"In partial fulfillment of the requriements for the degree of..."

This phrase can be found on the title page of dissertations and theses.
As a book I was reading recently (Making the Implicit Explicit by Barbara E. Lovitts) suggests, this should indicate that the dissertation is not standing alone as the factor on which the candidate is judged.
And if signing off on the dissertation is the last hold the committee has and is equivalent to granting the degree, then it might be presumed that the faculty actually vary their standards for what is acceptable as a dissertation depending on their assessment of the worthiness of the student. (the logic here, if not derived from Lovitts, was certainly sparked by what she was saying.)

One could make an argument that this is ethically wrong, and that all dissertations should be held to the same standard. But I'm not sure that there isn't a good argument on the other side, too.

It has long been my opinion that this might be operating on an unconscious level: if your committee believes that you are capable of doing good work, then they will be predisposed to focus on the strengths of the work. If they believe that you are not up to snuff, they will look for problems. This kind of unconscious dynamic works in all of us.

This suggests that you can profit by taking actions that convince your readers of your worthiness; this includes work on the dissertation, but is not limited to such work. It is a point worth strategizing: what can you do that would make the committee believe that you are ready as a scholar?

I recommend Lovitts' book to any dissertation writer who wonders what the dissertation is supposed to accomplish and how they will be judged. I don't think it provides absolute answers because each professor is different, but I think it provides very good general direction.

Feedback cycles

Recently I've been thinking a lot about writing in terms of iterated feedback cycles. Basically, the writing of a dissertation or thesis can be seen through the lens of the fundamental interaction between the writer and the committee, and especially the advisor/chair.

The committee chair is expected (required, really) to give the writer feedback and guidance in the move towards completion. It doesn't always work out so well. Even so, I recommend working under the assumption that what you want to do is to create a useful feedback loop.

This can be done by the simple expedient of turning work that is basically complete. I don't necessarily mean completely edited and proofread and formatted, nor do I even mean with all problems resolved and no questions of how to develop the material. I really mean complete in terms of the structure of the paper.

A structurally complete paper has an introduction and a conclusion. It dedicates space to defining the basic terms and premises. It presents an idea to be discussed and a purpose for discussing it.

Minor digression here: I often think about the basic five-paragraph essay that everyone (of my generation, at least) was taught to write in elementary school or junior high. There was an introduction, three body paragraphs and a conclusion. It's a structure that is pretty roundly dismissed, I think, by composition teachers now. But I think it's elegant, and provides a basic model for what all writing is trying to accomplish.

All writing--fiction, speech writing, essays, etc.--starts with something that is supposed to draw the reader in and orient them in some way. A writer of fiction tries to draw the reader in differently than does the speech writer or the essayist, but still the writer of fiction wishesthe reader to know what the book is about. (aside: for any who believe that "different/differently" must always be paired with "from", I disagree. As I write to be understood, and as I seriously doubt that the sentence is hard to understand, I pooh-pooh the scorn of any prescriptive grammarian who thinks it "wrong." I could continue this digression with references, but really...back to our main story.) "Call me Ishmael," opens Moby Dick, thus informing the reader that the whole book will somehow be about this person Ishmael. Fiction writers don't always want their reader to understand the full import of the orientation, but yet their words orient the reader, nonetheless. Brave New World opens with the sentence fragment: "A squat gray building of only thirty-four stories." The sentence orients the reader to the fundamental oppressive dystopian vision. (and a big raspberry to all the petty grammarians out there who are appalled by such casual use of language as Huxley's incomplete sentence.)

Similarly, all pieces of writing have some ending, something that wraps up the work and leaves the reader with some sense of what the work was about. In the case of expository writing, this tends to be some statement of what you have shown and the conclusions that you draw from it--the moral of the story, if you will.

And, of course, there's something in between the beginning and the end.
A complete piece will have all of these.
If, then, you submit a work that is structurally complete, your reader can read it and has to be able to explain why it's not complete, and thus give you feedback on the content and other aspects of the writing. If it is complete, you're begging to have your reader say "it's not complete."

I'm maybe going to say more about this later, but I got off on digressions and now have to run off...

Avoiding a Battle of Wills

I don't advocate getting into a battle of wills with your faculty committee; it makes the process much more difficult. But at the same time, it's important to be able to adhere to your own sense of purpose, and your own sense of what the project ought to be.

