For Decision Line
This is the much longer and more complete version of the article I wrote for Decision Line, the newsletter of the Decision Sciences Institute (DSI):
Aronson, Jay E., "Working on the Doctoral Dissertation," Decision Line, Vol. 32, No. 5, September/October 2001.
The pdf file is available from the DSI site: http://dsi.gsu.edu

I can be reached at
  Department of Management Information Systems
  Terry College of Business
  The University of Georgia
  Brooks Hall
  Athens, GA 30602-6273
  Phone: 706/542-0991
  Fax: 706/583-0037
  Email: jaronson@uga.edu
  URL: www.terry.uga.edu/people/jaronson/

I have read with great interest the articles in Decision Line containing advice for doctoral students. In most cases, I thought, “Right! I figured that out!” or “So and so told me that!” or “Oh, yes, I’ve heard that before! It makes sense!” In some cases, I thought, “Gee! I wish someone had told me that before I finished (or even started).” And in a few cases, I was not so pleased to think, “Wow, that makes sense, but it never came up until after I finished!” I have had the joy of completing my own research and writing it up in a dissertation, and the joy of chairing dissertation committees and serving on countless dissertation committees for over two decades. Each dissertation is different; each student is different; each dissertation committee member is different; and the interactions are different. Even so, there is a wealth of advice that can mostly be utilized by most doctoral students. Here are some tips and pointers that I have picked up over the years and want to share with you. It is a list of what to do, and what not to do. In some cases, the advice is obvious; in some cases, I have attempted to explain some details; and in some cases, the advice simply will not apply to you because of the structure of your program, the people running it, or your goals. There are some general themes here, ranging from selecting a doctoral program to finding a faculty position. It is not a complete list, but it contains advice that I often pass on to doctoral students. I have geared these tips to students planning a career in academia. Most will also apply to students planning a career in industry. I assumed that the student is writing his or her work up in English. If not, simply substitute the language of your program in place of English. I sincerely hope that dissertation chairs and potential chairs will talk these over with their doctoral students in a casual setting (perhaps over coffee or lunch), and that doctoral students and potential doctoral students will talk these over with each other. Enjoy.

The Doctoral Process:

The process involves: finding a program, enrolling in the program, taking classes, working on research, proposing to perform the research (even after you have started), writing it up, defending it, and revising the draft to produce a final version. You might also want to find and get a job before you finish. Embedded in this process are some additional, small steps like taking and passing various exams and reviews (screening exams, qualifying exams, comprehensive exams, and the like), scheduling your defense, and getting all the signatures on all the forms (sometimes the hardest part, and graduate. Some programs have a few other steps. These steps exist for a reason. They are to push and pull you through the process, and to ensure that you are capable, and do perform scholarly work at the highest level. If earning a doctoral degree were easy, everyone would have one. Do read Gordon B. Davis and Clyde A. Parker’s excellent book, Writing the Doctoral Dissertation: A Systematic Approach, Barron’s Educational Series, Inc., New York, 1979.
 

Selecting a Doctoral Program:

You want to find a doctoral program that is a comfortable fit between your interests and those of the faculty. Choose one in which there are faculty who perform research in the area in which you want to specialize. Have an idea of at least a topic area you are interested in. Be more specific than a field like MIS, OM or HR. Read up on the interests of the faculty and structure of the program. If possible, read the papers or at least the abstracts of some faculty publications. Develop an idea of with whom you might like to work and why. Visit the school and interview the faculty and the current doctoral students to see if the school is a good fit. In my department, we require an interview. This shows a high level of interest on your part and will hopefully create an interest in you by the faculty. Both you and the faculty can determine if there is a good fit

There are some differences between private schools and public schools. Be aware of these.

Do not select a doctoral program solely on the size of the stipend. Many of the better schools do not pay much.

Plan on being poor while you work on your doctoral degree. If you are in the military or took a leave of absence from a job with full pay, that’s great! However, most doctoral stipends just about cover rent and food and maybe a little spending money. Hopefully you won’t starve to death, but you won’t live like a king or queen either.

Think about where you want to be in five years (out of the program), ten years and so forth. Some programs prefer to train only doctoral students who plan to go into academia; some specifically for research, others for teaching. If you are interested in going into industry, find a doctoral program that wants to train you to do so.

Getting Started:

You have enrolled in a doctoral program. Congratulations! Find out about the entire process of doing a doctoral degree where you are. Identify all of the steps, dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s. Follow it to the letter.

