Assembling a Dissertation Proposal

I'm not a great cook, but I can assemble a great salad.

Writing, on the other hand, is totally my thing.  However, writing a dissertation proposal (about 75 pages) was starting to get unwieldy and overwhelming, especially with the naive ambition of my ideas.

So I have decided to change the way I think about it and bank on my strengths.  Now, I am in the process of assembling my dissertation proposal.

The proposal has the following sections:  Introduction, Statement of Problem, Literature Review, Theoretical Framework, Research Questions and Hypotheses, Methodology, Abstract and Timeline.

I have butcher paper representing each section gracing every bare wall space in my dining room (my art work is resting temporarily on the ground).  I will post pics soon - it's quite lovely in a colorful, creative and organized way.

As I read through articles (from the sweet spot of my venn diagram - the intersection between low-income urban families, parent-child communication and posttraumatic resilience), I am posting ideas about research questions and methods that are recommended in the discussion section of these articles.  I am also posting information for the lit review.  Index cards, post-it notes and sharpie pens (in lots of cool colors) are my best friend right now.

Also, I had to completely re-write the discussion section of my publishable paper - I didn't really know what I was doing the first time and tried to fake it.  I decided to learn how to write it by doing what painters do - copy the experts.  So I literally wrote out - sentence by sentence - the discussion section of about a dozen articles (the very ones I am using for my dissertation proposal - a two-fer) to crack the code and find the pattern:  (1) study finding, (2) how it is consistent or contradicts with existing research, and (3) interpretation(s) of finding, (4) repeat as necessary.

Surprisingly, it meant I could read and internalize what I was reading no matter where I was reading (cafe with great music, cafe with cute men everywhere, on the couch with the TV tuned to So You Think You Can Dance or Top Chef or Project Runway, etc., or 11pm at my dining room table).  Now I can skim through those sentences - and the inevitable stars and notes I wrote in response - in order to post them on a corresponding butcher paper.  I am actually EXCITED about going through all the articles to mine them for ideas for my proposal.  I am a nerd and I like it. 

Who said research can't be creative and fun?  That's precisely why I do it.

My Venn Diagram

At a dissertation proposal boot camp last summer, the instructor suggested I divide the topics I am trying to cover in my literature review into 3 or 4 broad categories.  

The areas that are shaded by the overlapping circles are relevant literature.  The intersection of all three circles is very relevant literature.  This helps in deciding what to put in, what to leave out and what to emphasize in the literature review section of my proposal.

Next, I will place each source in my annotated bibliography into the appropriate circle.  If the article/book covers more than one of my broad topics, then I will place it in the space that represents the intersection of the relevant circles.

I have not completed my annotated bibliography (unless I consider that is what this blog is for me) so I pile sorted all the articles I have read or accumulated for my proposal.  They are sitting on my dining room table.  I'd include a picture but I'm having problems with the cloud email on my phone.  I'm going back to the AT&T store for trouble shooting - that is, it's on my list of things to do.

The Venn diagram is supposed to help me spot imbalances.  Have I done a lot of research on one aspect of the literature, but neglected another?  This may tell me what to focus my research time on.

"An effective literature review focuses on the details of and relationships between the most relevant sources."  (Social Sciences Dissertation Proposal Handbook, UCLA, 2009)

Conceptualizing the Statement of Problem

What is the problem?

• Overwhelming incidence of untreated PTSD among low-income urban youth and families resulting in lots of negative consequences - emotional, social, behavioral, cognitive, academic, physical, economic, safety and generational.

Why is it a problem?

• Multiple and chronic trauma exposure common in urban communities
• Limited access and underutilization of intensive and selected interventions, particularly evidence based interventions and mind-body-spirit approaches

Why is it important to study?  Gaps in the research?

• Variability in PTSD development has been largely explained in terms of individual risk and protective factors and less so in terms of family and cultural risk and protective factors
• Explaining PTSD development primarily in terms of individual-level risk and protective factors limits treatment to individual-level approaches - which are more expensive and may not be culturally acceptable to urban families

Working Titles

"And the first step is to imagine your dissertation...Imagining your dissertation allows you to develop passion, curiosity, and questions about your topic, as well as to think of yourself as someone who can make a commitment to scholarship." --Joan Bolker

Taking the first step can start with a title.  Here goes my brainstorming...

Families Can Talk About It:  The relationship between posttraumatic resilience and family communication

Telling Our Stories:  Posttraumatic resilience and parent-child communication among low-income urban families

Love, Stories and Resilience:  The relationship between posttraumatic resilience and family communication

My Main Squeeze

Writing a dissertation is very much like being in a long-term relationship:  there are likely to be some very good times and some perfectly dreadful ones, and it's a big help if you like what you've chosen.

This particular relationship asks you to give up a lot of other pieces of your life, to work like a dog, and to postpone gratification.

Joan Bolker

Bliss

If you enjoy research and writing, some of the greatest gifts life can offer you are time, space, and a good rationalization for devoting yourself to a project that truly interests you.

Joan Bolker

Write it down now!

