Graduate Connections: Recent Episodes

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Making progress on your big writing projects is like running a marathon—finishing well takes strategy and stamina. Set writing goals help you pace yourself and finish well. This video is a companion to an article on Graduate Connections.

Video Transcript A sprinter runs as hard as he can for the whole race—he doesn’t have to plan or strategize during the race in order to finish.

To run a marathon, on the other hand, you need to be strategic about your pace and decide when to push yourself. You do this by breaking down the race into miles and setting smaller goals. Making progress on your big writing projects is like running a marathon—finishing well takes strategy and stamina.

Many of us are guilty of trying to write a term paper in one night. The resulting work isn't very good. Ideas aren’t fully formed, the argument isn’t well constructed or developed, and the paper doesn’t get reviewed and edited. To write well, think like the runner who sets a pace for each mile of the marathon. Setting small writing goals helps you) avoid burnout 2) produce your best work and, 3) be more productive.

The best goals are SMART goals. They are specific, measurable, action-oriented, realistic, and time-oriented.

Goals that are Specific are narrow and defined. For example, "I will write every day" isn't specific about the project, what you’re going to do, or what you expect to gain from the goal. A more specific goal is to draft the methods section of your paper.

A goal should be Measurable so you know if you have achieved it or not. “I will write two pages” or “I will finish the data analysis section” can be measured.

Action-oriented goals keep what you need to do—what actions you need to take—in view.

Realistic goals are challenging, but reachable. You have the resources to achieve your goal.

Finally, SMART goals are Time-oriented. They include completion dates and set intermediate or checkpoint deadlines keeps you on track. If you want to complete an article for publication in three months, you’ll create smaller deadlines for each month, week, and day to help keep you on track. Setting SMART writing goals takes practice. Over the course of a project, by setting goals and reflecting on the work you did that day, you’ll learn when you’ve been too ambitious and when you can push yourself a little more.

If your writing goals are too ambitious and they don’t take your long-term goals into account—if they’re more like a sprint than a carefully-paced half-mile during a marathon—you’ll feel bad about not meeting them and you'll tend to avoid writing the next day.

In practice, a term paper gets broken down into small chunks. A writing journal sets goals for the day and tracks daily progress.

Here’s the entry for a day, where four hours are dedicated to working on a term paper:

Daily GoalComplete background section of paper (2 pages)
Write one paragraph each on:

• Arnold van Gennep's rites of passage
• Turner's liminal phase
• M.B. Hamilton

End of Day
Did you achieve your goal?

At the end of the day, the writer will reflect on her goals and the progress she’s made toward them. She’ll use this information to set her writing goals the next day and adjust her pace and ambition accordingly.

With steady practice, you’ll get better and better at setting writing goals and making significant and steady progress on your writing projects.

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This video gives suggested methods for preparing for the comprehensive exams of a graduate degree program. Originally developed to accompany an article on Graduate Connections newsletter April 2014.

Video Transcript 1. Take notes. Establish a note taking system. Some people organize their notes in a spiral notebook, while others use a digital system. Tag each entry with keywords. If you have an open book exam, or if you end up writing a proposal for your written component, these digital systems can be extremely helpful. When you’re looking for an article or book during an exam, these tags can save you time.

1. Educate yourself. As you read and take notes, try to determine where you need to fill knowledge gaps. Are you up on the latest research in the field? Do you need to look for more sources? Meet with your committee members to discuss your reading.

2. Learn from others. Find out about your exam. Consult your department handbook or your committee chair. Talk with doctoral candidates in your department about what their comps were like. Maybe they have tips on how to prepare.

3. Role play. Think like a committee member. To gain a new perspective on your reading, create your own prompts or questions. It'll help you think critically about what you read, which might help you recall the information when you need it.

4. Dress rehearsal. Practice writing efficiently as well as effectively by trying an outlining approach. Think through some questions that you might get from your committee and outline some written responses to them. Find the main thesis of your response and the supporting points. Then use your outline to write your response.

5. Practice, Practice, Practice. Practice answering aloud, speaking slowly and deliberately. If you’re nervous during your exam, you’ll naturally speed up a bit. Come up with different ways to ask your committee clarifying questions. When you get a question you don’t understand, or you draw a blank, asking for clarification can help you change your perspective on the question and give you more time to develop your answer.