Learn to write. Then learn to write well. If necessary, get professional help right away. Seriously consider hiring an editor, and/or find a technical writer to help you with grammar and spelling, especially if English is not your primary language. It is nerve-racking for the faculty and your chair to be your editors. They should be spared the pain of correcting major grammar and spelling errors. They are there to help you with research and teaching, not to help you with writing. Save their time for these more critical tasks. If necessary, take a class (or several) of English as a Foreign Language. Do this before you start writing your dissertation.

Use spell checkers and grammar checkers regardless of how good your writing skills are. This is especially critical when you start writing the dissertation.

From the first day in a doctoral program, start developing good relationships with the faculty in your program (and related ones). Ideally one of these will evolve into a mentor-student relationship leading to him or her becoming your chair.

Make good friends of your fellow students in your program. These people will become your colleagues in a few short years. They will be research collaborators, and help you in job-hunting as well.

Make colleagues of the faculty and other students in the program, and other programs within the college. They are there to help you and want to see you finish. Share your knowledge.

If not assigned early in the program, find an advisor/chair to help you out and get started on research early.

You start a doctoral program knowing nearly nothing about your field, and complete it by being THE expert in the field. Keep that in mind as you travel on this journey.

While in the Program:

Ideally you should attempt to do some dissertation research in every course you take. If you have to do a literature review or a project in a class, slant it towards your dissertation topic.

Do NOT create personal conflicts with the faculty. If you do, it will be impossible to find a chair.

Stay out of program, departmental, college and university politics. You are at the bottom of the food chain and will have plenty of time to get involved in politics when you join a faculty.

If you are advised by the faculty to leave, then seriously consider leaving. This type of advice is not given often (or often enough). Don’t waste your time in a program for which you or the faculty believe that you are not suited. Be honest with yourself in this regard.

Be flexible and try to learn a lot from the many opportunities available.

Learn to present your work clearly and well. Go to and present your work at national and international meetings. Coauthor these papers, if appropriate, with your chair. These meetings are where you will meet the movers and shakers of your field. Regional meetings can also be helpful, especially when money is tight. Sometimes you can get your chair or department or other agency on campus to pay for part of the trip.

Help your colleagues, the other students in your program. Interact with them, especially those following you in the program. Expect help from those ahead of you. Be generous with your time.

About research: develop your methods capabilities; learn and use the best tools available (statistical, word processing, etc.); read research papers in your area; read other doctoral dissertations in your area; and get on Listservs related to your research areas and methods. Start networking early.

Get involved in some of the social activities at your school as well as in the research and coursework. If a group is going to lunch, then go with them. Go to some sporting events, movies, opera, theater, symphonies, etc. Get out and go hiking, rock climbing, or whatever interests you. Do some extracurricular activities. If your program has a soccer, rugby, volleyball, or softball team, join it if you like to play. Or join teams in the local community. Take a couple of classes totally independent of your program (I took two language courses and piano lessons). You will need some diversion in your life. Exercise regularly. Eat right and regularly. Relax a bit. If you can, take one weekend day off every week. This ancient tradition (religious law in some cases) can do wonders to your attitude. Get away sometimes. Take a vacation or two every year. You will need the rest. Do not take along your dissertation work. But, do not overindulge in unrelated activities.

If you have a family, significant other, etc., spend some quality time with them. They are a major part of your emotional health support network. Don’t let them down. (But try to stay away from them when you are actively working.) Be sure to mention them appreciatively in your acknowledgement section. That’s their chance to shine.

Teaching:

Hone your teaching skills while in graduate school. Work with faculty members and other students or groups/agencies designed to help instructors. If you can, take formal courses on teaching. Get together with faculty and other doctoral students to discuss issues and methods regularly. But do NOT spend all your time on teaching or you will not get anything else done. You will flunk classes and/or never finish your dissertation.

Though you may feel that teaching many different courses several times will enhance your employability, only finishing the dissertation does. If you have managed to teach a few courses well, and have taken all the courses in your area, you should be able to teach any course in your discipline well.

Do NOT teach too much, though some programs require it. Even so, do NOT volunteer for extra teaching. It will slow you down. If you find yourself teaching more courses than a typical faculty member in the program, then something is wrong.

Do NOT teach too many different courses. Course preparation will eat you alive. Try to teach the same course a few times. This will save course preparation time and help you improve the course.

Establish a mentor-student teacher relationship with the faculty members responsible for the courses that you are teaching. Utilize them as an important resource.

Comprehensive and Other Exams:

Don’t study too hard for your comprehensive (or other) exams. Although this is important, most students overdo this. Check with the doctoral students further along than you are to gauge how much to study. You should know if you are going to pass beforehand by signals from the faculty (if you have flunked three classes, chances are slim). Incidentally, you cannot prepare for a blindsided question that a new, overzealous faculty member provides. He or she has never taken one of these exams at your institute, and generally is not 100% sure of the structure, difficulty or topic area.

