incomplete-scholar roles that prevent progress on the thesis or dissertation—roles such as the housekeeper, model employee, patient, and proxy critic

The workshop can be either two or three hours long; the longer workshop allows for more of the topics to be covered.

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Other workshops offered by Foss and Waters:

Sharing Results: Crafting an Article

A workshop for professors who want to learn strategies for effectively crafting articles. This workshop provides you with an understanding of concrete, practical steps that produce a high-quality article efficiently. Both new and seasoned scholars will benefit from the innovative strategies presented. The topics covered in the workshop include:

• Conceptualizing a project
• Locating possible journals to target
• Analyzing and "measuring" a target journal
• Coding literature and developing a conceptual schema for the literature review
• Coding data and developing an original schema or theory
• Fast writing and slow revising
• Writing collaboratively
• Common errors to avoid
• Revising and resubmitting
• Enacting the scholar role instead of incomplete-scholar roles

The workshop can be either two or three hours long. The longer workshop allows for more of the topics to be covered.

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Individual Coaching to Facilitate Writing Progress

Individual coaching sessions offer you the opportunity for personalized, individual time with two highly effective scholars and coaches. In individual conferences, Dr. Foss and Dr. Waters work individually with graduate students or faculty members to facilitate your progress on your writing project. These sessions take the form of intensive conversations about your project in which you will feel both supported and challenged as you talk through whatever aspect of your thesis, dissertation, book, or article is preventing you from completing your project. Participants discover that our friendly and supportive questions lead to profound insights that transfer into realistic expectations, clear goals, and useful strategies. The coaching sessions help you solve whatever your particular problem is, but typical topics that are covered in the coaching sessions are:

• Conceptualizing a project
• Assessing a project to be sure you have a doable research design
• Coding literature so you can manage massive amounts of literature efficiently
• Developing an original and sophisticated theory from your data
• Overcoming writing blocks
• Managing your time effectively
• Developing strategies for writing regularly

Foss and Waters also offer one or multiple days of coaching sessions to faculty or graduate students. The individual sessions can be 60, 90, or 120 minutes each.

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Here's what participants had to say after learning the strategies offered in workshops by Dr. Foss and Dr. Waters:

"I found their presentation to be extremely useful and relevant. I wish we had more time with them."

"Their techniques and approaches to mounds of data are what people need to know before they waste years trying to figure out how to cope!"

"I have renewed energy about my work and better focus on how I can go about getting my work done."

"I appreciated being around their warmth, energy, and optimism."

"Their writing strategies are simple but extremely effective. This workshop helped transform me from a panicked, unfocused ABD to a relieved and proud Ph.D."

"A fantastically wonderful workshop"

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Writing Grant Proposals

Kenneth Henson

Learn how to get inside grant proposal evaluators' heads from an experienced grant writer who has written a string of grants ranging from a few hundred dollars to more than a million dollars each. Kenneth Henson's "Writing Grant Proposals" workshop is designed for beginning writers and writers who have had a few proposals accepted and wish to get ideas for new topics and develop skills needed to increase the acceptance rate of their future proposals. Unlike the many workshops that just talk about grant writing, this workshop is all nuts and bolts: do this and expect these results.

This one-day, six-hour workshop by The Citadel's Distinguished Professor of Education, and author of Grant Writing in Higher Education: A Step-by-Step Guide, is packed with practical suggestions and tips that can increase your acceptance rate. Discover how to give your proposals that spark that makes them irresistible. Develop an effective, bottom-line writing style from the author of over 300 national publications, including over thirty professional books, four on writing for publications.

You will examine successful proposals and will be shown the specific qualities that made these proposals more attractive than the competition's. You will also learn how to:

• Design a budget that evaluators will perceive as honest and fair.
• Give your proposals the same test that evaluators use to rank proposals. One single tip will help you avoid the one mistake that causes the most rejections.
• Identify your own unique circumstances and use these to strengthen your proposals.
• Turn limitations into strengths.

This workshop is offered by Kenneth Henson (bio).

Here's what participants had to say after attending a recent workshop by Ken Henson:

"I could listen to him for days. Very helpful. Information was evidence-based and very well presented. Lots of good information and advice that helps me know how to get my work published and how to write."

"Strong and passionate delivery. I learned both what to do and not to do when writing for publication."

"This was an excellent workshop. Very engaging and useful examples."

"Excellent. A fountain of information! I got real information that can be applied immediately. I was encouraged to get beyond my block and start writing."

"Excellent! An authority on publication of articles in journals. A great presenter! This workshop is a must for all professors involved in publishing."

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Publish and Flourish:
Become a Prolific Scholar

Tara Gray

This workshop, the first in TAA's Academic Authoring Workshop series, helps authors become more prolific.

