The Failure of Dissertation Advice Books: Toward Alternative Pedagogies for Doctoral Writing

Abstract

Anxious doctoral researchers can now call on a proliferation of advice books telling them how to produce their dissertations. This article analyzes some characteristics of this self-help genre, including the ways it produces an expert–novice relationship with readers, reduces dissertation writing to a series of linear steps, reveals hidden rules, and asserts a mix of certainty and fear to position readers “correctly.” The authors argue for a more complex view of doctoral writing both as text work/identity work and as a discursive social practice. They reject transmission pedagogies that normalize the power-saturated relations of protégé and master and point to alternate pedagogical approaches that position doctoral researchers as colleagues engaged in a shared, unequal, and changing practice.

Dissertation 101: A Research and Writing Intervention for Education Graduate Students

“…While the literature designed to help graduate students complete their dissertations examines committee assembly, too often it is done with the suggestion that graduate students have the power to negotiate these hurdles (Kamler 2008). Further, as previously noted, too little of that scholarship is directed at the committee itself.…”

“…Finally, while not adequately addressed, the literature does reveal that dissertation intervention must be audience-, discipline-and task-specific (Kamler 2008 (ACRL 2000, p. 8). In the case of graduate education students, it is often their own classroom teaching experiences that shape and help articulate a research problem.…”

“…This difficulty confronting the task, however, should not been seen as an individual failure for many reasons, which will be detailed below. PhD (2006) offer advice on how to draft a dissertation, Kamler (2008) has demonstrated the limitations of the dissertation advice genre as that which too often "normalizes the power-saturated relations of protégé and master" and offers a "rigid model of that dissertation that follows a set format and style," which may not be characteristic of all dissertation tasks (p. 507). In most cases, these texts exist for only one audience-the dissertation writer him/herself-further limiting their purview because the dissertation committee needs to better understand both the complexity of the task and the specific writing needs of the graduate student writer as s/he begins composing.…”

Review of "Detox Your Writing" and "Getting Published in Academic Journals"

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In an era of increasing pressure to publish and complete doctoral degrees as quickly as possible, all while managing heavy administrative workloads, it likely comes as no surprise that do-it-yourself (DIY) doctoral supervision tools are becoming increasingly prolific (Kamler & Thomson, 2008). Perhaps these materials are a response to a growing friction between time needed and time available for doctoral supervision, as well as between the crucial place writing occupies in a doctoral researcher's life and the often tacit nature of apprenticing to become an academic.

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“…As both a doctoral student and a writing coach that works with other doctoral students, I am keenly interested in resources that can support me in both roles. Recently I picked up two texts to aid me with navigating my first attempts at publishing an article and with facilitating a doctoral writing workshop: Thomson and Kamler (2016), Detox your writing, and Paltridge and Starfield's (2016), Getting published in academic journals. Both texts are geared toward a doctoral audience, though master's level students and supervisors may equally appreciate the texts for their practical strategies.…”