Remember that doing dissertation work is NOT easy. If it were, everyone would do it.

Finding a Chair:

Some programs assign advisors initially to students. Even so, over time you should develop personal and professional relationships with some of the faculty. Make an effort to do so. You will be working closely with your chair and it should be a very positive experience. On the legal side, if you are having trouble finding an advisor, it may not be the university’s responsibility to find one for you, because unlike undergraduate programs, doctoral research is a very intensive, one-on-one experience.

Try not to work with someone who is planning on leaving. Long-distance chair-student relationships are about as easy as long-distance marriages.

Do research with your chair, early and often. If possible, work with some of the other faculty and students in the program on interesting, publishable research projects.

This tip is for your potential chair. One approach to doctoral research that I have found helpful is:

1. Ask the potential student to read a research paper in your area and write up a summary (you can check writing skill this way and gauge the level of commitment in working with you).
2. Ask the potential student to think creatively about ways to expand the ideas in the paper. Have him or her write that up.
3. Explore these ideas together in a few meetings.
4. If things start to jell, then you have created a mentor-student relationship and have initiated a research project. Start working on the research.

Your Dissertation:

Your dissertation is a work in progress. At one point, you and your chair will agree that it is done. Trust your chair’s judgment in this matter.

Proposal styles vary from having everything but the survey mailed done to having one-third of the ideas worked out. Make sure you have a clear understanding of this before you start writing up yours.

Your dissertation does not have to be perfect, only mostly perfect. Leave just a few typos and grammatical errors in it for the committee to find. It certainly does not have to be your best work, but it should be really, really good. In fact, it will be one of your first pieces of work. Hopefully the papers that are written from mining the dissertation will be better, and as you move through your career, your papers and research will get better.

Make sure you get some sleep. Eventually your body will reject your dissertation and force you to sleep. At a certain point in time, an all-nighter will end before midnight, because that is all the night you can handle.

Working on Your Dissertation:

Use your committee (and other faculty) as a resource. They have volunteered to help you. Listen to their advice. If you can, select at least one person strong in the methods you intend to employ, and at least one person who will carefully read the dissertation. Use the resource, but don’t abuse it. They have many other commitments.

Work in an area that your Chair finds interesting and actively works. Otherwise you will run into trouble because your topic will have a low priority.

Your relationship with your chair is a very personal one. Hopefully it will develop into a strong friendship as well as a good working relationship.

Work with a chair you like. This also generally applies to selecting the rest of your committee. If you don’t get along, you need to change chairs early. Note - unless your chairs keep moving or coming to untimely ends (this happened to a friend of mine), if you are working with your third or fourth chair, there may be some suitability issues you should consider. You may need to seek counseling yourself. Also, do not drop people off your committee just because they want you to do more work.

Do NOT deliberately anger your chair or committee members. Listen to what they have to say. Their collective wisdom will prove remarkably effective.

Working on a dissertation involves an intense one-to-one relationship. If you are having trouble getting along with all of the faculty in your program, you should probably quit and move on, because it is unreasonable (and possibly illegal) to force someone to be your chair. The program (college, university) is probably under no legal obligation to provide a chair for you, especially if you intend to work in an area in which noone has an interest, or you have managed to create personal problems with all the faculty. Even if you push the issue, the whole dissertation process will be very unpleasant, and chances are you will fail whatever milestones there are.

You should be really interested in your dissertation research. In fact, you should be passionate about it. (Also, have fun!) Plan to be, because you will be working on this one topic for at least a year, if not three or four. Try to have some fun while you are working on it. If you find it boring, stifling, etc., you will find it hard to finish. Afterwards, you will want to extend it. Ideally, you want to establish a research program, and your dissertation research will be Phase One.

If you are taking 17 years to finish your dissertation it is a sign of trouble. Do not attack your chair with a hatchet. This happened in the Math Department at Stanford. The professor unfortunately died. The former student fortunately spent several years in prison and never did finish his degree (I don’t think anyone else wanted to be his chair after that). If it looks like it will take more than 5 years, have a very frank and honest talk with your chair or another faculty member whom you trust. Don’t plan on spending 17 years working on a dissertation.

Get the dissertation done! If you have to give up teaching support and some income, borrow money and get it done. When you start your career, noone will ask you about those last two extra courses you taught, but if it takes you an extra year or two to finish, your Promotion and Tenure Committee members will ask about them.