This is one of the most difficult pieces of the dissertation project to manage: how much of your vision are you willing to sacrifice to the demands or suggestions of your committee? How much do you want to respond to instructions of your committee when they call on you to do work that you would not have done?

The answer, of course, is not simple. It's always a matter of judgment calls. First off, is that comment that says "include a discussion of X" or the one that says "cut out section Y"--are those comments demands or suggestions? You have to judge with respect to your committee. But I think it is easy for a graduate student to forget that sometimes professors ask questions or make suggestions because they want to help.

I remember clearly being stopped part way through my qualifying orals. I don't remember exactly what the subject was, and I'm not quite sure which professor it was who spoke first, but she said to me something like "We're asking the question because we're trying to help you plan your dissertation, not because we're trying to find out a weakness." So one thing to ask yourself when looking at those comments is, are they demands or suggestions?

The next thing to do is to examine whether or not that comment really helps. And to do this, you have to have a good idea of what you're trying to accomplish with your dissertation, because without such a sense of purpose, how can you determine whether the comment helps or not? It is crucial to put aside any resentment at being ordered around, and just examine the suggestion on its own merits: if the suggestion helps you--and I emphasize 'you'--that doesn't mean that you'll be able to recognize its value immediately; you have to give the idea at least a little chance--though only within the crucible of your scholarly analysis. Some suggestions really do help. If you can see that a suggestion helps, then you want to use it.

Some suggestions don't really help. These ones you need to figure out how to manage. One good tactic is to simply ignore them. If you turn in a completely revised draft that's significantly different from the previous one; if that draft incorporates some of the suggestions that your professor made; and if that draft is focused, coherent and generally complete in its structure, then it is quite possible that your professor will evaluate that draft on its own merits, and not on the basis of comments written some months earlier.

Another possible strategy is to use the handy "that is outside the scope of this discussion." I was talking today with a Berkeley Professor of education who was telling me how he had shown a draft to a friend, how that friend had taken him to task on a certain issue, and how he had decided to respond by putting in a footnote that acknowledged the difficulty and said "but that is outside the scope of this discussion." As he said to me: one does not wish to appear ignorant of the subject, or the issue, but opening the discussion is like opening Pandora's box: all sorts of problems come out. His "Pandora's box" is parallel to the rabbit holes that I was talking about. But he's right, in a way: going into that discussion actually does create many problems, and given the desire for concise and focused work, even exploration of interesting subjects is something of a problem. We may be able to convincingly respond to a suggestion by writing a paragraph that acknowledges a body of material that is relevant, but is outside the scope of the study.

It's possible that the suggestions I have made above can help resolve the great majority of problems with comments and suggestions from your committee that you find difficult. It seems to me likely that this strategy, repeated over a couple of cycles of feedback and revision, might be successful in avoiding direct conflict. If you are able to respond positively to some of the suggestions, that always helps defuse difficulties related to failing to respond to all of the comments.

Set your own agenda

Yesterday I was writing about having a sense of purpose, and the "so what?" problem.

We want our readers to be able to see a sense of purpose. The reader has to be able to have some answer to the "so what" problem.

I think, though, that it's even more important for the writer to have a sense of purpose. You should be able to answer to yourself the "so what" question. Better, if you can answer it one at least two levels: 1. scholarly sources or hard data that suggest a question, and 2. an emotional connection to the significance of the work. For example, you can both show that a significant population is affected by some issue, and you feel that the issue is important enough to pursue.

When you are able to answer your own "so what" question, then you can make plans to bring your vision to reality. I was writing about the writer whose committee thought the work frivolous. First off, if you have a good answer to the "so what" question, you're going to know that your project is not frivolous. That in itself is valuable. But with the sense of purpose, you can also begin to make plans. Ok, so your committee thinks the work is frivolous--what can be done to change that? I know that there are conservative, hard-headed, close-minded people out there, but that doesn't mean that they all are. If you have a good sense of purpose, you can develop an argument that matches your sense. Or at least, you can make plans on how to overcome resistance.

Professors do try to exert their influence. Many may even try to set the parameters of the discussion. But--and perhaps I am just giving your average run-of-the-mill professor the benefit of a doubt--most professors who try to give direction do so from the sense that the student doesn't have direction. It's not that they need you to go in the direction they suggest, it's that they need you to go in some specific direction. If you can show them that you have direction, and that you have a justification for your work that can be founded on respectable literature in your field, then you get to set your own agenda, because your professors will see that you have direction.

