Thursday, January 6, 2011

Dissertation Help During Defense: How to Move Past Criticism and On To Success

By E. Alana James
I find that doctoral students are frequently angry or unhappy when they receive strong critical comments, especially during Defense of Dissertation or Defense of Proposal. Maintaining a positive attitude when receiving criticism is a difficult task, one that most students face somewhere along the dissertation journey. This article is one of a series offering dissertation help to doctoral students faced with the challenges of graduate work and it focuses on the frequently asked question, "I'm really angry about the criticism I received, what can I do?" There are two ways to address this challenge: both before you enter your defense and after you have gotten the criticism and can't get past your reaction. Both situations are addressed in this article.

Before You Go into Defense of Proposal

Every doctoral student will face difficult or negative feedback on their work - it is part of the peer review process and will continue throughout your professional academic career. If you are reading this article prior to actually receiving critical comments the best thing you can do is to adjust your attitude to expect them. You must realize that two things come into play when people are reviewing your work as part of a Defense of Proposal or Defense of Dissertation process. Those same people who have been helpful teachers or professors may now seem hypercritical judges. Why? Because their role has changed from being in support of you to being protective of the standards of the university that employs them. Professors were all trained by different universities, therefore their views on the dissertation process, while similar, will also display differences. It is the differences that help ensure the best possible outcomes for students and universities, and why there are multiple readers on every committee.

Your mentor or advisor has taken your work to the fullest extent that they understand and now it is time for two other people to weigh in and help you go the next step. In all the defences in which I have participated, only one student sailed through without having to face difficult criticisms of their work and the requirement that they needed to go back and redo some sections. Therefore the best thing you can do for yourself is to expect that outcome, and prepare to rework sections as required by your new readers.

After You Have Received Difficult Criticism

Once you have received difficult criticism you need to gain perspective on it before you overreact. You may have been reading it, feeling yourself begin to get angry, or depressed. The best thing is to form an agreement with yourself that you will read it all the way through and then put it away for 2 to 4 days without reacting. In those days life will have continued on its own path, you will have been distracted by other situations and, you can come back to the comments with less angst, having put the situation in perspective. These comments are, after all, made in order to benefit the quality of your work overall. While they slow you down right now, they ensure a good ending.

When you revisit the review, first choose three things that you see as being the most legitimate suggestions. Take out your writing and work just on those three things. Each day continue on this path until you have chipped away at all of the easiest and most direct criticism that you received. This will help motivate you to tackle the hard parts.

Don't fool yourself that by tackling the easy-to-understand sections you are likely to be making substantive changes required by the comments. What you have done, is probably address the more cosmetic changes required. More often than not, professor's comments point to somewhat severe underlying challenges. Trying to understand the broader issues, reflect on the differences between your work and that of model dissertations you may be working with, and then make an appointment to discuss what you understand as necessary changes prior to doing much substantive writing. As an example, I'm currently working with a student on her final defence who did not adequately analyze her data, or if she did, she was not yet properly trained in how to express her findings from those data to her audience. She is facing another couple of weeks of work, and of course hates it. If you find yourself in this situation, what is not helpful is if you fall into being overwhelmed. Consider it one more task you have to complete prior to graduation, and dig into it with the same expertise as you have handled the rest of your doctoral work. It may have been unexpected to you, but it is not an unusual situation.

After you have spent some good reflective time and know that you can tackle this, as you have all the other challenges you faced along your doctoral career, make an appointment to approach the person who made the criticism. Go into that meeting ready to discuss what you understand from their comments, what you have seen by looking at finished dissertations, and what approaches you have already thought of. In this manner, you demonstrate to the professor your own level of professionalism and expertise, and move out over the role of student towards the role of peer. This, after all, is the purpose of the dissertation process, and most professors will respond very well.

In summary, there are several things you can do to move the anger and frustration you feel when you hear strong criticism of your doctoral work. As I said, it's part of the process and happens to almost everyone. Consider these more tools for your dissertation toolbox and pull them out when appropriate.

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