You don’t have to do the everything dissertation. You do not have to work on the hottest area in your field to have a successful dissertation. Select a piece of a big problem, issue or research area that is broad enough for several dissertations. Leave some of the work for afterwards in your research career.

Don’t leave out any references. Get your reference format exactly right. There is nothing that looks sloppier than a reference list with inconsistent formatting. It makes the whole dissertation suspect.

See my comment on learning to write earlier. It is critical at the dissertation phase of your studies.

In most cases, students reach a point where they absolutely hate their dissertations. (I had one student who told me this after her defense!) It is not unusual. It’s like living with someone who is fairly difficult for a few years. Eventually you will have an argument of some kind. Unfortunately when it comes to dissertations, you created it! Hopefully you will get over it.

Doing a dissertation is like a baby. It gets dirty. It needs to be changed - often. You clean it up and shortly afterwards it gets dirty again. You have to feed it and spend many hours with it. It may or may not grow up the way you want or expect it to. (Fortunately, it doesn’t (usually) take 18 to 22 years or a lifetime to finish growing up, no matter how much it feels like it.)

I’ve always like Hugh Watson’s “So What?” test of (dissertation) research. If someone asks you “So what?” you should be able to respond with something meaningful. If you can’t, then your topic is probably not worth pursuing or you had better put more thought into it.

I developed the Three Sentence Test of Research to see if a student really understands what he or she is doing (OK - so I gave it a name.). One of your committee members will no doubt use this at your defense. It goes like this: “Explain to me in no more than three sentences what you did. Explain it as if you were talking to my mother (assuming she is not an expert in your field).” If you cannot do this, then people will think you do not understand what you have done. This is often a tricky interview question. You get bonus points if you can truly reduce the answer to two, or better yet, one sentence. I named this test after one of my doctoral students spent 45 minutes explaining to a potential employer what he was doing, and not getting through. The employer asked me what he was working on. I responded with two clear sentences. Eureka!

Finishing Up:

Contrary to popular opinion, the hardest part of the dissertation process is probably scheduling the proposal and defense. It’s hard to find a date and time that several, very busy people can be available. Do not plan to have a summer defense. They are painful for both the student and the faculty. Some schools do not allow these.

Do not deliver copies of your dissertation draft to your committee members until your chair has seen it. Save him or her any major embarrassment.

Show your dissertation defense presentation to your chair, get feedback and incorporate it into the presentation. Keep the presentation brief. Your committee was supposed to have read the document and your chair certainly did. Unless your institution specifically requires a long defense, you, your chair and the rest of the committee will appreciate brevity. If you can, do a dry run with other doctoral students.

Attend every doctoral defense in your program leading up to yours. Attend yours as well.

Do NOT leave with an ABD (All But Dissertation) degree. When I was in graduate school, Professor Joe Bowman threatened to break our kneecaps if we did (then he left). I have seen what happens to students who leave ABD: one month of work to finish up can sometimes take 3 to 5 years to complete. In one case, the entire committee had moved on and an emergency committee handled the defense. In many cases, students never finish. No matter how pressing your new job is, or your significant other is pushing for you to end your vow of poverty to graduate school, do NOT leave ABD.

The Defense:

Follow the required guidelines and rules for scheduling proposals and defenses. If summer defenses are not allowed, then don’t even ask for one. If the committee is supposed to have three weeks to look at your draft, then give them three weeks.

Don’t change the dissertation draft once you give it to your committee. It’s hard for them to evaluate a moving target. Do create an errata sheet of typos that you have found and plan to correct. Distribute it to the committee at the start of the defense. This shows that you have carefully reread it.

Think through the kinds of questions that might be asked at your defense. Then answer them beforehand.

Go to graduation (it is for your family, not for you). This is the celebration of all your hard work. Keep your cap, gown and hood. You’ll need these at any academic job.

Publishing Your Dissertation:

Plan to and do publish the dissertation work in academic journals with your chair and perhaps with a member or two of the committee. Publishing is important for your career, and also for your chair’s career. It is good incentive to keep your chair on track.

Keep the papers in mind as you write the dissertation. Write the papers concurrently with the dissertation, or beforehand, if you can. If you can write up some of the research early, you can get reviewers’ comments on your work. This may help you refine your dissertation and the subsequent papers and you can jumpstart your career as the merciless tenure clock starts ticking as soon as you start the new job. I believe that the publications are more important than the dissertation itself. How many people are going to read your dissertation? If you are lucky, your entire committee will. I actually received royalties totaling $17.92 because three copies of mine were sold.

