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How to Survive Your PhD: The Insider's Guide to Avoiding Mistakes, Choosing the Right Program, Working with Professors, and Just How a Person Actually Writes a 200-Page Paper PDF

226 Pages·2009·2.35 MB·English
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College Guide $16.99 U.S. ISBN-13: 978-1-4022-2667-0 $20.99 CAN ISBN-10: 1-4022-2667-5 £9.99 UK www.sourcebooks.com www.sourcebookscolleggee..ccoomm HTSurvivePhD.indd 1 9/18/09 1:10:31 PM EAN HTSurvive_PhD.indd 1 9/18/09 4:08:32 PM Copyright © 2009 by Jason R. Karp Cover and internal design © 2009 by Sourcebooks, Inc. Cover design by William Riley/Sourcebooks Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional service. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.—From a Declaration of Principles Jointly Adopted by a Committee of the American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations. All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor in this book. Published by Sourcebooks, Inc. P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410 (630) 961-3900 Fax: (630) 961-2168 www.sourcebooks.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Karp, Jason. How to survive your PhD : the insider’s guide to avoiding mistakes, choosing the right program, working with professors, and just how a person actually writes a 200-page paper / by Jason Karp. p. cm. 1. Doctor of philosophy degree. I. Title. LB2386.K37 2009 378.2’4--dc22 2009030718 Printed and bound in the United States of America. VP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 HTSurvive_PhD.indd 2 9/18/09 4:08:32 PM Contents Preface..................................................................................... vii Acknowledgments. ................................................................... xi Chapter 1: Choice.s. .................................................................. 1 Choosing the PhD Ego Finances Choosing Your School: Location, Location, Location Opportunity Coursework Reputation of Department Know Your Research Interests Choosing Your Academic Advisor Your Advisor’s Work Ethic Your Advisor’s Philosophy Seek Information from Others Choosing Your Committee Transferring Schools Do You Have the Time? Patience HTSurvive_PhD.indd 3 9/18/09 4:08:32 PM Chapter 2: Thinking Like a Doctoral Student .......................... 43 Think Big Ask Why Understand the Literature Be Critical Reason Thinking Skills Chapter 3: Tricks of the Trade ................................................ 61 Know What Is Expected of You Directing Your Efforts Being Busy Helping Other Students Teaching Classes Head Start on Research Managing Yourself Prioritize Working with Your Advisor Being Resourceful Visibility Burning Bridges Communication Managing Finances Assistantships Scholarships Fellowships Grants Establish Residency in the State before Enrolling in School Chapter 4: Research ................................................................ 97 Publications Getting Your Research off the Ground Intellectual Property Authorship vs. Contributorship Conferences—The Public Forum for Your Research HTSurvive_PhD.indd 4 9/18/09 4:08:32 PM Chapter 5: The Qualifying (Comprehensive) Exam ................113 The Written Exam The Oral Exam If You Fail How to Study “Paper PhD” Chapter 6: The Dissertation ....................................................137 Writing the Proposal and Dissertation Becoming a Writer Procrastination Dissertation Format The Chapters of the Dissertation Introduction Purpose Hypotheses Literature Review Methodology Data Analysis Limitations Results Discussion Conclusions More Advice on Writing Your Chapters Proofread Preparing Your Dissertation Proposal Presentation The Dissertation Proposal Defense The Dissertation Defense You Get Done When You Get Done Epilogue .................................................................................207 About the Author ...................................................................211 HTSurvive_PhD.indd 5 9/18/09 4:08:32 PM HTSurvive_PhD.indd 6 9/18/09 4:08:32 PM Preface hroughout my work on my PhD, I always told people that I Twas the least academic doctoral student they’d ever meet. My academic advisor, of course, wished that wasn’t the case. I told people that partly because it was true and partly because I didn’t want people (cute female undergraduates) to think I was a nerd. Truth be told, most doctoral students are nerds. I should know—after thirteen years of multiple university educations, including a year of classes in medical school, I’ve been around many of them. So I felt like I needed some way to connect with a student body that was, with each passing year, getting younger than me. If people saw that I was smart and cool…well, let’s just say that everyone wants to feel like part of a group. From the very beginning of graduate school, I saw myself as being different from my peers. I had different career aspirations and a different way of looking at things. I didn’t see the point of working hard on papers that only a professor would ever read. I didn’t believe there was much value in the rush to publish scientific papers in academic journals so that your articles could gather dust on university library bookshelves, their HTSurvive_PhD.indd 7 9/18/09 4:08:32 PM viii HOW TO SURVIVE YOUR PhD cobwebs only being blown off when some other stressed graduate student needs to reference your esoteric paper for his or her own dissertation. Instead, I wanted a larger audience. If I was going to be a student living in a college town, I’d rather hang on to the college lifestyle as long as I could. Believe me, it helps immensely when you look a decade younger than you really are. In fact, I still get carded at the door when I go out to a bar or a nightclub. At the outset of my PhD, my career goal was to be an entrepre- neur. I wanted to work for myself as a running and fitness coach, writer, and consultant, but I also wanted flexibility, with the option to work in academia if I wanted. While I initially thought it would take four years to complete my degree, it ended up taking seven, giving a whole new meaning to the term “seven-year itch.” Obviously, there were many obstacles to overcome and much waiting to endure while working on my PhD, and naturally, I often questioned whether I was ever going to finish. At times, I felt like Estragon and Vladimir in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Many told me (or tried to tell me) that a PhD certainly wasn’t necessary for my career aspirations. But despite the obstacles and the stress and the sometimes not-so-subtle signs that maybe I wasn’t smart enough or worthy enough or savvy enough to earn a PhD, I continued forward, blindly at times, to find ways that I could complete my degree. After all, even the great Albert Einstein attempted multiple times to get a dissertation accepted and eventu- ally receive his doctorate, so busy he was revolutionizing the field of physics and all. However, I didn’t have such distractions. “Why am I doing this to myself?” I asked myself countless times. Looking back, perhaps the reason was because I put the PhD degree on such a high pedestal, a pedestal that I wanted to stand on. Although there may always be a good chance of failing, people take risks because HTSurvive_PhD.indd 8 9/18/09 4:08:32 PM PREfacE ix the chance of failing makes success taste even sweeter. For me, the truth was that, if I had quit, I would have felt guilty for the rest of my life. So I pushed ahead with the degree, hoping for the best. This book is the culmination of years of hard work and much frustration that could have been avoided if only I had had someone to give me the advice that I am now trying to give you. That said, you won’t hear the advice in this book from professors and others working in academia, nor from any other book on this subject. Sure, people like me can give you advice and help make your path a smoother one; however, the fact is that no one can tell you what your exact experience will be like. That’s the reason that I wrote this book, after all. In How to Survive Your PhD, I’ll walk you through the entire PhD process and give details about exactly what you’ll need to know, details such as how to choose your school and advisor, what demands to expect on your time, where delays can occur and how to deal with them, among many other invaluable tidbits. But even more than great tips and strong advice, this book tries to give you a thorough understanding of the human elements of the PhD process—for example, how to deal with the people to whom you must prove yourself—and hopefully bestow on you the insight I lacked during those years. To give you a clearer picture of the process and the situations in which you may find yourself, text boxes are included throughout the book that speak to my personal experiences, most of which end with a lesson. But until you experience the PhD process for yourself, it’s all theory, not reality. Acknowledging this limitation, it is my sincere hope that this book will help you make the right decisions both before and during your doctoral work, simplifying and facilitating the PhD process for all you future doctors in your HTSurvive_PhD.indd 9 9/18/09 4:08:32 PM

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