Robert S. Fleming - Survival Skills for Thesis and Dissertation Candidates

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Throughout your life, you have embarked on many journeys, and you have met and interacted with many interesting people and ideas along the way. This book was written to serve as a travel guide for your academic journey of a lifetime, for individuals preparing to embark on a graduate degree. Travel through the thesis or dissertation stage of your journey will be one of the most interesting, challenging, and (ideally) meaningful experiences that you will undertake in your personal life and professional career.

Your success in this important pursuit in your academic and professional career will be built upon developing and implementing a realistic travel plan. You have likely successfully completed a number of smaller voyages along the way in your graduate studies, such as completing a course project or working on a team. If you are honest with yourself, you know that you may not always have taken as much time as you could have (or should have) to prepare in a manner that led to optimal completion of that project. It is now time to embrace fully the reality that your planning will likely need to be some of the most detailed and comprehensive that you will ever create, both personally and professionally.

Throughout this book, we describe many steps in navigating the successful development and defense of a thesis or dissertation. While initially you may find the tasks unfamiliar and difficult, we are confident that by the time you successfully complete the process, you too will be proud of the unique journey you have experienced. By sharing the story of your voyage with others, you will be able to connect with those who are on a similar quest, with those who have already completed the journey, or with those who are using their new experiences and skills to create their ideal lives.

Our mission in writing this book is to provide students who are about to enter this important phase of their graduate studies with a useful guide and roadmap for negotiating the research and writing processes successfully. We refer to the process of completing a dissertation manuscript as a unique new trip which requires mastery of survival skills along the way. Naturally, this sage travel advice is also relevant to those completing a thesis project as part of a masters degree, or for those creating a professional-level academic research project for the first time. Independent researchers may also find these experiences helpful for organizing journal article projects, sustaining collaborative writing efforts, or finding new research interests. As all who have traveled before would agree, a plan with a roadmap is the most essential of travel tools, and one which most of us wished we pursued earlier, and in more detail!

As with most significant things that you choose to undertake in life, having a realistic preview of what you are getting into, as well as a viable plan for working toward your goals, will lead you most reliably toward success. In reading the various chapters of this book, you will gain an informed, street-smart understanding of the dissertation process. You will find a sound plan to guide you toward your desired destinations: the successful research, writing and defense of your thesis or dissertation; the completion of your graduate program; the awarding of your academic degree; and maybe even your dream job. This guide will help you to focus in order to finish.

Your success in this endeavor will require you to develop and properly implement a proactive plan for your travel, and to learn how to survive the most common aspects of the process that others have found challenging. In years past, most individuals preparing to take a long road trip or vacation would usually take the time in advance to meticulously plan their route, including when they would depart, the roads they would travel, where they would make rest stops or procure overnight accommodations, and how soon they would expect to arrive at their destination. Yet today, many travelers do not take the time to engage in proactive travel planning; rather, they jump in their car and request travel assistance as they go, perhaps through an app on their smartphone, relying on a quick web search of reviews about possible destinations, or simply following spontaneous decisions they made along the way.