Job Hunting:

Much has been written about getting a job in industry. Read all that material on interview techniques and how to handle yourself. Prepare your presentation so that it is understandable and present it clearly. Learn how to present well. Also, read up on the nonverbal signals and don’t do anything stupid like spit out your food during dinner (I watched a candidate do this - he did not get the job). Even if you have spent the last few years in a cave, you should learn good manners and how to be polite. Learn and use good table manners and how to conduct an informal conversation. If you need to, learn how to dress properly for job hunting. (OK – these are a bit extreme, but some people just don’t get it! And, they don’t get the best jobs.)

Remember when you are interviewing at national/international/regional meetings that even at the social events you will interact with potential employers. At those times, you are still interviewing. Dress well and behave well. Don’t be late for any interviews.

Utilize contacts through your faculty. Run lists of the schools you are thinking about past the faculty and identify people they know. Contact these people if possible

See the Three Sentence Test of Research mentioned earlier.

Generally the job market is most active at national meetings. Plan to attend them also for the employment activities.

Job hunting is typically done concurrently with working on your dissertation and teaching (this adds to the challenge of finishing up). It will take at least as much work as a complete graduate course or more. Budget your time accordingly.

Starting Your Career:

Make sure you spend some time every day doing research. There are many demands on professors’ time. Try to spend a minimum of one hour a day on your research; more if possible (this tip is from Bill King at the University of Pittsburgh).

Final Words of Wisdom:

Be completely honest with the staff involved in running the program. The quality of your relationship with the secretaries, administrative assistants, and other staff can make or break your completing the program.

Finally, be completely honest in all your dealings with your chair, your committee, the faculty in general, and the other students in the program. By the time you are done, they will have become your colleagues and friends. It is up to you to make the doctoral process pleasant and leave with pleasant memories.

Also at http://www.terry.uga.edu/~jaronson/doctoralparable.html

Note: I do not claim authorship. Someone had emailed me this many years ago and I want to share it.

Once upon a time, a fox was strolling through the woods. He was very surprised to see a rabbit typing on a typewriter (this is an old joke) while sitting upon a rock in front of a cave. The fox approached the rabbit and asked, “Rabbit. What are you doing?” The rabbit responded with, “I’m typing up my dissertation.” The fox inquired, “So rabbit, what is it about?” To which the rabbit replied, “Well, right now I’m typing up the chapter about ‘How Rabbits Eat Foxes.’”

Well, the fox was astounded and immediately bellowed at him, “But rabbits don’t eat foxes! Foxes eat rabbits!” He then moved quickly to attack the rabbit, but the rabbit ran into the cave. The fox pursued the rabbit into the cave. From the mouth of the cave, you could hear the sounds of gnashing teeth, biting, and bones scraping. A moment later, a fox pelt flew out of the cave, along with many fox bones.

The very next day, the rabbit was back, at the same place typing away. A wolf came strolling by. Seeing the rabbit, he exclaimed, “Rabbit. What are you doing?” The rabbit responded with, “I’m typing up my dissertation.” The wolf inquired, “So rabbit, what is it about?” To which the rabbit replied, “Well, right now I’m typing up the chapter about ‘How Rabbits Eat Wolves.’”

Well, just like the fox, the wolf was thoroughly astounded and immediately bellowed at him, “But rabbits don’t eat wolves! Wolves eat rabbits!” He then moved quickly to attack the rabbit, but the rabbit ran into the cave. The wolf pursued the rabbit into the cave. From the mouth of the cave, you could hear the sounds of gnashing teeth, biting, and bones scraping. A moment later, a wolf pelt flew out of the cave, along with many wolf bones.

The very next day, the rabbit was back, at the same place typing away. A bear came strolling by. Seeing the rabbit, he exclaimed, “Rabbit. What are you doing?” The rabbit responded with, “I’m typing up my dissertation.” The bear inquired, “So rabbit, what is it about?” To which the rabbit replied, “Well, right now I’m typing up the chapter about ‘How Rabbits Eat Bears.’”

Well, just like the wolf and the fox before him, the bear was thoroughly astounded and immediately bellowed at him, “But rabbits don’t eat bears! Bears eat rabbits!” He then moved quickly to attack the rabbit, but the rabbit ran into the cave. The bear pursued the rabbit into the cave. From the mouth of the cave, you could hear the sounds of gnashing teeth, biting, and bones scraping. A moment later, a bear pelt flew out of the cave along with very many bear bones.

A moment later, the rabbit steps out of the cave with a lion. The lion is smiling and has his paw around the rabbit’s shoulders.

The moral is, of course: “The topic of your dissertation is not what is important, nor is the research itself. The most important aspect of your dissertation is the strength of your dissertation chair.” Choose your chair wisely.