To thine own self be true

Know Thyself.

These are some important principles for a dissertation writer to follow.
I was talking with a writer today about how she had shifted from waiting on the instructions from her committee, to telling them what she expected of them. That's a pivotal shift that comes when you begin to develop your own voice.

When you have your own voice things are different. "The pieces all fit together, and I see a reason for everything that I'm leaving in the draft," she said to me. If you see how your whole work fits together, and you have reasons for doing what you're doing, then you interact with your professors differently.

When we're searching and uncertain, a professor's instruction to do things differently is very hard to refuse--even if we perceive it to be some sort of arbitrary exercise of power.
When we've found our own voice, then we can simply evaluate the instruction with respect to our own voice. If it serves us, we have good reason to follow the instruction. And if it doesn't we have good grounds upon which to resist.

It is natural that our vision and voice are not as clear at the start of the project--we wouldn't be learning if there were no development. But the more we strive to know ourselves, and to understand how to use that knowledge to chart a course of action, the better placed we are to take charge of the project and to make it happen on our own terms.

I know that dissertations may not come out in the way we wanted. I know that our work can be invalidated by others--our professors, in particular. Can we be true to ourselves if we're being pushed in a different way?
I believe so. I do not believe that compromise is a betrayal of the self, though some compromises are. If we remain committed to our principles and to our own interests, while trying to remain open to new ideas and new learning that might challenge our old preconceptions, we can often find paths that satisfy our needs and the needs of others. I know that my dissertation is not exactly what I wanted it to be--but it's complete and it's filed and I am a doctor.
I learned a lot by making that compromise. The book that I had been envisioning has not yet come to fruition--perhaps because it was too ambitious, or perhaps just because I don't have support for that project like I did for the other. It's easy to think "once I'm a doctor, I won't be at the mercy of the whims of my professors." Yeah, sure. That may be true. But when you submit that journal article and it's returned with suggestions for revision, do you reject that? When the editor at the publishing house say they're only interested in your book if you revise it, what then?

I never understood how the saying "you can't have your cake and eat it, too" arose. It seems to me that you can only eat your cake if you have it. But that's beside the point. The idea behind the saying is that we can't have everything--and we can't. Compromising something to get something you want may be a sacrifice, but it is not a violation of yourself (or at least it need not be; you obviously don't want to be signing away your soul to the devil so you can complete your dissertation).

The better you know yourself, and the better you understand your interests, aims, needs and desires, the better your ability to guide the interaction with your professors. And this self-knowledge also allows compromises that (hopefully) give up the lesser issues in order to retain the greater.

Requesting Feedback

OK, so let's take it for granted that you, as a graduate student, have every reason to expect to get useful, instructive feedback from you instructors. Sadly, things don't always work out as they ought.

Is there anything you can do to improve your feedback? Of course there is.
One obvious route is to be a brown-noser, to use to colloquial and cynical expression of my youth.

But assuming that we don't want to sacrifice our dignity, is there anything we can do? Of course.
Asking nicely is a good place to start, but if you write a good cover letter, it can help a lot.

First of all, imagine that your professors really want to help you, but are extremely busy. For too many, perhaps, the former (their wanting to help) may require some active imagination, but the latter (their being busy) is probably pretty much true. Anyway, we start by imagining a helpful, busy audience to set the tone.

What do we want to do?
1. Don't waste time! Keep the cover letter to one page.
2. Request their attention, and acknowledge that they are probably busy.
3. Tell them what you're sending them.
4. Tell them what to focus on (if anything in particular), or tell them what kind of feedback you're looking for.
5. Be confident and assertive, while still being respectful, even deferential.

I think numbers 1, 4 and 5 are the most important: keep it short and sweet, clear and focused. If you tell them what to do, you make the task that much easier for them, and therefore they're that much more likely to do it. If you act confident, they'll be much less likely to look for problems. If you assert what you have improved and focus their attention to the new strengths, you're like to get more positive feedback.

To follow up on that last point, there is a corollary to point 5: Don't apologize for your work or direct attention to the weakest points if you have any concerns about getting problematic feedback. Making apologies and pointing out weaknesses is virtually begging for the reader to focus their attention on the worst parts.