Resources for Research Paper, Thesis and Dissertation Writers
Writing can be incredibly challenging.
A white paper or screen staring back at us, judging us, and all of a sudden, we have no idea what to say or how to say it. Now add to that pressure, the pressure of a thesis or dissertation and it can feel utterly overwhelming. I have been writing technical documents for the better part of 20 years and I am always looking for ways to help me get over those feelings of writer’s block. Some of the resources that helped me during graduate school are listed below for our writing.
Dissertation Institute: The Dissertation Institute (DI) is a week-long workshop where underrepresented minority engineering doctoral students will learn skills that help progress in their dissertation. I attended the DI workshop the summer before I defended. I found it exceeding helpful in getting my writing going. They tackle issues like writer’s block and provide you with meaningful and useful tools to help you not just in writing your dissertation, but in all your future writing. Recently they also launched the Rising Doctoral Institute (RDI) is a 4-day workshop to prepare incoming doctoral students in their transition into their Ph.D. and increase their chances of success in their first years in the doctorate.
Examples and instruction on dissertations and defenses:
Navigating the Dissertation: http://dissertationedd.usc.edu/
PhD Dissertation Defense Slides Design: https://guides.library.cmu.edu/c.php?g=883178
This guide is designed to help Ph.D. students in engineering fields to design dissertation defense presentations. The Guide provides 1) tips on how to effectively communicate research, and 2) full presentation examples from Ph.D. graduates at Carnegie Mellon University.
The tips on designing effective slides are not restricted to dissertation defense presentations; they can be used in designing other types of presentations such as conference talks, qualification and proposal exams, and technical seminars.
The Academic Phrase Bank: http://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/
The Academic Phrasebank is a general resource for academic writers. It provides examples of some of the “keywords and tricky phases” of writing organized according to the main sections of a research paper or dissertation. Other phrases are listed under the more general communicative functions of academic writing. The Phasebank is designed to help you communicate your research in writing and I find it incredibly helpful when I feel like I am becoming repetitive in my writing or am stuck on how to start a sentence.
The items in the Academic Phrasebank are mostly content neutral and generic in nature; in using them, therefore, you are not stealing other people’s ideas and this does not constitute plagiarism. For some of the entries, specific content words have been included for illustrative purposes, and these should be substituted when the phrases are used.
Books:
They Say, I Say by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein
Like the Academic Phasebook, They Say, I Say, is a wonderful resource to help you formulate your thoughts and communicate them in writing. This book identifies the key rhetorical phrasings used. It shows students how to frame their arguments as a response to what others have said and provides templates to help them start.
A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations by Kate Turabian
I remember very clearly the first time I happened upon this book. I was ordering coffee and I turned around and I saw a woman sitting in the coffee shop and writing on her laptop. Next to her was a book that she had propped up on a book stand so I was able to read the cover. I swear the clouds opened up and angels sang in harmony “Ahhhhhhhh.” As an engineer I thrive on procedure and process and going through a Ph.D. can feel incredibly messy and disjointed at times. I had been working based on what felt right to me and had the experience to lean on but I still wasn’t sure I was doing it right or wrong. Once I picked up this book and started reading it I felt so much better about the approach I was using but also I use it as a great starting point whenever I am kicking off a new research project. It is a great guide to developing your research with writing a paper in mind.