The Graduate School has created the Dissertation Writing Project to help doctoral students cross the finish line of their academic marathon - the All But Dissertation, an informal designation for a candidate who has completed nearly all requirements except the final dissertation.
Though the Writing Center, now housed in J. Walter Wilson, has long been available as a general resource, this pilot program is tailored to address the specific concerns of dissertation writing, said Dean of the Graduate School Sheila Bonde.
The project, which started last September, allows the Writing Center to reach out to more graduate students, said Douglas Brown, the center's director.
The Graduate School "wanted graduate students to understand that this service was available and that indeed the Writing Center was up to the task," Brown said. "The Graduate School also recognized that (Writing Center) staff people could be designated as specialists."
Three Writing Center associates, who are Ph.D. candidates themselves, have been specially trained as dissertation coaches. They are regularly available for one- or two-hour sessions weekly to help at any stage of the writing process. The project also holds a dissertation workshop twice during the academic year, in October and January.
Dissertation coaches help students make the transition into a "new kind of thinking," Brown said.
"The resource has attracted students from a variety of disciplines, including biomedical students," Bonde said, adding that it's difficult to gauge which departments have the greatest number of students who struggle to complete their dissertations.
One student who has used the Writing Center as part of the project said she found it very helpful.
"(I) don't recall the substance of the conversation, but I know it was about seeing the writing process as just that, a process, and it was good to hear from people at different stages of that process," said Margaret Stevens, a Ph.D. candidate in American Civilization, of her experience with a dissertation coach.
"Sometimes it's easy to get tracked into your year so that you only see the grad experience from your direct cohort, but when you talk to people who are writing at more advanced stages then it becomes a more fluid process."
Since it started, the project has seen, on average, over 25 visits to the Writing Center per month, according to statistics kept by the center.
Some students come in for multiple sessions so there are fewer students utilizing the project than the number of visits, according to Tiara Silva, administrative assistant for the Dean of the College.
Students can, and have in the past, requested "special hours" to extend a regular session to as long as five hours, Silva said. Students from all disciplines come in for help, added Silva, but "we seem to have the most visits from people in economics."
Brown said that, by providing peer support, the project also ameliorates the loneliness often associated with writing a lengthy thesis.
"Some people are truly solitary writers, but most people are not," he said.
As faculty members often work collaboratively, Brown added that "it makes perfect sense that graduate students would share their work with each other."
Still, some students said they are not concerned with the prospect of having an All But Dissertation status.
"We know at some point we'll finish it, even if it takes a longer time," said Angelica Duran, a second year Ph.D. candidate in political science who saw a Morning Mail notice about the program and plans to utilize the resource. "The most difficult points are the beginning and the end. The intermediate stage is the most bearable."
