This video is the first in a series of informal tutorials related to literature reviews, proposal and dissertation formatting, etc. for the Leadership Program at Andrews University.

This video is in response to an assignment in LEAD 637 to set up a scholar space. I thought I’d share how I created by own digital scholar space.

Please comment and share tips and suggestions from your own organizational system.

My dissertation proprosal is coming along nicely, so while I’m waiting for feedback from my committee I’m working carefully through my APA references.

APA Supplement
In the LEAD 880 Proposal Development class, the instructors linked to a new Andrews document about the new APA rules for citing from the Internet. I can’t find it online to link it here. The document recommends the full APA Supplement – 11.95 – that Bonnie Proctor’s document recommends. I knew I needed it because I’m quoting two blog entries. So I bought and downloaded that.

At first I wondered if I needed to do the doi stuff for all my journal articles – but then I realized I collected almost all of them online – so I guess I had better do so!

Endnote Upgrade
Then I upgraded my Endnote program – (Help, Endnote Program Updates) figuring that might help me.

Updated APA Style for Endnote
Then I googled “Endnote APA electronic” to see if there were any updated APA styles out there. I found this page in Australia – where the librarians fixed the Endnote style for APA so it does it better. I downloaded that to the styles folder (c:/program files/endnote/styles).

DOIs
To test it I entered a DOI for one of my journal articles. I chose the uq_apa5th style for an electronic journal article and then switched back to Endnote’s APA and I could see that the uq one does it right.

Next I’m heading over to http://www.crossref.org/ to collect DOI’s for as many references as I can. You can use the Guest Query for just one reference, or copy and paste a set of references from Endnote (Ctrl+K), add a line between each one, and search with the Simple Text Query.

I’m also fixing my references by sorting the list by RefType. Then I can carefully check all the books, all the conference papers, all the journals etc.

As I’ve been searching and finding the DOI numbers, I’ve discovered that CrossRef.org doesn’t seem to know the DOI’s for international papers. Journals from InformaWorld, for example, have DOIs, but the CrossRef.org doesn’t find them. So I’m double searching for all DOIs, first on CrossRef.org, then on Google. If I know the article came from InformaWorld, usually the DOI is already in the URL field from downloading the reference. So I can just copy and paste it from there into the DOI field.

Editing Reference Styles
As I’m doing this, I’m finding some “odd” ones that I have to figure out from the new APA reference. A powerpoint presentation, a chapter in an electronic book, etc. I figured out that if you go to Edit, Output Styles, Edit up_apa5th [or insert your filename here], then Bibliography, templates, you can see exactly how the reference is built.

I stumbled across this when I was trying to do the chapter in an electronic book. I thought I needed to create a new reference type, but really the electronic book reference has the setup for the chapter as well. If you put the chapter info it, it lists it as a chapter in a book. Otherwise it just lists as an electronic book. So figuring out how the references are put together can help you figure out what data to enter where.

These are the reference styles I edited:

• Thesis: Author (Year). Title. Retrieved from Name of Database. Retrieved from URL (AAT Accession Number)
  Note: only do this if you got all your dissertations from ProQuest. Otherwise you’ll need the city and university info etc.
• Online Multimedia: Created By (Year). Title [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from URL

I also created two new ones for the ERIC documents. I’m not positive these formats will be accepted, but if they aren’t, I’ll edit them again here.

First, you go to Edit, Preferences, Reference Types, and choose one of the Unused reference types. Click Modify Reference Type. Then you can turn on the fields by typing in the same name or a different name. I used a similar reference – like conference paper – to figure out what I should do. After turning on the fields you want, then go to Edit, Output Styles, Edit [your style name here], Bibliography, Templates.  I’ve been just adding to the uq_apa5th that I downloaded earlier. Here are the two I did – one for a paper and one for reports.

•  Author (|Year of Conference|, Date|). Title|. Paper presented at the Conference Name, Conference Location. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ERIC Number)
• Author (Year). Title. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ERIC Number)

Some of the dots & lines, italics etc. don’t come through here, so you’ll want to make your own by typing it in. But this gives you an idea of what I did.