6. Rephrase. Rephrase questions before answering. This saves the questioner from interrupting you with a rephrase of the question or, worse, you not answering the question.

7. It's okay to say, “I don’t know.” The oral exam is meant to find out what you know…and what you don't. When you get a question that's beyond your area of knowledge, you might say something like, “I haven’t thought about that. If I were to broaden my research to include that, I’d expect to see….” This acknowledges the question and helps you reconnect with your area of expertise.

Now you've got a plan. Good luck on preparing for your comps!

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This video offers tips on how to make the most of your teaching evaluations at the end of the semester. Originally developed as a companion piece to an article for the Graduate Connections newsletter April 2014.

Video Transcript Step One: Sit down and evaluate yourself. Keep in mind that you’ll be more generous with yourself than your students. Compare your response to your student feedback.

Step Two: See if you have enough responses. If less than half your students responded, then your evaluations may not be representative of your students’ experience. You can still get good information from the evaluations; just keep in mind that you tend to hear from students who feel strongly one way or another. You usually won’t hear from the people who describe their experience as “average.”

As you read, keep feedback in perspective. If you get one or two critical or negative evaluations, try to be generous and see where the critique lies. If you can’t, take the critique with a grain of salt. Remember that these evaluations do not reflect who you are as an instructor.

Step Three: Focus on quantifiable questions “The instructor communicates well,” where the student rates you on a scale of 1-5 (1 being “never,” 5 “always”).

Did the responses for a question group together, or were there outliers? If most of your students give you a “4” and one student gives you a “1,” you might dismiss that response as an outlier. But if half of your class rates you highly and the other half offers a more critical rating, reflect on why your students had such varied experiences.

Step Four: Take a look at the written comments. If you have a low rating on one of the quantifiable questions, you’ll likely find the reason for the rating here. For example, if a majority of your students gave you a “sometimes” rating on the question “The course was intellectually challenging,” the comments under “What did you like least about this course?” may reveal that students felt they had too much homework or that the papers assigned were boring.

Step Five: Use the feedback to improve your teaching for next semester. If your students gave you negative feedback about a specific assignment, reconsider parts or all of the assignment. Consult with colleagues and advisors to revise assignments and come up with new ideas.

Step Six: Use the evaluations (and any changes that you make) to write a reflection for your teaching portfolio. You can write about how you changed your teaching or restructured your class to respond to your students’ feedback. Be sure to address how your changes help your students achieve learning goals!

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This video illustrates Strunk and White's Elements of Style #16 – Use specific, definite, concrete language. Originally developed to accompany an article on Graduate Connections newsletter April 2014.

Video Transcript Example 1

"A period of unfavorable weather set in" doesn’t tell you much about the type of weather, or how long it lasted.

"It rained every day for a week" offers specific information about the weather and its duration.

Example 2

"He showed satisfaction as he took possession of his well-earned reward." leaves the reader with several questions: What does satisfaction look like? What was his reward?

"He grinned as he pocketed the coin." His facial expression tells you how he expressed his satisfaction, and the detail of the coin is far more specific than "well-earned reward."

Effective writing avoids abstraction by drawing a clear picture for the reader. Good pictures are not drawn with broad strokes; they include details and specific information that allows the reader to imagine the world the painting depicts. Detail isn’t random. Text that zeros in on a detail indicates that the reader should pay attention.

When you edit your text, see where you can avoid generalizations. For example, you may write about a general concept, or you may be making a philosophical argument. This doesn’t mean that your writing must be abstract or obtuse. This example from Herbert Spencer’s Philosophy of Style illustrates “vivid and particular” language:

Sentence 1: "In proportion as the manners, customs, and amusements of a nation are cruel and barbarous, the regulations of its penal code will be severe."

Sentence 2: "In proportion as men delight in battles, bullfights, and combats of gladiators, will they punish by hanging, burning, and the rack."

The first sentence doesn’t use examples or make use of detail, while the second sentence uses specific examples of manners, customs, and amusements by listing battles, bullfights and gladiators in combat. The punishments too are precise.

Academic prose doesn’t need to be general, vague, or abstract. With a little practice and a good editorial eye, you can engage your reader with added detail.