The myth persists that prolific scholars are born not made, but research suggests otherwise. Much is known about how to become prolific, and participants in Tara Gray's "Publish & Flourish: Become A Prolific Scholar" workshop will learn about several of them, including:

• Write daily for 15-30 minutes
• Post your thesis on the wall and write to it
• Write from the first day of your research project
• Organize around key sentences
• Use key sentences as an after-the fact outline
• Solicit the right feedback from the right colleagues
• Make effective use of feedback

Participants will apply these steps to one of their own manuscripts that they bring to the workshop.

A workshop day includes one five- or four-hour workshop or two three- or two-hour workshops.

This workshop is offered by Tara Gray (bio).

What previous participants have said about Gray's workshop:

"I tried these steps on a paper I had been trying to put together for five years. Four weeks later the paper is out for review."

"You ignited a passion and a fire under me. Ever since your workshop, I have been working furiously."

"Your openness about your own struggles as a writer and how you solicit and use response is absolutely inspiring."

"The best workshop I have attended in 24 years of university teaching. It will result in measurable and real-world change."

"In all honesty, you probably have provided me with all the tools I need to get tenure and even a full professorship."

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Academic Publishing Workshop

Dr. Robert Ginsberg

This workshop, the second in TAA's Academic Authoring Workshop Series, is led by distinguished scholar and editor Dr. Robert Ginsberg.

"Academic Publishing Workshop" will expand the understanding of faculty members about their opportunities and challenges, their rights and responsibilities, as they engage in publishing. The Workshop format includes hands-on participation, show-and-tell activity, behind- the-scenes reporting, round-table editing, and Q&A sessions.

Host institutions can customize their Workshop by choosing between eight different sessions, each lasting two hours. A full day Workshop consists of two sessions, a Workshop of a day and a half consists of three sessions and a two-day workshop consists of four sessions.

The eight sessions available for Dr. Ginsberg's Workshop are:

1. WHY SHOULD YOU PUBLISH? Frank assessment of the academic imperative, "Publish or Perish." Publishing as an extended form of teaching. Publishing as the pursuit of research. Publishing as a contribution to an academic discipline. Publishing as the continued development of a faculty member.

2. HOW TO GET YOUR SCHOLARLY BOOK PUBLISHED. Preparing the book. Anatomy of a book: Preface, Acknowledgments, Introduction, Chapters, Illustrations, Notes, Bibliography, Appendix, Index. Identifying the book's audience and contribution. Searching for the needle of a publisher in the haystack of publishing. Studying the contract. Text-Editing. Copy-editing. Proofreading. Marketing.

3. HOW TO BECOME PUBLISHED BY SCHOLARLY JOURNALS: CONFESSIONS OF AN EDITOR. The special function of periodicals in the academic world. Finding journals appropriate for your work. The formats of journal publishing: articles, reports, book reviews, letters, special issues. The discipline of writing for periodicals: house style, revision, length limits, deadlines, final copy, abstract, offprints.

4. WRITING AS COMMUNICATION: HOW TO CUT THE CRAP OF ACADEMIC STYLE. The principles of good style: clarity, simplicity, directness. Recognizing bad style in the writing of others. Recognizing bad style in your writing. Editing yourself to become an effective writer. Unclogging your reference system. Eliminating junk phrasing. Activating your active voice. Learning to love the comma.

5. HOW TO TURN A SCHOLARLY CONFERENCE INTO AN EDITED BOOK. A unified book vs. a set of proceedings. Chapters vs. papers. Planning the conference. Landing the contract. Editing the contributions. Riding herd on your authors: deadlines and lifelines. Dealing with pressures. Going to press.

6. COPYRIGHT: GETTING IT RIGHT! A non-technical introduction to what every teacher, author, and editor should know about intellectual property, rights, fair use, quotation, paraphrase, plagiarism, permission, piracy, public domain, royalties, translation, and copying. Horror stories and words of consolation.

7. IS A TEXTBOOK YOUR NEXT BOOK? How to move from assigning textbooks to designing textbooks. Textbook publishing as competitive commercial activity. The textbook writer as member of the business team. Marketing, production values, permission fees, examination copies, displays, testimonials, royalties. How to edit selections for the use of students. How not to write like a professor. How to make your textbook attractive in the visual culture of the twenty-first century. Why you should work on the revised edition the day after your textbook appears in print.

8. EVERYBODY NEEDS AN EDITOR! REFLECTIONS ON THE ART OF EDITING. Editing as drawing out the best in a text. The editor as the author's best friend. The editor as the advocate for readers. The editor as expanding the outreach of an academic discipline. Editing as an art that can be learned with practice and shared with colleagues and students.