Hope these steps and tips are helpful for you too! Please comment if you have corrections, updates, or further suggestions.

The following are notes and scribbles from my attendance at the Nov. 8-11 Doctoral Dissertation Workshop with Dr. Isadore Newman.

This workshop is mainly for the faculty to learn the process of working with doctoral students and for doctoral students to learn the process of writing a dissertation. Three students were selected for the “fish bowl” section of the workshop and I was one of them.

These notes are from the activities of Sunday morning, the last session.

We started the morning with the fishbowl again. Here are some tips & points from that section.

How to find your committee. If you have a one-page ish document that has your title, your “why”, your “what”, and your research question(s) with some consistency, then you can use that document to recruit your committee. Find out if they are comfortable with the topic. You want to have a good sales pitch for getting your committee. It will take some work and dialogue to get to this point.

The difference between dissertation and regular writing is: every time you say anything that sounds like a statement of fact, you reference it. It’s the references that make it scholarly writing.

It’s really neat to see the change in the fishbowl guinea pigs. Each one has a much clearer more consistent fit between the title, the “why” and the “what”.

Keep in mind: continually work on it and get feedback. Don’t think that you wrote it and therefore it’s going to be. Write a little, get some feedback, write again. Keep track of the process and you’ll be able to see where you’ve been before. This way you won’t take that detour again. After a phone or face-to-face conversation, write down what you discussed and send. Remember that the faculty are on the journey too. So you may start somewhere, have a 5 month journey, and come back to where you started.

Also deciding on research method, etc. should be a committee discussion. The methodologist shouldn’t work with just the student if the whole committee hasn’t decided on the method/procedure.

The method doesn’t need to be in the title necessarily, but if you are doing an experimental study, you should put that in the title (pat yourself on the back). It gives more credence to the study. Experimental studies have a higher status in the literature.

Don’t quote anyone in your writing. Instead paraphrase and give the reference.

Newman thinks that replication is more important than statistical significance.

After you hear something a few more times, it starts to make sense. This is partly the saturation he was talking about. Virtually no one ever understands it the first time. You have to hear it a few times for it to make sense.

Try to aim for your title to be 15 words.

You can lose total credibility with someone reading your work if you don’t reference studies already out there. If you have a reason for not using it, you need to say so.

If you know up front that you’re going to change, the dissertation journey will be a lot easier. If you don’t anticipate change, it will be a very frustrating experience. The change is part of the process. Prepare yourself psychologically for the change.

No instrument has reliability and validity. It has good estimates of reliability and validity.

——–
After the break, Dr. Newman gave several examples.

Write a description of your subjects. Write how you are going to select these people. Are you going to use a sampling technique? Check out his book on Survey Research and review the sampling techniques. You need to identify the sampling technique and reference it. Expand also and tell about the strengths and weaknesses of the technique. Every time you add something you’re going to reference it.

Chapter 3 will have the method. Reference the method. Indicate why you chose it, how you are going to use it, and why it’s appropriate.

Another section is the statistical data analysis. Another section is the research design. Newman has samples for all of these.

Most of this writing is descriptive and mechanical. It’s not creative writing. However qualitative research requires much more writing skills. How well you write is much more important for qualitative research.

Publishing
The last section of the workshop was on publishing. This was a conversation between Dr. Covrig and Dr. Newman. Most of these notes are Newman’s presentation/comments; so I’ve noted the comments from Dr. Covrig.

Dr. Covrig: Can you imagine spending thousands of dollars, hundreds of hours of labor, and giving birth to a dissertation and then leaving it in the crib and not taking care of it? So the question is, how do we move from getting the dissertation finished and on a shelf to getting published?

First, different committee members bring different strengths. You need the concepts and a good research design; you also need someone to help you get the writing and mechanics correct.

Newman said he’d never hire someone who was a single author, because they can’t work well with others. He wouldn’t hire someone who was always the last author either. Teams create better work. Show that you can work collaboratively. Teams work really well when everyone contributes responsibly. It falls apart if there are those who don’t contribute.

After or before you defend the dissertation, submit it for publication or presentation.