“The secret of it all, is to write in the gush, the throb, the flood, of the moment – to put things down without deliberation – without worrying about their style – without waiting for a fit time or place. I always worked that way. I took the first scrap of paper, the first doorstep, the first desk, and wrote – wrote, wrote…By writing at the instant the very heartbeat of life is caught.”
― Walt Whitman

Thanks, Claudia, it's my new dissertation-inspiration post-it. I'm putting it up everywhere.

P.S.  Didn't Clinton give his special women a book by Walt Whitman?  I'm blushing, Claudia ;)

Notes on Shamanism

My dissertation proposal will be about the relationship between parent-child communication about trauma/resilience and posttraumatic resilience.

I am also interested in the relationship between traditional/cultural healing practices/medicine and posttraumatic resilience.

I should focus on the former but I will try to fit in questions about the latter in my research interviews with low-income ethnic minority urban youth and families.

To that end, I am reading, Shamanism:  The Neural Ecology of Consciousness and Healing by Michael Winkelman, a retired scholar from the Department of Anthropology, Arizona State University.

Here are some notes . . .

Shamanism:

• is an ancient tradition
• religious, spiritual, and healing practices and consciousness traditions
• a primordial natural form of healing and personal development with continued relevance
• a universal phenomenon
• involves alterations of consciousness
• has been denounced as fraud, trickery, delusion by modern rationality (science & atheism)
• has reemerged in modern societies
• involves techniques for the alteration of consciousness to support healing and personal development

The role of religion has been viewed as a source of refuge and comfort to the downtrodden.
Ritual activities are complex ethnomedical practices that provide important cultural healing resources.

Investigations of shamanistic practices reveal their ability to manipulate:

• physiological processes
• psychophysiological reactions
• personal experience
• social psychology and relations

Heuristics

I am taking a dissertation proposal writing seminar with renowned scholar, Zeke Hasenfeld.

The first time I took a class with Zeke, I was embarrassed because I did not know what the title of the class meant when I enrolled (Epistemology), but thanks to Zeke, I do now.  I like to use the word all the time now, less to show off my new found knowledge (although that is part of it - it is hard-won, people!) and more because it is such an important word!  How do we know what we know?  What is the nature of reality (ontology)?

Now, we are exploring heuristics, or "tools for invention and social science discovery" - basic tricks for producing ideas.  Zeke teaches me fancy words and the depth of meaning behind them.

What's exciting about heuristics is that these tools are not just useful to social scientists eager to have something to say.  They are tools for inspiring creativity in any field.  In both the arts and sciences, practitioners are motivated by having something to say.

"Imagination proposes and rigor evaluates.  There is a continual exchange between intuition and method."

What is the difference between "imagination and foolishness"?  "Rigor and secure explanation."  The left and right brain working together in concert. Thoughts and feelings cross-checking each other until wholeness and integration are reached.  Elegant. Simple.

Dissertation Proposal Progress

Working on a venn diagram of the four concepts in my literature review and plotting my 50 articles in the diagram.

Post-it notes and endless lists of things to do.  There is so much to do and so many micro-steps.  If I don't write it down somewhere and check it off as I go, then it lingers on my brain like low-grade anxiety.

Post-it notes with  questions to ask myself as I write - tips from my reading.

Good light, quiet neighborhood, daughter playing through the house with a friend, husband playing bass upstairs, writing in a room of my own.  It's possible.

Dissertation Proposal Boot Camp, Week One

This is what I needed, baby.

How to Write your Dissertation in 15 Minutes a Day, (not really 15 minutes exactly) suggests that you do a lot of freewriting everyday - at least 2 pages.

Write about what's on your mind and write about your research interests.  This is called the zero draft.  It will be useful - both the process of writing regularly and some of the content - in writing the first draft.

In class, a doctoral student mentioned that she wished she'd read this book two years ago!  I am glad I started writing this blog two years ago.  The research topics I care about and key articles are archived on this site.

We have lots of homework before the next class because this is boot camp and the goal is to complete the 50-70 page proposal in less than 6 weeks.

I asked the person who is leading the course, a seventh year Linguistics doctoral student, "How many students actually complete their proposal by the end of the course?" She said most do so I am feeling hopeful.

So what does it take?  Here's my list of things to do by Week Two:

• Write a 5-6 sentence abstract of my proposal including: 
• Why do we care about the problem? What problem are you trying to solve? How did you go about solving or making progress on the problem?  What's the answer? What are the implications? 
• Write an annotated bibliography of my top 50 articles which means a paragraph summarizing each study or article in my own words 
• Plot a venn diagram showing the intersection of my three topics and catalog where each of my articles fits on the diagram
• Write my research questions (that are answerable with the data that I am planning to collect) and hypotheses
• Read Surviving your dissertation: A comprehensive guide to content and process; Writing the successful thesis and dissertation: Entering the conversation
• Write 5-10 pages of the Literature Review (the purpose of which is to set up the research questions by explaining what other scholars have done and where the gaps are)
• Read multiple dissertation proposals in my field, especially ones that have been chaired by my adviser

It is intense, baby, which is why you have to love it and be passionate about it.  You have to be compelled to do it, so that the thought of not doing it is much worse.

There is a method to the madness.  It can be done. Si se puede.