Participants of Robert Ginsberg's TAA-sponsored workshop, "Writing as Communication: How To Cut the Crap of Academic Style," presented at New Mexico State University on December 7, 2006, had this to say about their experience:

"Outstanding speaker. Practical advice. This workshop gave me the inspiration to try again!"

"Great presentation skills, humor was helpful. The best feature of the workshop was the seven 'easy' rules. I learned to avoid filler words, how to make style sheets and that I should own reference books."

"He brought everyone into the discussion and fielded questions well. The best feature of the workshop was the seven rules and examples. Some I knew, but others were new."

"Very engaging. I felt all participants were included. I learned how to write more clearly."

"Excellent. The best feature of the workshop was that it was applicable to my work. I learned how to 'cut the crap out' of my writing."

"Wonderful. The presenter was excellent. He knows the information and is entertaining."

"Excellent. The presenter was very effective, articulate and knowledgeable. The best feature of the workshop was the interaction and samples. I learned a great deal from this workshop including 'tricks of the trade' and organizational ideas."

"Wonderful. I really appreciated the informal process."

"Energetic, knowledgeable."

"Excellent presenter. Very helpful information."

"The best features of the workshop were the presenter's knowledge of the publication process, the look at various journals, the one-year subscription to TAA, and the information about cover letters. I learned a lot about the world of journal publication."

Tara Gray, presenter of the "Publish & Flourish: Become A Prolific Scholar Worskhop," who attended Ginsberg's workshop at NMSU, had this to say about his presentation: "Bob Ginsberg's workshop is full of practical, thoughtful advice from a prolific scholar and a journal editor of many years. He gives a lively, entertaining presentation. I recommend to you this highly interactive, informative workshop."

This workshop is co-sponsored by the International Center for the Arts, Humanities, and Value Inquiry.

This workshop is offered by Dr. Robert Ginsberg (bio).

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Biographies of Workshop Presenters

Sonja K. Foss is a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado Denver. Her research and teaching interests are in contemporary rhetorical theory and criticism, feminist perspectives on communication, the incorporation of marginalized voices into rhetorical theory and practice, and visual rhetoric. She is the author or coauthor of the books Destination Dissertation: A Traveler's Guide to a Done Dissertation, Rhetorical Criticism, Contemporary Perspectives on Rhetoric, Inviting Transformation, Feminist Rhetorical Theories, and Women Speak. Her essays in communication journals have dealt with topics such as invitational rhetoric, agency in the film Run Lola Run, feminine spectatorship in Garrison Keillor's monologues, visual argumentation, and body art. Dr. Foss earned her Ph.D. in communication studies from Northwestern University and previously taught at Ohio State University, the University of Oregon, the University of Denver, Virginia Tech, and Norfolk State University.

William Waters is Coordinator of Composition, Director of the Writing Center, and an assistant professor in the English Department at Northwest Missouri State University. His research and teaching interests are in writing theory and practice, the history of the English language, linguistics, and modern grammar. He is the coauthor of Destination Dissertation: A Traveler's Guide to a Done Dissertation and was the managing editor of La Puerta: A Doorway into the Academy. He also has published several poems in national journals. Dr. Waters earned his Ph.D. in language and linguistics from the University of New Mexico and previously taught at the University of Maine; University College in Galway, Ireland; and Cheongbuk National University in Korea.

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Kenneth Henson is Distinguished Professor of Education at The Citadel's School of Education. He is the author of Grant Writing in Higher Education: A Step-by-Step Guide, published by Allyn & Bacon in 2005. Henson's grant writing has brought in more than $100 million. His technology proposal was the largest funded by AT&T in 1991. His series of grants with school districts won a top state award in Alabama and a national award in Indiana. Henson has been giving workshops on grant writing for more than 20 years.

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Tara Gray, Ph.D., is an associate professor of criminal justice and the first director of the Teaching Academy at New Mexico State University (NMSU). She has published three books, including her most recent, Publish and Flourish: Become a Prolific Scholar. She has been honored at NMSU and nationally with eight awards for teaching or service. Gray has presented her workshop to more than 3,000 scholars in more than 25 states, and in Thailand, Canada, Mexico, and Guatemala.

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Dr. Robert Ginsberg is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Comparative Literature at Pennsylvania State University, where he taught for 35 years. He is also the Director of the International Center for the Arts, Humanities, and Value Inquiry. Ginsberg was the founder of the Jones and Bartlett Philosophy series of textbooks, the Social Philosophy Research Institute Book Series, the Value Inquiry Book Series, and the New Studies in Aesthetics book series. He also served as executive editor of The Journal of Value Inquiry. Some 200 volumes have appeared under his general editorship. One hundred seventy of his own writings have been published in four languages in nineteen countries on four continents.

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