You need to learn to receive critical comments. You need to be able to learn from it and grow from it. When you submit an article for publication, it’s going to get rejected. They will tell you the bad stuff. Then you can take those comments and learn from it and improve it. Take all the comments as a checklist of what to change in the article. Learn to take that criticism and learn from it. That’s the beginning of a scholarly community. Your best friends are the ones who will be the most critical.

Don’t be afraid to submit for publication. Even if it’s rejected, it will give you feedback.

Covrig: During the lit review, write a book review and submitted for publication. It shows you that it can go from your computer to some publication somewhere. Then it’s not such a big jump to submit the dissertation for publication.

You could be such a perfectionist and not able to handle criticism and never get published.

If you’re too strongly related to your topic, then you won’t ever finish. Your topic should be something you’re interested in, but not too emotionally attached to it. It’s a curvilinear relationship. If you’re attached too much to it, it’s too hard to receive criticism.
Set a goal to at least submit for publication.  At least something has been submitted before the defense.

Newman is on six editorial boards. He has never accepted an article as it is. They are always accept contingent on these changes. Even if he liked the paper a lot, 25 out of 30 comments are negative. They are the things to fix.

Chapter 5 is what you publish. It’s 90% of an article. Lit reviews are also publishable (chapter 2).  There’s a lot that you’ve written that you can share.

It’s hard working with your committee. You have to take contradictory comments and resolve it. The dissertation is a learning experience. A very important learning process.

APA – the first author is the supervisor; the person who collects and analyzes the data is the second author. Newman prefers it the other way. The supervisor brings skills and expertise to it and increases the likelihood of it being published. Newman’s request of a gift from the student is a published article.

Dr. Burton offers a research class that is a tour and trip to AERA. The tuition covers some of the cost of the trip. So check out the list of future AERA meetings and put them on your calendar!

It’s been a great workshop & now there is a lot to consider and mull over. Hopefully these notes are useful for you as well.

The following are notes and scribbles from my attendance at the Nov. 8-11 Doctoral Dissertation Workshop with Dr. Isadore Newman.

This workshop is mainly for the faculty to learn the process of working with doctoral students and for doctoral students to learn the process of writing a dissertation. Three students were selected for the “fish bowl” section of the workshop and I was one of them.

These notes are from the activities of Friday Afternoon.

Article Tips
Dr. Covrig walked us through receiving an email alert from Sage, clicking on the link to read about it, clicking on Full Text, saving it in a folder. Covrig saves the file with Author (year) keywords in various folders for his students, Leadership comptencies etc.

Another tip with EndNotes. Don’t assume that because you downloaded it, the format is correct for APA. You probably have to clean it up.

More title/purpose/problem work
Next we spent some time with a third student’s title. Here are some notes & tips from that role play.

Don’t get too stressed about your title. It’s going to change 10 times at least.

Sometimes questions may come across as critical. But the intent of the advisor is to understand the study/research better. And in the meantime as a student you might be understanding your research better because of the questions your advisor asks you.

Assuming something is true doesn’t make it right.

You need to understand a variable to measure it. If you can define a variable, then you can find a way to measure it.

There was a lot more discussion specifically about this student’s title and I’m not able to pull any principles or application from it at this time.

People summarized points of learning from the weekend so far:

• The dissertation is more mechanical writing than creative writing.
• Don’t try to hand in stuff that’s perfect. It’s in draft and we need to accept the criticism and changes.
• Learn to narrow down your work into manageable pieces.
• Structure your time in manageable pieces too.
• Always be open to criticism in a scholarly way.
• If we don’t have clearly defined variables and a valid instrument to measure the variables, you don’t have a dissertation topic yet (for quantitative research).
• Bloom’s taxonomy will help you with both the dissertation and the articles that professors are trying to get published.
• The purpose: Why it’s needed and why it’s worth the expense and effort to do it
• The problem: What you’re going to do in the research
• (Newman is using the words differently than most of the Andrews’ faculty are used to.)

After that big discussion of semantics, the workshop ended. We’ll start up again on Sunday morning.